Active vrs passive

[5th element]

It's one of the main reasons I use active. Of course as the years go on you end up making designs that simply cannot work passively, at least not without a significant changes, so the choice of active or passive is made for you.

Fully adjustable analogue xovers with millions of trim pots are doable and practical, but are a PITA to use. Going for a DSP is the best solution, but as P10 alluded to earlier on, getting one that does everything without compromise is either very expensive or not even possible unless you build it yourself.

The flexibility benefits though are really only important to those who tinker, change their main designs, or like to experiment with lots of different ideas. If you're the kind of person who builds a proven design and listens to it only, or the kind that designs a system and is happy leaving it alone, then perhaps going active isn't seen as being as much of a benefit as it can be.

Certainly though, building a proven passive design by an experienced designer is going to give you a better pair of sounding speakers then if you cobble some active design design together on your own, but it is likely to be nowhere near as fun or rewarding, especially if you're intending things to be the start of a long learning process.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by MiiB

Tinitus
Ok were at that level... I'll stay off the speaker topic...as I have done in the past...

Michael, please don't, a lot has gelled from just the few posts you have made.

When i said the same thing in post #6 in a more simplisrtic way it was ignored. Your posts added to my understanding & seems to have made a few people sit up and pay attention.

When you are pushing the edges of the art, you do have to have a tough skin, many of the members get a bit testy when outside their comfort zone, and that space is often only a small subset of all the possibilities. Series XOs, current drive, and more are often than not outside that comfort zone.

Just remember that even if a member does not want to expand their understanding of the field, you don't have to listen to their hifi

dave

Originally Posted by CopperTop

The meme seems to be that the passive crossover is a living, breathing thing that ties the separate drivers together into a whole, with each driver sharing the others' pain.

Whereas the active system is strictly feedforward and dumb.

CopperTop, that is brilliant summary.

dave

Originally Posted by Barleywater

Amplifiers don't sound like anything, drivers make sound.

With that attitude, you surely limit the potential of your hifi.

dave

[James Lehman]

I think there is an underlying theme here that has not come out in the open.

Some of you who hang on to the notion that a single amp and a passive crossover is the only way to go are in love with your amp! You probably spent a lot of money on it and it's your baby. The idea of subordinating it to only a portion of the audio spectrum and letting other amps into the scene is abhorrent to you.

Whatever....

Class D amp boards are cheap, versatile and readily available.

If it's not your thing, fine. But get over the idea that it's not as good as what you have.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by James Lehman

Some of you who hang on to the notion that a single amp and a passive crossover is the only way to go are in love with your amp! You probably spent a lot of money on it and it's your baby. The idea of subordinating it to only a portion of the audio spectrum and letting other amps into the scene is abhorrent to you.

That is not my notion.

My notion is that those who say one is always better than the other are mistaken. My belief is that XOs are inherently "evil" (thank you to Earl Geddes for that), avoid them as much as possible and if i have to live with an XO, put it where the evils can be minimized.

A question was asked, what can a passive do that no active can do. I answered that in Post #6, and Michael nicely expanded on that with a more technical analysis.

dave

[tinitus]

Originally Posted by James Lehman

Some of you who hang on to the notion that a single amp and a passive crossover is the only way to go are in love with your amp!

in love with your amp! ... no, haven't met them in this thread

Originally Posted by planet10

My belief is that XOs are inherently "evil" ......

dave

evil xo's ...funny thought...but what would we do without them ?

I love crossovers.... so much fun

[James Lehman]

I totally appreciate both kinds of multi-way speaker systems. I also understand and respect the merits of a full-range, single driver system!

They are just different ideas and they all have their merits.

I even get the idea of wanting to use the full range of one really nice amp.

But you just cannot get the control and versatility of a multi-amp active system any other way.

Try designing a passive crossover that works in the digital domain!

James.

[MiiB]

We at Raidho have always used serial (current diversion) X-overs. exactly for that reason. when the two drivers share current in the crossover region they are locked together and can't drift apart.

The dynamic changes particular in the mid/bas generates back emf. some of this generated current bleeds into the tweeter and alters the character to fit that of the mid/base. This is in my book vital to the coherence of the system.

Now I know this is not trivial or basic and might take some thinking to understand. For most people making speakers and X-overs is how to target good linearity...with smooth even SPL.... But SPL is NOT SPL.. it's a vector sum of all contributions some in phase and some out of phase...To understand this is an absolute key. Altering the phase content of a given SPL dynamically by tying the drivers together in that vital frequency band is of great importance...and that you can never do actively.

[gk7]

Originally Posted by MiiB

...
It may be possible to get active to work in the base region, but even that is very difficult just try to add a sub to a good quality 2 way. 99 of a 100 times it sounds slow, detached and out of sync with the music...

Have you ever been in a recording studio ?

[MiiB]

PRO and HI FI is absolutely two different things.. PRO is tools and is mainly used for monitoring levels. I have my monitors in some quite High Ticket studios where they are used for mixing of voices etc etc...

A Sub is needed to monitor the levels of bass on recordings...
The sound engineer learns to know his gear his tools.. like I have learned to know the shortcomings on my measurement gear and amplifiers, they are also tools and does not have to be the best in the world if you know how to use them...but they need to be reliable..

Talked to David Chesky last weekend in Denver. where we talked exactly about this... to check the fidelity he uses good headphones, which is also my reference for tonal balance and detail in my systems...

[KSTR]

Michael,

care to comment my post #287? http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3209567

I think this addresses a way to deal with the problem by trying to eliminate the root cause(s), doesn't it?

I for sure respect your work and care for subtle details, further I for one am interested in a constructive discussion.