So many of these Active Vs Passive speaker reviews I have seen start with a premise of one is better vs another and then set out to try to prove it, Any Way They Can. 1) Most powered speakers don't rely on or have DACs in the speakers. Just an amplifier. But the ones that do, they do tend to sound pretty good. Some even come with a microphone to calibrate the speakers to your listening environment. Just like the tuning available on most surround sound systems. 2) I don't agree with "sending bass energy" to a tweeter etc. An active crossover will always beat a passive crossover unless you spend a much much more money on the passive version. Many hi-end speakers are designed for bi-amping because its a fact that having the amplifier only have to worry about and manage the impedance shifts of it's assigned drivers is very beneficial. 3) Comparing the flaws of inexpensive active or "powered" speakers with the benefits of hi-end audio gear is just marketing to make a sale. Assume a hi-end active speaker to have an equally worthwhile amplifier matched to it. The speakers ratings and sound depend on it. Measure apples to apples. A $2000 active speaker needs to be compared to a $2000 speaker And amplifier purchase. 4) The mix and match game. If you buy a set of passive speakers with a set of curves as to it's response values, that is only for that speaker. Now lets say as an example, you have speaker with a response of +- 3db 50 hz-20Khz. And you pair it with an amplifier, which will have ratings lets say 20hz to 20Khz +-2 db. If its +2 at 100hz and the speaker is +3db at 100hz, you now have +5 db peak at 100hz. Or who knows where. Creating the game of matching your amplifier(s) to your speaker. But, if you buy an active speaker with a ratings plot. (room involvement aside) that is the rating for the amp And the speaker. Because the manufacturer has taken care of that matching. That right there is a huge cost and time savings. Allowing more money towards room treatments and things to help your room give you better sound. If you really love playing mix and match, go passive. If you want the sound the way modern musicians hear it, active speakers are what most use. And they save time in finding what works best for your space and hearing. So yes don't buy a speaker with a built in DAC as the only input. Speakers that rely on a DAC for their crossover and frequency manipulation, will always be as they are. So yes, you get only as good as that system is. But hey, many people still buy gear from the 70's because they like the sound better. Some people don't like the extra detail from new DACs and class D amps. It's like watching 70s porn on a 75" OLED screen. Do you benefit from really seeing the close up razor stubble your 19" tube TV hid from you? But hey, if you have the money to let someone dittle with your speakers to try to get the extra 10% percent out of them, go for it.
Plus, if there in separate cabinets, the cone midrange can be switched out for compression drivers with horns. A few crossover knob adjustments later & there is a whole different animal of a speaker system. Now how fun is that.🔈🔉🔊 (edit) Think of it like going from JBL L100s to Klipsh Heresys ,🤔, whenever 'ya want. It's a 2 for 1.
@@TriAmpMyFi Yes! I'm currently tri-amping a pair of Klipsch mid horns and tweeters out of a 1974 Heresy. For the midbass, a Eminence Beta 8A. Very efficient and clean up to some very high decibels.
I love building active speakers. I can use 24db crossovers that improve horizontal dispersion at the x-over point, I can match the levels of all the drivers, I can EQ each driver individually, and best of all, I can adjust the phase so that all the drivers are in phase plus time aligned.
that sure is a godsend for most people, building and designing a passive crossover is another level of price and difficulty. but the hypex123 fusion plate amps was very noisy and it had to go :( also the amps are pretty tall and require a cabinet of its own making the speakers deep.
@@dannyrichie9743 I wish I could send you my evolution acoustics MicroOne speakers. They are passive and I’m blown away at what they can do. I’m running a more budget friendly Parasound amp into them. Since I’m in the “pro audio” side of things, active appeals to me, but it’s always a goal of mine to keep out of the gatekeeping mentality
@@sudd3660 Thats interesting. I have old AS.2100d and they are just tiny bit noisy. My friend George bought FA123 and I made for him measurements and crossover. So I did have them at my disposal for about two months till he decided to take them home. No noise from those. My other friend Mark bought FA253, no issues there. And newest but still not build project from friend Jaroslav contains FA503, which I got to chance to touch it for an hour will not have any issues Iam sure. So maybe you used that FA123 on horn speaker with 110dB/1W/1m?
Pro Audio has left passive years ago. The flexibility, dynamics, and clarity of active systems are unmatched as compared to passive. Cheap and cheesy is bottom end no matter active or passive.
everyone lives in their own hifi bubble. And a lot of people just have also no idea because they never tried it out… The reason hifi dealers and reviewers dont review actives are not that theyre not available, its because the masses still have the mindset from the 90s. Active all the way, you get way more quality sound than same priced passives
I haven't heard the 19/20 ATC's but I did get to hear both the SCM 40 and the SCM40/A and there was a noticeable improvement in sound quality in the active version. I can't remember what amplifier was driving the passive version but it was in the €2,000 to €3,000 range, the actives had greater frequency response and clarity over the passives, reviews into both speakers also highlighted similar differences. Unfortunately I couldn't afford them but I eventually settled on Focal Trio 6 active speakers. Before I heard the ATC's I wouldn't have considered actives but doing so gave me the best sound quality for the budget I had.
Thank you for this video. I have only ever used active speakers for making music and had no idea about passive studio monitors because everyone i have ever known has used active. This has opened my mind.
Just because a system is active doesn't mean the electronics need to be fixed. My system is active but I can use any DSP unit, DACs, amps, and additional passive components I want.
@@dannyrichie9743 That's fair and you're absolutely right that most active speakers are far from great (including "high end" ones like ATC). Kii and D&D are among the best when it comes to active speakers within reason but obviously won't compete with something like a Holo May
Wow, a wealth of information. I never thought of what the rest of the spectrem of say a woofer amp or the tweeter amp on a biamped system is sending to it's driver. I have to re-think my system. I think I'll try sending my DSP results to an analogue crossover with one amplifier instead of bi-amping. I've learnt a lot from GR and never purchassed anything from him. I need to think this over. Thank you.
Active has a larger potential than passive by being able to use separate purpose built amps direct-coupled to each driver element, no caps/resistors/inductors in between. In addition, we can in some applications use Phase Linear Filters (FIR), creating a phase coherent speaker which is superior to any passive approach. However, if low quality parts or done in wrong ways, the result is of course not satisfying.
Active setups are extremely useful for seamless blind A/B crossover testing. I've never had a noise issue because my amplifiers are what I use in my passive systems. I always high pass my dome tweeters with a 20uF cap to protect from any DC thump or crossover failure which solves any low frequency noise Software DSPs with a quality DAC have a lot of design flexibility. Notching and shaping I find typically easier with DSP over passive. Time delay is much easier in DSP than ladder delay in a passive if you are set on symmetrical slopes and a flat vertical baffle. I've built great sounding speakers both passively and actively. I can think of equivalent pros and cons for each
I used passive speakers exclusively for the first many years of my listening life. (AV123 X-LS, pre-Encores, were my first nice speaker, and I've enjoyed a lot of Danny's designs since then, particularly the Strata Minis that I regret selling years ago). However, on pure sound quality alone, I'd put my Barefoot MM12 above anything else I've ever heard. I love ATCs and have a couple sets (active and passive) and the ATC SCM150A were excellent too, but I've yet to hear anything that bests the MM12 in pure detail and enjoyment. I love many passive speakers, but properly executed active speakers seem, almost by definition, to have a higher ceiling in terms of audio quality. Then again, I have zero background as an EE, just a guy who loves music and audio gear.
Barefoot MM12 - looks like a ton of drivers in a very compact box & an example of what can only be achieved in an active configuration - it's a bit strange however, as I can't imagine 2x12" per side in a near field application - this is full range output that's normally a floor stander - I guess there's Augspurger.....
Active speakers are better for finite tuning and control. Passive speakers can be as good if very tightly controlled. You just can't beat digital precision, but some of you will argue that analog sounds better. Well, to each their own! But if you think that records and tube amps 'sound better' it's because you are used to distortion and the noise inherent to those products and it's just simply what you prefer. Ain't nothin wrong with that! Just as there ain't nothin wrong with digital perfection either! But for my nickle, fully active is the way to go....🤠 Cheers 🍻
@@dannyrichie9743: Most of you call it 'warm' or 'richer' sounding. What it really is on an oscilloscope, is noise, distortion, and all kinds of things less than accurate to the original music or recording. High quality digital doesn't suffer from any of those issues. It is as we like to say, bit perfect! Cheers 🍻
@@Finite-Tuning I have really high end tube amps over here that are just as fast and clean as a solid state amp. I also have solid state and chip amps. Think of power delivery of solid state as on-off, on-off, while a tube amp is more on, on and on, on. There is also a ton of noise on digital signals. You can completely change the sound of a digital signal by changing the cable it is transmitted on. It is easily altered by noise.
@@dannyrichie9743: I mean, yeah,,,, no contest. The very best signal and sound is always conditional, just as it is preferential. Go digital if you want total control, or go analog if you want that "warmth"...... It's just a poison, pick your own. Both will make you broke in the end! If you can smile while listening to the end result, then ya did it right. I'm not changing anybody's mind, certainly not tryin to. I'm just offering the facts as I know them. Cheers 🍻
@@Finite-Tuning lol. so many types of circuits measure 'similar' and yet sound different. an set v a chip am for ex. i wonder if some of you have experimented much.
😎👍 Thank you 😎👍! Thank you for keeping me safe from the "snake oil" $$ rabbit holes. By the way, the ole upgraded Carnegie CST-1's are still shining VERY nicely with good source equipment! You have helped me to reach a point in audio quality,... such that I am happy, and there is very little that I wish try to improve. 😎👍
I can see an argument for active during a design process, so you can dial in the perfect crossover point. And then apply that to a passive filter design.
You certainly explained why fully active speakers have not caught on with audiophiles, but a active crossover with carefully optimized filters combined with excellent amplification seems to offer real performance advantages. I like the approach that Bryston has taken with its active systems where the speakers, amps, crossover and dac are all discrete and easily upgradable components. Thank you for a very informative and thoughtful presentation.
its because audiophiles are mostly live in their own world and have no idea about well engineered actives. Most dont even have seriously room treatment but want to tell you a cable difference…
A friend of mine had a recording studio with Yamaha NS10's as his main workhorse, and that was hooked up to a rack amp. He also Alesis active monitors. For quasi mastering he had these cool looking Miller Kreisel speaker system that had a subwoofer. I asked him why most studio monitors were always active and he explained that in a small control room full of gear, small powered nearfield monitors were more convenient because you don't have an extra amp and an extra set of wires taking up space etc... He explained that for mixing, his main concern was hearing each track before and after processing (I was blown away by the fact that he relied on the VU meter more than anything else). It was educational to discover the distinction between mixing and mastering and their respective intent. My take away was that active nearfield monitors just aren't intended for home hi-fi etc... Just as a side-note, this was in the early nineties where there weren't any computers, just ADAT tape machines, and lots of racks and mixing consoles.
active speaker is easy to fix just change a module or 2. if you blow an amp up its going to cost the same. passive usually is better unless you spend a fortune on high end active stuff. I like both active and passive they both have there uses.
I'm 65 and an audio nerd for most of my life. I've gone through the whole thing, from passive to active(since I had the ilusion it had to be better) and also DIY, Today I can certify every word that Mister GR said, thank you(the realization just cost me a bit of time (years) and money). To be fair, it has to be said that there are also very good active boxes/speakers, but they come with a corresponding price tag(Neumann KH420).
difficult to beat KH420, or a genelec one speaker, or d&d 8c price wise with separate components (without DIY). At least i couldn't and got a pair of genelecs for 7k euro. Matching this quality of sound with separete components will be at least 10k.
Also with passive filter components there is the possibility to current drive the speakers ensuring lower distortion from nonlinearities in the actual drivers. When feeding them unimpeded with a voltage any nonlinearities in the voice coils will have maximum effect on the resulting current producing the sound. A lot of people miss this fact about passives. Also an unprotected tweeter fed by a fullrange to almost DC signal bandwidth can damage the tweeter with unintended hum and clicks/noice. I have repaired active speakers with blown tweeters because of glitching signal input connections causing hum passing directly to the tweeter.
Active all the way after so many Listening sessions of self called passive High End gear from famous brands. There are way to many pros over cons when you go the Active, DSP based way. Passive crossovers are just compromises with way more flaws than actives. No passive i heard till now sounded as good and acourate as the active ones. And always the ,,con, about change the sound with other electronics (thats why its 2023 and we have HQ dsp & eqs). Switching amps and the idea to ,,upgrade,, like many passive owners do, is just a sign of dissatisfaction with the whole system for me.
Danny you make some valid points, for most home systems just go passive. Years ago I had a triamp system using Bryston crossovers and amps, I still had a passive notch filter to make it work with Focal drivers. A ton of amps and cables and a lot of money. Sold it all and got a pair of Vandersteen 5a speakers. 😊 For pro PA systems active for many good reasons.
No, he did not. Yes, a good engineered passive speaker can easily beat bad engineered bi-amp or tri-amp system. However, good engineered tri-amp system will always triumph over passive system. The main problem here is the market demand. For the engineering point, it is extremely easy to implement variable active crossover in DSP section of a receiver and provide bi-amp and tri-amp speaker out and it cost almost nothing extra for the manufacturer. Having said that, I don't think it will happen in foreseeable feature as this will create confusion for the majority of the population.
Danny I don't find you to be typically biased, but I think you are unnecessarily biased towards passive crossovers. I have been running active for over 10 years but I don't have some cheap active speakers. You have upgraded the active crossover but you haven't similarly upgraded the active system to give it chance to out shine the passive once more. All of the configuration you are saying isn't available to active is available. Having active circuitry built into the speaker isn't the typical way that people do an active system, at least not anyone serious about active. You have a choice of high end active crossovers with quality DACs (mine uses something like 8 Burr Brown DACs), granted anything half decent is going to cost you very close to 5 figures by itself, and add a decent multichannel amplifier/s and you are definitely now well over 5 figures. So you can't compare what I am using with some budget active speaker. Nothing stops me swapping out interconnects, DAC, amplifier or speaker cables. So there is plenty of configuration options. Using the same amplifier on both active and passive you still have the advantage of the signal is given it's signal range before it is amplified which will give you a cleaner sound, since no amp is designed to be equally effective across all frequencies. On to of which you have a lot more channels with active so you have a lot more amplifier headroom per driver, which means that same amplifier isn't being driven as hard if it is only powering one driver.
I am not against active systems. Technically our top level systems can be considered active, but we go at it a little differently. We only make the split to separate amps where it really matters and that's down low. I shot a video on it: th-cam.com/video/908BWw1Bx4U/w-d-xo.html
@@dannyrichie9743 I re-watched that video to work out the particular point you are making, and by the way the was a great explanation video. However some of the deficiency you speak of are very case specific. Where you were saying one set of binding posts are better than two, well I am using zero sets of binding posts (your intense dislike of cheesy binding posts is well known). One of the benefits of a separate amp per driver is that you don't need to have any binding posts at all (no binding post equal zero loss at the connection point that isn't there), I go straight from the amp to the driver (soldered connections), you also have the option of amplifying to suit the specific driver i.e. you might want a tube amp on the tweeter, but want a Class D on the woofer. Now I am not going to try and BS you by telling you that active is a cheaper solution, it rarely is for equal quality, but if you have dollars to spend (and I did at the time, I had lots of them, and no wife) I see real benefits over passive. In the video you use a high pass filter to split the amplified output signal, and while this is a great way to split off a signal to the sub as you described in the video it isn't without its own problems to solve. Whether it is a separate sub or an additional woofer inside the cabinet, you are still adding an additional component to the crossover which from my limited understanding of passive crossovers is still going to ultimately influence the overall crossover in the cabinet (just a geography thing). Most of us out there in stereo land couldn't even start to fathom what impact that might have from a performance stand point on the rest of the system. decades ago I wrote a software program to design crossovers, but that still gives you nothing more than a starting point, it takes your level of experience to know where to go from there. Active simplifies things for the "novice" like me. You are sending only that frequency to the driver. All of the crossover slopes, filters etc etc can be applied quickly in the software to evaluate changes without a large amount of time in between listening tests. While I believe it may be possible for a quality passive crossover to sound better than an active setup, it certainly won't be performed by the novice or even intermediate user.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering Having an amp connected directly to the drivers does have advantages. So I am with you on that. Actually when splitting the signal to the sub and main speakers using an inline passive filter installed prior to the amps only uses a very small value cap as a filter. So that cap can be very high quality and very transparent. So no other high pass filter is needed in the speaker. That cap filters out the lower region very cleanly. So it does not affect the rest of the parts used in the passive part of the filter. "While I believe it may be possible for a quality passive crossover to sound better than an active setup, it certainly won't be performed by the novice or even intermediate user." That is true.
@@dannyrichie9743 sorry I wasn't very clear about this "That cap filters out the lower region very cleanly. So it does not affect the rest of the parts used in the passive part of the filter." what I meant by effecting "quality", that was a poor choice of words on my behalf. What I mean was by having the cap in line with an existing crossover, it would have to some degree (how much I don't know) effect the crossover values upstream of the inline filter. Which in turn might have undesirable effects i.e. alter crossover points slightly which leads to a poorer performance.
I am running a 4 way active setup with Parasound amps. -3 db in room is 18 hz. I am using 2 RSS210HO 8" Dayton woofers per side. At 200 hz a Purifi 6.5" midrange takes over. At 1khz a 2" dome midrange from Tang Band and 4khz to a Fountek ribbon for now. Want to try a Burilium dome next.not impressed with the ribbon.
Hello there I e been playing with speakers since grade 5 , I have gone down a little different path .it started at car audio in the 90s .got my first rta then made one of my car systems totally flat as per rta , pushed a cd in and yuuuk it really hurt .then made a lot of home audio ,and now I’m in the pro audio and a lot more yuuuk especially with active and plastic boxes . So I’ve been. Building wood boxes with high power custom crossovers they sound great . Most people don’t know good sound until they hear it .oh well just wanted to say hi keep up the good work .
Moore’s law hit the wall 7-10 yrs ago. My best sounding pc used a 2 ghz Pentium 4 single core cpu but was lost in a fire. My best DAC was a Pooge 5 Phillips 960 with a Phillips 1541 Crown DAC chip, also lost. BUT, I’ve not heard the Denafrips R2R type newer dacs.
Another great vid. I got passive-active speakers, yep. Last week after lots of research, I got Klipsch R-41PM's for $300 - Now, I can listen to GR-Research vids in great near-field HiFi. Great imaging, yeah - when I open my eyes, I see Danny front and center on my computer monitor. Kidding aside, these little Klipsch's sound great for near-field listening of you-tube music videos without having to power up my Parasound separates and worry about rumbling through the walls of this condo with my B&W towers. Also, when I send the passive side of the little Klipsch for a crossover upgrade, the shipping will not break my piggybank. Thanks again Danny for the insights.
I would like to have seen a “before” curve that Danny always shows when he performs crossover redesigns. I suspect the original actives was flatter that the passive redesign, which is an advantage of active designs. The “unwanted” frequencies Danny talks about, IF present are 80+ dB down from the normal signal and are simply a non issue. I’ve designed passive & active. Both can be excellent, both can be bad. An active system removes everything between the amplifier output and the speaker voice coil, so amplifier damping is optimal. When designing passive crossovers, the differences in one driver to the next matter greatly and can alter the response, so one speaker may not sound like the other. That’s why John Dunlavy tested every driver and carefully matched them to within 0.5dB. Then he tailored the crossovers for flat overall response. With active designs, variations from one driver to the next don’t affect the crossover point and therefore minimizes any effect in the sound.
This thing was sent in because it had a dead amp. So no "before" measurements were taken. From experience though, just because a speaker is active doesn't mean it has a more accurate response.
@@DWHarper62 The quality isn't just seen in a measurement. A measurement will only show output level over frequency. It won't show the truncation of detail, lower resolution, less space between notes, poor imaging, and flat sound stage caused by the budget level filters and amp used in the production model.
what else should he say as an passive manufacture ? the thing is, passive isnt done right in many many speakers, because the parts are bad or and when you want quality, you spend double the money like an active. A active system for 15k outperform any passive system for that pricetag because youve way more control (via dsp) what exactly happens
This just boils down to "you get what you pay for". Some active speakers now cost thousands and you can be sure that the top end ATCs, PMCs, PSI audio and a whole host of other manufacturers aren't using the level of parts available that were available 20 years ago. However these speakers have a hefty price tag and I would suggest that newly designed passive in this case offers some significant cost saving advantages over either older active models or more budget level active equipment. Perhaps these older ATCs are still a better buy than some newer low-mid priced speakers.
Danny’s discussion about quality of parts matters and the rejoinders in some comments reminds me of an ad that was run years ago… “Parts is Parts. Right?” 😂
Of course he has to pick a 20 year old active speaker(and strategically not tell you the model) because he knows especially within the past 5 years active DSP speakers with individually amped drivers offer huge technical superiorities over passive. In the future when built in room correction becomes affordable passive wont make much sense. Companies still like SELLING passives because they are much more profitable. Emotiva for example used to charge $300-$400 for an active DSP set and about $50 less for the passive set.
Actually the opposite is true. The latest DSP based speakers offer a huge amount of flexibility, but overall performance (on average) is very poor. They tend to be flat (flat soundstage) lifeless sounding speakers. Please bring over the $300 to $400 Emotiva active speakers and compare them to one of our passive speakers in the same price range. It will be like comparing and old Chevy Chevet to a new Corvette.
@@dannyrichie9743 you'd need to compare the $400 actives to $200 passives fed by a $200 amplifier, to be price fair. I'm not saying the actives will win, just that comparing $400 passives fed by a $2000 amplifier, to $400 actives is not a fair comparison. Now, the ability to improve the cheap passives by adding a top-end amplifier is a huge bonus compared to the locked-in, can't ever upgrade without replacing, actives. Which is a point you made very clear in the video.
@@dannyrichie9743: Agreed, to a finite point. I Just want to offer a perspective here, something I keep reading from almost everybody. The whole damn world it seems is stuck on live room dead room acoustics. Then in the same breath and sentence everybody wants to talk about sound stage and accurate reproduction. It's one or the other and 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 be both! If you want to talk about accuracy then you cannot be adding your room into the mix and calling it an accurate reproduction. The closet you will ever realistically get to accurate musical reproduction is with headphones. Once you add the reverb from every 'non-anechoic' room on this planet, now it's something else entirely. Sound stage as mixed as intended, or sound stage within your room? Accuracy as mixed as intended, or as accurate as you can get in your room? It's apples and oranges, but it is 'not' both! For accuracy in either case, you want to be a whole lot closer to anechoic than further from it. Cheers 🍻
Active speaker fans can be counted on to claim technical superiority. What does that mean? How is it measured? I can design an overly complex product packed with bleeding edge technology that will fail in short order and then function as a nice door stop. The more functionality included in a single package always means many compromises have to be made. If you want minimal or zero compromises the cost goes up exponentially. Interesting that the low frequency driver had no shield to contain the magnetic field of that huge magnet. A claimed to be 20 year old speaker is no excuse. Maxwell's equations have been around quite a bit longer.
I have a pair of active Focal Trio 11be speakers. Best system I have ever heard by far. I don't imagine there is an amp/system/speaker package out there that can sound better.
@@dannyrichie9743 I don't doubt you. I definitely see and respect your expertise. But have you seen/heard these things? $8000 per pair and they are Focal's top of the line for pro studios.
@@BrianDRidgway Yes sir. We even have more Focal speakers in house for upgrades right now. Honestly, every speaker we offer (used with good electronics) will eat them up, including our budget level desktop speakers like the LGK 2.1. Our actual NX Studio Monitors are in a different league all together.
I bought the Adam Audio S3V because upgrading passive speakers is actually a lot of work (for me). Yes, Danny's upgrade took my B&W speakers to a whole new level (it was amazing, actually), but I didn't want to repeat that process for a main system in my living room. And yes, these Adam monitors do sound lifeless out of the box, but I have two apps that I use on my smartphone- Poweramp Equalizer and Dolby Atmos (virtual surround), the latter of which "juices up" the sound and makes it sound more analog. On some songs, it does nothing. That being said, I do want to someday upgrade a more high- end set of passive speakers to see if I can best the Adams. BTW- I've read that your Be 11 speakers sound even better than the Adams. Both these active speakers, however, are priced too high for many listeners.
A nice summary of the limitations of active speakers, but why do you think that active can't be upgraded? Of course they can, just like you upgrade passive speakers, you have to go inside and replace the electronics.
That Amir guy over at ASR has built an ARMY of SINAD followers regarding amps and DACs…yet doesn’t publish SINAD on the studio monitor amps…which are likely garbage by his own standards.
@@joonas4427 even people with poor hearing should be able to hear the hiss, even if they can’t hear or recognize the IMD causing brightness. I can normally hear both.
The only active digital crossover speaker I've used is the NOCS NS2 (Version 2). I think they're really good, despite being kind of old. I'm pretty sure you couldn't make a passive crossover that could fit in those little speakers and have it sound as good. Mmm. I've been itching to set those things up again. They for sure made me curious about active vs passive. At the time, I thought it would be fun to buy some random digital crossover monitors, 4 of them, and have Danny mod a pair of them to be passive. Then do listening comparisons between the stock ones and the passive ones.
We've made those comparisons. We took a full open baffle line source with open baffle servo subs and used it as a test bed. Slopes were matched digitally to the passive filters etc. And passive filters do not steal power, and at the quality level of parts we were comparing with they do not smear the signal. There was FAR more difference in DAC's being used then anything the crossover parts were doing, and the DAC's were using the same DAC chips. We were able to get the phase between the main speaker and subs dialed in more perfectly, and at times I thought their was slightly more soundstage outside the speakers. However, the differences in DAC's were still the difference. We used the same source feeding those DAC's too. The all passive design still won out in almost all areas. The other factor was that the all digital system used a LOT more amplifiers and cables making it a LOT more expensive.
Yes, sounds you are stuck in the speaker (as if everything should be in that box.) When having a full active system with external different amplifiers and DACs and you're not stuck at all and no drawbacks that you are mentioning. We remove that passive crossover that is the stupidest place to place a crossover if not you just want convince. But convince trumps most of the time. Convince is not sound quality they don't go hand in hand. When having a crossover AFTER we have made power amplifing. Then we must use huge passive components (caps, resistors and coils). Those components is between the power amplifier AND the driver. Stealing power, smearing and hindering the power amplifier to fully use it's damping factor and control the drivers. But if you have a DSP and fix the crossover in the low power domain it is more efficient and wiser. Yes you have a point if we put everything in the loudspeaker.. The down side is that we have to do the job as Danny does by determine where what and how much the crossovers should be. There is where the convince come into play. It is easier and more convinent to just by a passive speaker and be done with it.. But you don't learn and you miss out performance. Plus it is not optimized for your specific room and not your listening levels. So a separate DSP box that does all that Dany does in the passive domain and are also able to do SO much more than that (that also bring the sound quality to a untouchable level of performance that no passive crossover can match at any price.) And connect it to two separate power amplifiers if it is a 2 way. One for each driver. Then connect them to each of the drivers. That will bring superior quality and learnings for the audiophile. Plus adjustable on the fly depending on YOUR specific listening preferences (and not speaker designers) plus depending on listening levels. And on top of that that also leaves the passive crossover in the dust! Acustically adjust for your specific room and speaker placement (yes the passive crossover can't never offering us that.) But it is not convenient setup but the best of the best sound quality wise. That is also why the most expensive speakers have passive crossovers. When Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett buying a HiFi system they have not the interest and passion like a audiophile to learn and make a perfect sounding system. They just point on the most expensive speakers and amplifiers and someone set the system up for them convinent and they're done. And it is convenient and third best option to by a speaker from Danny and just start enjoying the music but it is not the "best" that those speakers can sound in your room. But you got there with low effort.👍
We've done all of that stuff that you just said. We took a full open baffle line source with open baffle servo subs and used it as a test bed. Slopes were matched digitally to the passive filters etc. And passive filters do not steal power, and at the quality level of parts we were comparing with they do not smear the signal. There was FAR more difference in DAC's being used then anything the crossover parts were doing, and the DAC's were using the same DAC chips. We were able to get the phase between the main speaker and subs dialed in more perfectly, and at times I thought their was slightly more soundstage outside the speakers. However, the differences in DAC's were still the difference. We used the same source feeding those DAC's too. The all passive design still won out in almost all areas. The other factor was that the all digital system used a LOT more amplifiers and cables making it a LOT more expensive.
Linn active stuff sounds great, if you know what your doing you can upgrade as the years roll on. plenty of parts on the second hand market and you can have fun upgrading your speakers. passive stuff is all great too, just play around and have fun. But don't you think at some point elertonics will get so good a passive system will become obsolete? will it not get to the point the passive systems will become an obstacle to the signal path? Servo bass systems are already surpassing passive bass systems for example. Thumbs up for Dannys mains cables they certainly improved the sound from my fully active speakers. 😂 for the most part i do agree with Danny, passive is just cheaper and usually better results. i've had fun with this active stuff too especially the modular stuff.
Really appreciated the explanation with the fact distortions in the signals path will travel throughout the circuit to all speakers attached to the crossover. Speaking as an Engineer; I wish these factors were common knowledge. Thanks Danny!
I've always had a dream of a purely digital stereo system - including digital components (equalizer, surround sound processor, etc), feeding a class D amplifier the digital signal with no DAC whatsoever.
great video :) i tried active speakers, and the only active i could get to work without noise or other drawbacks was subwoofers. in the end i went with a hybrid approach, dsp preamp into two dac's into two power amps. subwoofers are woofers in a box, mains are 2 way passive with crossover. best of both worlds and no drawbacks i can hear myself. with full parametric eq and time delay between speakers.
@@TD05SSLegacy it what worked best for my needs, i only have digital sources, the unit is small, and it does so many things. its a minidsp SHD studio. i can not imagine where to put a normal preamp now.
Big fan of Yamaha seeing I've never seen another manufacturer have a sound reference manual.. or another manufacturer that builds quality music instruments. Yamaha FTW !!, i like how Danny makes the obvious known, the speaker will only perform up to the amps capabilities, furthermore it will only sound as good as the initial recording equipment the track was recorded through. - Surry Virginia
For as many low end powered monitors there are many mid and high end, this includes the amps and DACs built in, so the argument about components is rarely applicable dollar to dollar. As for the filters, it's a design goal and with active you can push the system up to the point where you shouldn't, you can't do that with a passive crossover. It's just not one is better solution unless you're just looking to mass market your speakers.
@@scottcoleman5355 The quality of DAC's change just like computers. It is easy for them to become dated and surpassed by new models for less money. And it isn't just about noise and THD. There are a LOT of factors in how the data is handled and converted that can make huge differences.
@@dannyrichie9743 my point was to how do you improve on something that is inaudible? Not that I don't like the latest, but somethings are just mature as a science..
@@scottcoleman5355 Every aspect of a DAC and how they operate has a ton of variables that effect how it sounds. Jitter filters, how the op amp is biased, how clean the power is, The USB cable, SPDIF verses I2S direct, analog stages.... All audible differences.
@@dannyrichie9743 I agree with all of those factors but my argument remains the same. When you have a product that is currently perfect, how do you improve on that? I mean if a unit measures well with no audible noise, distortion, thd, and "sounds" perfect how is that improved upon? DACs are mature and unless we find a way of improving human hearing, a well designed DAC isn't going to toppled by a product that is just improving on things that are not audible and have zero effect on the sound. I'd be more then happy to do an abx with my current DAC with a DAC of your chosing each year and see if is detectable. Make it like an annual GTG, and do a couple of other things..
If implemented well, a passive crossover can help to provide a good sound from a capable loudspeaker. However the design of any passive crossover is, by its very nature, fundamentally limited and it can only act as a rather basic filter. Large capacitors, inductors and resistors combine to remove unwanted frequencies from each frequency band of the large loudspeaker-level signal in order to ensure the signal is suitable for the drive unit. Passive crossovers can therefore only ever give out a lesser signal than is put in, since each crossover absorbs - or worse, sometimes reflects back into the power amplifier - the parts of the signal that it filters out. Most of the energy that is prevented, by the passive crossover, from reaching the loudspeaker drive units is expended by the amplifier as heat. This inherent inefficiency can mean that, for some loudspeakers, a third or more of the power produced by the amplifier is wasted by the crossover. With the amplifier working much harder than is necessary, this greatly reduces the level of control that it has over the drive unit, adversely affecting the system performance. There is also the problem of the passive filter being connected between the amplifier and the drive unit. This means that the signal is impeded - an effect that is particularly prevalent with the bass signal. Another difficulty arises with the layout of the crossover: physical proximity of components to each other and to other metallic parts can lead to crosstalk (signal leakage from one part of the circuitry to another) and other unwanted effects, again compromising the performance. Since higher volume levels tend to exacerbate all the above problems, when a passive crossover is used, accuracy and power are limited and signal integrity is likely to be compromised.
All those points are valid, but mainly apply at lower bass frequency. Which is why the open baffle subs sold by Danny use active crossovers. The power levels at the mid to tweeter level are way lower, so the effects are less. Different solutions for different frequencies.
"a third or more of the power produced by the amplifier is wasted by the crossover." This is not correct at all, and easy to demonstrate. I can measure the output of a woofer played full range with no crossover and then with a passive filter. The only reduction in output form the filter comes in the form of the DRC of the inductor used. That is typically fractions of an ohm. So very little is lost. Also the slight rise in impedance doesn't make the amplifier work harder. Lower impedances demand more current and make the amplifier work harder. So technically the amp can be seen to work harder with no filter.
Resistors (and other elements with resistance) oppose the flow of electric current; therefore, electrical energy is required to push current through the resistance. This electrical energy is dissipated, heating the resistor in the process.
Getting into the musical merits of a well implemented fully activated loudspeaker with a person that makes his living selling passive networks via his TH-cam channel is never going to be fun to do.
That's also possible when you go "active". An external electronic crossover (or digital loudspeaker management system) combined with amplifiers you choose, is even more flexible.
atc or psi are special actives... they dont have dac and are full analog. Another thing is genelec, kii tree, d&d... all digital there. Active done right can be better regarding xover and phase and getting more bass in small volume. Will be pretty difficult to find a proper passive match (quality and price) even to actual actives like those from buchard, kef or dynaudio.
In all fairness, Danny finds cheesy parts in most passive speakers, too. He has opened many people's eyes to the quality of crossover parts. However, many people lack the time, patience, or ability to modify passive crossovers or build active speakers. What is my point? Whether you decide to go with passive or active speakers, do your homework first. Ask the manufacturers questions about crossover parts/points/slopes, driver materials, cabinet bracing/damping, amps, sensitivity, impedance, radiation pattern, bass response, etc. If they won't answer, walk away.
So, as an veteran audiophile and a hifi enthusiast I’ve followed your channel for some time. I’ve warmed to your attitude and grown to respect your opinion. What are your views on bi-amping? I currently have the Denafrips Venus DAC at the heart of my digital system. The DAC is connected to a pre-amp and 2 monoblocks, driving a substantial pair of premium 3-way floorstanders, augmented by a pair of subs. The low frequency drivers in my floorstanders cross over to the mid range driver at 400hz and the mid-range driver, hands over to the high frequency drivers at 2.9khz. I’m contemplating investing in a 2nd pair of monoblocks to bi-amp my floorstanders. I’d be interested in your thoughts and advice.
Seems a shame to compare active vs passive crossovers with only a powered and active design built to a price point. It would be great to discuss the potential of each implementation. A comparison with a good speaker, with identical external power amps comparing only passive vs active crossver implementations where all other elements in the chain are equal. Active crossover design doesn't mean it has to be an all in one box speaker system. Removing any components between the amp and drivers with a digital crossover presumably would have advantages over passive? Yes more Dacs, Power amps, complexity and cost but it would be great to hear GRs view on the ultimate implementation of a speaker system.
I have an active tower resto project sitting on the back burner. Nice pair of Altecs from the late 80's. Whats quirky is that they employ passive x-overs backed by pot controlled op-amps for each driver. Would one consider this design "semi-active" ?
Danny great content as ever, u r truly visionary, u know ur shit thats for sure , i would willingly buy one of your speaker builds but im poor as a church mouse , an i just can.t scale those heights, ...
I don't think people understood you Danny. In the biamped system the amplifiers are running full out and sending every hum, distortion etc. to the driver. Analogue wont let these artifacts pass through. Big news to me because I've been having so much trouble with Phase shift or something throughout the entire range. Harmonics from the other driver are ramped throughout the upper and lower spectrum. When you get if nailed it's wonderful,,, but change one thing and it's gone. I think what Danny has come up with may be the problem.
PLEASE don't throw in DSP speakers in with Active speakers. They are not the same! I spent the better part of 34 years in studio work. For the longest time, I did not have active speakers, but did travel with passives, but used the amps installed in the studios. Amp/speaker combinations are thing, as you well know. I finally purchased a non-dsp'ed version of active speakers so I had a consistent listening setup no matter where I went. After retiring from that part of the industry, but still doing an odd gig here and there, I got rid of them. Well, did a gig at the Rose Bowl, which meant hauling up a really heavy amp with heatsinks tearing up my arms, up multiple elevators, with a pair of passive 2-ways. There, in a nutshell is why the Pro side of things uses actives. Ken Kantor built a pair of actives at NHT Pro with the amp and adjustments in its own case. Great idea. Didn't do well in the pro world. So, because of that, I invested in a pair of active monitors again, this time with dsp. Are they the last word in resolution? No. Can I hear what I need to make wise mixing decisions? You bet. That said, I do plan on buying another pair of active monitors, no dsp, no cheesy amps, and wise parts choices. Do I have other stuff I can listen to? Sure, but I'm sure you wouldn't like how they were designed for some reason (Dunlavy). I enjoy your channel, and watch often, it's just when you come pre-bent on something that drives me nuts. Wish you well, and a bit jealous of you running track again. I'm much older than you but I may have to get back into training to hit the Senior tour. LOL
I actually spent a day with John Dunlavy at his facility. He was the nicest guy. I really liked his speakers. I have also upgrade a bunch of them, but no redesigns. He designed them well. It has always been a parts upgrade. Even with DSP based systems it can be a lot more expensive to go that route and reach the same performance levels reached with standard passive filters and high end gear. FIY, indoor track season has started. I have four meets coming up in the next few months including world championships in Poland.
@@dannyrichie9743 Never had the chance to run in any indoor track meets. Back in the day, I'd have loved to "take on the pad" at the end of a sprint. Not so excited to do that after a crash cycling and busting up my elbow, and the surgery that followed. LOL John Dunlavy was a great guy. So sad to see his company sold and destroyed. A smart guy, for sure. I'm not a dsp kinda guy, event though I purchased something that was extreme value for what I needed. It fits the bill well. Kind of a disposable system as far as length of life. I'd take these 3-ways over a comparable Elac. I remember when Meridian was doing dsp stuff back, what, the early 1990s? Maybe a little later than that. Even back then, I'm thinking, man, there is so much left to learn about the digital world to be spending that kind of money for a given product, and it was pricey back then. Same mindset as buying active speakers with builtin BlueTooth. No thanks. That said, I'm not afraid to purchase a well-designed, active (non-dsp) powered monitor. There's been some great stuff made over the years, and, to be honest, I'm at a point in my life that it's more about the music than anything else. I'm sure my wife would LOVE for me to dump at least some of the 7 sets of speakers and several amps, and gain one of our bedrooms back. 🙂 Have a great track season!!
I'v been listening a lot at your stories and word but what I missed, it can be I just missed it , but what about speaker cables? I am just now involved in it again and it makes so much the sound that I wonder how is it to judge a speaker where do you start? Can you tell us in a perhaps new video about speaker cables and its influence and responsibility? Greetings from the Netherlands, Onno Nugteren.
@@dannyrichie9743 Oh that would be great! :-) I'm curious about your opinion. And also where to start, how do you judge where 'problems' are? Greetings again.
Are there the same problems with an analog active crossover that is connected upstream of the power amplifier? You're talking about active crossovers that are implemented via DSP, right?
The "pros" don't believe any of this, nor can they hear it. And the trend isn't only powered speakers but with DSP (ADCs and DACs for analogue inputs). For my computer, I tried a HEDD Type 5, MK II. It had detail but very high digital distortion. Again, the pros love this and jumped on me for my criticisms. So I bought a used pair of discontinue HEDD Type 5s (no DSP), which are very good and have no digital sound. My next move is to get an amp and ELAC Vela 403s.
Danny, Love what you do. I'm curious what the mindsp hd version does with regards to making music lifeless. Can you explain more? I'm not questioning it doing so just want to know what I'm missing if I use one.
I saw a yowie once and was a like a redish brown wood case single standing with a sub at the bottom with 2 speakers above but 2 tweeters in the middle, what
People spend a fortune on speaker cables and risers to stop the soundwaves from causing distortion from vibrations. Electronics manufacturers spend a fortune on sound deadening their cabinets and circuit boards. Now throw all that away and cram everything into the cabinet where the sound wave is greatest? What am I missing?
Cramming all of that inside a speaker does create a whole new level of issues to deal with. Changes in internal cabinet pressures and vibrations are clearly one of them.
Love my active Emotiva Stealth 8 monitors, but I’m curious what would need to be done should I want to make them passive. Without the original DSP I assume it would sound awful. Would Dirac sort that out?
I currently am using atc 45a pro monitors in my studio. The model he's using is quite old, I'm wondering if atc's current models eliminate the Unwanted frequencies in the amps that Danny mentioned since I've never noticed any extraneous noises on them? I wish ATC would chime in on this.
What's the take-away from this video? That throwing a lot more money at the external amplification of a speaker designed to be active than what was built in can improve it? Bottom line is, a well designed active speaker will in most cases be better than separates at the same price point. And this is a consideration for audiophiles only, in the pro market where most high quality actives belong it is a non-issue.
“A simple question might be, with all the fuss over speaker wire, how could a lot of wire (as in air core inductors used for crossovers) and a collection of lossy parts (such as resistors) be a path to improve loudspeaker performance over a direct wire between speaker and amp with nothing in between?”
@@dannyrichie9743 I’ve seen a lot of complaints from people buying $10k active speakers and one of them will have a buzzing sound. Having subtle noise in actives seems like a problem still
Worse: When those plate amps fail - good luck finding something to replace it with. I would only do actives with a plan that they will fail and don’t be emotionally attached to them What’s interesting is that in the car audio world - a cheap pioneer deck for $150 has built in time alignment dsp parametric 3 sets of line outs - basically a great amount of adjustment available and then you pair whatever you want for amplification - so one dedicated amp channel per driver no exceptions and no passive x-overs are needed… It’s interesting that the car audio world has solved many of the issues the home audio world will only solve at 10-100x the cost… Just go browse some nice RF car audio amps…
Normally you never talk about the quality of amplification. You rely on the measurements of a passive speaker and design a new filter for better measurements and much more "clarity" But what amplifier do you use to test the sound quality and can every amplifier handle the possible complexity of your new design? In the beginning of this video you make clear that this active system with the cheap built in amplifier sounds better compared to the same system with a passive filter and a cheap amplifier. So I think a good sound quality is easier (and cheaper) to realize with an active system. Isn't it?
Good quality is much more expensive to reach when done all active. I also have a ton of amplifiers in house right now. I may have Ron come over soon and do an amplifier shoot out just for fun.
Thanks a lot for this video Danny, I've always wondered, Is it possible to create a system made two Speakers, but instead of having the crossover inside the speakers, build it outside BETWEEN a Preamp and One amp per Speaker (Let's say a 3 way design, so 6 Monobloc Amps, no need to be utterly powerful, just great quality stuff), as I've always heard it sounds better to have main amplification AFTER the Crossover, Is it true ? Can you explain if I'm totally wrong ? Haha Cheers !
Linn does this in a way. for years theyve offered specific crossover cards for each speaker model which are installed in their amps, if uyou chsange your speakers you just swap out the active cards to the ones for the new speaker model. And in the newer kit such as the Exaktboxes which take the linn proprietary Exakt signal from the streamer / pre stage, the Exaktbox acts as both DAC and active crossover with the crossover being selected in the configuration for the selected speaker model, the Exaktbox has multiple output for Bass, Mid and Treble for Left and right, which you send to your power amps and then to the speaker inputs. very good system if you dont mind having an all Linn system which clearly I don't and haven't since the mid 1990's. But i still learn a lot here and have been upgrading the XO's on all my passive surround speakers in my new Home Cinema, thanks to Danny's teachings. I'd love to hear his system and hear what I might be missing
We've done it both ways using the best passive and all digital filters. There are pros and cons to each, and it is easy to crush either with the other depending on implementation. It the end though, the top dogs are still using all passive filters and they are still our choice for best overall sound.
@@dannyrichie9743 Great, so the answer is something like "There is always a compromise in every single way of doing that, you have to choose which compromise fits your needs", if I understood well. Many thanks !
Besides durability it's hardly about amplifier quality anymore when there's DSP, room correction, drivers that do specific things (The rear drivers in Buchardt A500/700, the Dutch&Dutch 8c etc.) and other trickery that will leave passive systems far behind. That said I prefer passive systems myself simply because they are more fun and "good enough". That doesn't mean they're better.
We've done all of that stuff that you just said. We took a full open baffle line source with open baffle servo subs and used it as a test bed. Slopes were matched digitally to the passive filters etc. And passive filters do not steal power, and at the quality level of parts we were comparing with they do not smear the signal. There was FAR more difference in DAC's being used then anything the crossover parts were doing, and the DAC's were using the same DAC chips. We were able to get the phase between the main speaker and subs dialed in more perfectly, and at times I thought their was slightly more soundstage outside the speakers. However, the differences in DAC's were still the difference. We used the same source feeding those DAC's too. The all passive design still won out in almost all areas. The other factor was that the all digital system used a LOT more amplifiers and cables making it a LOT more expensive.
Most DSP active crossovers are mid-fi (miniDSP) or low end pro audio (Behringer, DBX) soundlkshit PC-based DSP XO, w/convolution, highend multichannel DAC is SOTA but big money and time Line level analog filters solve most of the problems you stated, like in Rythmik servo-sub amps, but setup/configuration not point and click so millenials "can't even" and they are the target audiophile market now.
There is NO reason not keeping music as long as possible in the digital domain. Passive crossovers can be very good, just like vinyl can be very good, but digital is simply a dimension better. Kii Three and others show the way this WILL go, there is simply no doubt. Why are we even talking about differences in quality in amps, differences below 0.01% where the speakers have differences going upto 10% and more. Tolerances for passive crossovers are in the range of 1-10%.
Making a lot of sense as usual, Danny. What exactly does the second order high pass look like after you’ve done what you’ve described to level out the tweeter response? I’m having trouble visualizing the circuit. Do you add a cap somewhere? Thanks!
@@dannyrichie9743 Yes I know. What I was asking was what do you do to that circuit to adjust part of the tweeter’s range like you were describing? You said you were using a small cap somewhere to bypass some of the resistance?
@@alexw890 If a resistor is used to bring down the level then it can be by-passed with a small cap to keep the top up. Resistors can also be juggled from the front of the circuit to the back to determine how active the coil in shunt is.
@@dannyrichie9743 The juggling I’ve done before and I learned that from you. You use a combination of an up front resistor and an L pad to shape the response. Thanks a lot!
The plate amps from hypex. Upgradable . The sound of direct coupling with all the filtering done digitally before the amplifiers. Yeah, you got a three way you have three amps pushing all pre filtered signal to it's assigned driver. Each driver had it's own amp and dac chip. It's sad to hear Danny say this because he's looking at old active technology. You want to do a four way design, no problem, try that with passive. You'd be a fool. Hey Danny check out what meadowlark audio it's high end you can't compete with for the price. Or check out Bamberg audio and his three way design. To me you can even come close to that for the money passively. I love both and think your missing the boat on active designs. I bet you would have a ball with the hypex fusion amps and freedom of filter design. I appreciate av conservative appeoach but you need to check out even some of the lower end hi fi systems from kef, or dynaudio. This isn't hate, i own both the system from Bamberg and passives I've built myself. Someone with your smarts will be able to build absolutely incredible actives with the fusion amps.
FIY, I have been friends with Phil Bamberg for years. He has been to my house. I even designed some upgrades for some of his speakers for one of his customers. It is possible to build a similar sounding and performing system that is all active. However, it will take four DAC's (for a four way system) and eight amp channels. At the level I play, that would be really expensive, and will gain nothing verses the passive system. You can set any dollar amount for a system that you want and I can design and build you a far better passive system than you can even come close to actively. I can spend money on a good quality DAC and amps, verses having to divide those funds towards many lesser quality DAC's and amps.
Hi Danny :-) Of course I know that you are a big advocate of passive speakers and I don't blame you for that. But I feel like you are a little biased here. I see that you compare two incomparable things and forgot about passive shortcomings. You don't sell your things with an unlimited budget, right? The price must be one of the criteria. So let's compare. Could you take about 2500 dollars and make the entire passive system in such quality so that it is as good as active or better? This should be with speakers (DIY), amplifier, DAC, DSP (to your liking - maybe Minidsp?). I bet you can't. So when you say that in the future you can change things for the better - I can do it whenever I want, or when I need to move my speakers to another room. Because I can fix some things in the room for free in a few minutes. You can't do this with passive speakers. So please dont compare best things you can do yourself with passive speaker and industrial manufactured active speaker. Becouse its not fair. I expect a question about the shortcomings of passive system.
We;ve made those comparisons. If you want to really suck the life out of the music then use a MiniDSP. $2,500 might not even cover all the cables needed for an all digital system. With an all digital system you can't even come close. You need twice as much amplification and cable for a two way speaker, and three times as many for a three way speaker.
@@dannyrichie9743 Well thats where you are wrong. I made it with my friend. Full digital system from scratch. Roughly 2300€ just couple months ago. Three way system with two Audax HMZ210Z0, one HMZ180Z18 and Vifa XT25 in wave guide - powered with Hypex FA123. Couple other friends was invited for listening, not one complained about lifeless music. Or lack of space between instruments. We are people who normally like to attend high end shows like listeners, so we know how we like music. One of my friend compared Truune (14 000€) in shop with Audax I had home and said, that sound of Truune is about 6 of 10. Audax is 10 of the 10.
@@peterpida1840 Been there done that even with a cost no object system. You can't even get close with an all digital system. I can take the extra money you are having to spend on additional amplification and cables and put that in the rest of the system to blow right past you. With the money you have to spend on a multichannel DAC I can spend it on a really good two channel DAC. That is a huge difference maker.
@@dannyrichie9743 Iam sorry I dont understand what extra money you have on your mind. I mean you cant make whole passive system for 2500 dolars to beat all digital. And the simple reason is if you divide money for Amp, DAC, DSP and passive floorstander (like we made), then you will have Amp and DAC maybe for 300 dolars each. And as we know, thats trash.
@@peterpida1840 I'm not sure where you're coming from. Let's say we are using a three way speaker. You need three times as many DAC channels, three times as many amplifiers, and three times as many cables. Even if the quality levels are the same you are spending three times as much. Dollar for dollar you can't even come close to doing it passively.
Active speakers for convenience, passive setups for more fun and flexibility if you like to try out new components, that about sums it up. Also might I add a lot of the active amps used sometimes have issues in short periods of time and are known to fizzle out and have to be replaced from what I've saw, it's up to the listener I suppose.
@@DWHarper62 I have experience with those amps and know how they sound. I also know what the differences are going to be from the upgrade before I even touch it, because I have a LOT of experience with various upgrades and parts quality. I've done this hundreds of times.
@@dannyrichie9743 You still don't know how that specific speaker with the specific amp sounds like... A human can't remember stuff they hear for more than 60 seconds...
You have a single stereo amplifier driving a passive crossover comprised of passive components exposed to high currents and voltages with all of its imperfections and distortions and you are telling us that this is a superior configuration to a multi channel DAC/Amplifier/Speaker because you are using an expensive single stereo DAC ? Somehow I don't believe that for one minute !!
So many of these Active Vs Passive speaker reviews I have seen start with a premise of one is better vs another and then set out to try to prove it, Any Way They Can.
1) Most powered speakers don't rely on or have DACs in the speakers. Just an amplifier. But the ones that do, they do tend to sound pretty good. Some even come with a microphone to calibrate the speakers to your listening environment. Just like the tuning available on most surround sound systems.
2) I don't agree with "sending bass energy" to a tweeter etc. An active crossover will always beat a passive crossover unless you spend a much much more money on the passive version. Many hi-end speakers are designed for bi-amping because its a fact that having the amplifier only have to worry about and manage the impedance shifts of it's assigned drivers is very beneficial.
3) Comparing the flaws of inexpensive active or "powered" speakers with the benefits of hi-end audio gear is just marketing to make a sale. Assume a hi-end active speaker to have an equally worthwhile amplifier matched to it. The speakers ratings and sound depend on it. Measure apples to apples. A $2000 active speaker needs to be compared to a $2000 speaker And amplifier purchase.
4) The mix and match game. If you buy a set of passive speakers with a set of curves as to it's response values, that is only for that speaker. Now lets say as an example, you have speaker with a response of +- 3db 50 hz-20Khz. And you pair it with an amplifier, which will have ratings lets say 20hz to 20Khz +-2 db. If its +2 at 100hz and the speaker is +3db at 100hz, you now have +5 db peak at 100hz. Or who knows where. Creating the game of matching your amplifier(s) to your speaker. But, if you buy an active speaker with a ratings plot. (room involvement aside) that is the rating for the amp And the speaker. Because the manufacturer has taken care of that matching. That right there is a huge cost and time savings. Allowing more money towards room treatments and things to help your room give you better sound. If you really love playing mix and match, go passive. If you want the sound the way modern musicians hear it, active speakers are what most use. And they save time in finding what works best for your space and hearing.
So yes don't buy a speaker with a built in DAC as the only input. Speakers that rely on a DAC for their crossover and frequency manipulation, will always be as they are. So yes, you get only as good as that system is.
But hey, many people still buy gear from the 70's because they like the sound better. Some people don't like the extra detail from new DACs and class D amps. It's like watching 70s porn on a 75" OLED screen. Do you benefit from really seeing the close up razor stubble your 19" tube TV hid from you?
But hey, if you have the money to let someone dittle with your speakers to try to get the extra 10% percent out of them, go for it.
Best of both worlds: active crossover (preferably dual mono) driving external high-end amps, separate for each set of drivers. Presto!
Plus, if there in separate cabinets, the cone midrange can be switched out for compression drivers with horns. A few crossover knob adjustments later & there is a whole different animal of a speaker system. Now how fun is that.🔈🔉🔊
(edit) Think of it like going from JBL L100s to Klipsh Heresys ,🤔, whenever 'ya want. It's a 2 for 1.
@@TriAmpMyFi Yes! I'm currently tri-amping a pair of Klipsch mid horns and tweeters out of a 1974 Heresy. For the midbass, a Eminence Beta 8A. Very efficient and clean up to some very high decibels.
What about the increased complexity? Multiple Cables and amps
Making a good sounding passive speaker is a challenge But it can be done
@@gino3286 Yes, active systems are more for the advanced speaker builder.
I’m going to build my own 3-way speakers and actively drive them using 3stereo power amps. Got digital and analog active crossovers.
I love building active speakers. I can use 24db crossovers that improve horizontal dispersion at the x-over point, I can match the levels of all the drivers, I can EQ each driver individually, and best of all, I can adjust the phase so that all the drivers are in phase plus time aligned.
that sure is a godsend for most people, building and designing a passive crossover is another level of price and difficulty.
but the hypex123 fusion plate amps was very noisy and it had to go :( also the amps are pretty tall and require a cabinet of its own making the speakers deep.
Kev, I think you nailed it.. passives are an uphill battle
@@dougleydorite Actually, it is very easy to do all of that with passive filters.
@@dannyrichie9743 I wish I could send you my evolution acoustics MicroOne speakers. They are passive and I’m blown away at what they can do. I’m running a more budget friendly Parasound amp into them. Since I’m in the “pro audio” side of things, active appeals to me, but it’s always a goal of mine to keep out of the gatekeeping mentality
@@sudd3660 Thats interesting. I have old AS.2100d and they are just tiny bit noisy. My friend George bought FA123 and I made for him measurements and crossover. So I did have them at my disposal for about two months till he decided to take them home. No noise from those. My other friend Mark bought FA253, no issues there. And newest but still not build project from friend Jaroslav contains FA503, which I got to chance to touch it for an hour will not have any issues Iam sure. So maybe you used that FA123 on horn speaker with 110dB/1W/1m?
Pro Audio has left passive years ago. The flexibility, dynamics, and clarity of active systems are unmatched as compared to passive.
Cheap and cheesy is bottom end no matter active or passive.
everyone lives in their own hifi bubble. And a lot of people just have also no idea because they never tried it out… The reason hifi dealers and reviewers dont review actives are not that theyre not available, its because the masses still have the mindset from the 90s. Active all the way, you get way more quality sound than same priced passives
I haven't heard the 19/20 ATC's but I did get to hear both the SCM 40 and the SCM40/A and there was a noticeable improvement in sound quality in the active version. I can't remember what amplifier was driving the passive version but it was in the €2,000 to €3,000 range, the actives had greater frequency response and clarity over the passives, reviews into both speakers also highlighted similar differences. Unfortunately I couldn't afford them but I eventually settled on Focal Trio 6 active speakers. Before I heard the ATC's I wouldn't have considered actives but doing so gave me the best sound quality for the budget I had.
Thank you for this video. I have only ever used active speakers for making music and had no idea about passive studio monitors because everyone i have ever known has used active. This has opened my mind.
Just because a system is active doesn't mean the electronics need to be fixed. My system is active but I can use any DSP unit, DACs, amps, and additional passive components I want.
Exactly!
That's true, but I was referring to active speakers rather than active systems.
@@dannyrichie9743 That's fair and you're absolutely right that most active speakers are far from great (including "high end" ones like ATC). Kii and D&D are among the best when it comes to active speakers within reason but obviously won't compete with something like a Holo May
Wow, a wealth of information. I never thought of what the rest of the spectrem of say a woofer amp or the tweeter amp on a biamped system is sending to it's driver. I have to re-think my system. I think I'll try sending my DSP results to an analogue crossover with one amplifier instead of bi-amping. I've learnt a lot from GR and never purchassed anything from him. I need to think this over. Thank you.
Active has a larger potential than passive by being able to use separate purpose built amps direct-coupled to each driver element, no caps/resistors/inductors in between. In addition, we can in some applications use Phase Linear Filters (FIR), creating a phase coherent speaker which is superior to any passive approach. However, if low quality parts or done in wrong ways, the result is of course not satisfying.
When built to the low price points that you see out there the parts quality can be nothing but poor.
I use both active & passive monitors in my studio. Your channel has so much fantastic information. Thank you!
Any relation to Rudy?
@@craigellsworth3952 Nope.
with this surname there is no other profession possible for you than working in a music studio :)
Active setups are extremely useful for seamless blind A/B crossover testing. I've never had a noise issue because my amplifiers are what I use in my passive systems. I always high pass my dome tweeters with a 20uF cap to protect from any DC thump or crossover failure which solves any low frequency noise
Software DSPs with a quality DAC have a lot of design flexibility. Notching and shaping I find typically easier with DSP over passive. Time delay is much easier in DSP than ladder delay in a passive if you are set on symmetrical slopes and a flat vertical baffle.
I've built great sounding speakers both passively and actively. I can think of equivalent pros and cons for each
I used passive speakers exclusively for the first many years of my listening life. (AV123 X-LS, pre-Encores, were my first nice speaker, and I've enjoyed a lot of Danny's designs since then, particularly the Strata Minis that I regret selling years ago). However, on pure sound quality alone, I'd put my Barefoot MM12 above anything else I've ever heard. I love ATCs and have a couple sets (active and passive) and the ATC SCM150A were excellent too, but I've yet to hear anything that bests the MM12 in pure detail and enjoyment. I love many passive speakers, but properly executed active speakers seem, almost by definition, to have a higher ceiling in terms of audio quality.
Then again, I have zero background as an EE, just a guy who loves music and audio gear.
Barefoot MM12 - looks like a ton of drivers in a very compact box & an example of what can only be achieved in an active configuration - it's a bit strange however, as I can't imagine 2x12" per side in a near field application - this is full range output that's normally a floor stander - I guess there's Augspurger.....
Active speakers are better for finite tuning and control.
Passive speakers can be as good if very tightly controlled.
You just can't beat digital precision, but some of you will argue that analog sounds better. Well, to each their own! But if you think that records and tube amps 'sound better' it's because you are used to distortion and the noise inherent to those products and it's just simply what you prefer. Ain't nothin wrong with that! Just as there ain't nothin wrong with digital perfection either! But for my nickle, fully active is the way to go....🤠
Cheers 🍻
The reason people prefer the sound of analog systems over digital or tubes over solid state has nothing (ZERO) to do with distortion.
@@dannyrichie9743:
Most of you call it 'warm' or 'richer' sounding. What it really is on an oscilloscope, is noise, distortion, and all kinds of things less than accurate to the original music or recording. High quality digital doesn't suffer from any of those issues. It is as we like to say, bit perfect!
Cheers 🍻
@@Finite-Tuning I have really high end tube amps over here that are just as fast and clean as a solid state amp. I also have solid state and chip amps. Think of power delivery of solid state as on-off, on-off, while a tube amp is more on, on and on, on.
There is also a ton of noise on digital signals. You can completely change the sound of a digital signal by changing the cable it is transmitted on. It is easily altered by noise.
@@dannyrichie9743:
I mean, yeah,,,, no contest. The very best signal and sound is always conditional, just as it is preferential. Go digital if you want total control, or go analog if you want that "warmth"...... It's just a poison, pick your own. Both will make you broke in the end! If you can smile while listening to the end result, then ya did it right. I'm not changing anybody's mind, certainly not tryin to. I'm just offering the facts as I know them.
Cheers 🍻
@@Finite-Tuning lol. so many types of circuits measure 'similar' and yet sound different. an set v a chip am for ex. i wonder if some of you have experimented much.
😎👍 Thank you 😎👍!
Thank you for keeping me safe from the "snake oil" $$ rabbit holes.
By the way, the ole upgraded Carnegie CST-1's are still shining VERY nicely with good source equipment!
You have helped me to reach a point in audio quality,... such that I am happy, and there is very little that I wish try to improve. 😎👍
I can see an argument for active during a design process, so you can dial in the perfect crossover point. And then apply that to a passive filter design.
Totally agree with your analysis : and I'll stay in the passive with a good dedicated amp side
You certainly explained why fully active speakers have not caught on with audiophiles, but a active crossover with carefully optimized filters combined with excellent amplification seems to offer real performance advantages. I like the approach that Bryston has taken with its active systems where the speakers, amps, crossover and dac are all discrete and easily upgradable components. Thank you for a very informative and thoughtful presentation.
its because audiophiles are mostly live in their own world and have no idea about well engineered actives. Most dont even have seriously room treatment but want to tell you a cable difference…
A friend of mine had a recording studio with Yamaha NS10's as his main workhorse, and that was hooked up to a rack amp. He also Alesis active monitors. For quasi mastering he had these cool looking Miller Kreisel speaker system that had a subwoofer. I asked him why most studio monitors were always active and he explained that in a small control room full of gear, small powered nearfield monitors were more convenient because you don't have an extra amp and an extra set of wires taking up space etc... He explained that for mixing, his main concern was hearing each track before and after processing (I was blown away by the fact that he relied on the VU meter more than anything else). It was educational to discover the distinction between mixing and mastering and their respective intent. My take away was that active nearfield monitors just aren't intended for home hi-fi etc... Just as a side-note, this was in the early nineties where there weren't any computers, just ADAT tape machines, and lots of racks and mixing consoles.
It's harder to fix an active speaker if something fails. I prefer passive and separate components.
Warum sollte denn überhaupt erst etwas kaputtgehen? Warum setzten wohl die pa Anwender auf aktiv?
And what about using an active system with separate components? Active doesn't mean that everything must be built in the speakercabinet.
active speaker is easy to fix just change a module or 2. if you blow an amp up its going to cost the same. passive usually is better unless you spend a fortune on high end active stuff. I like both active and passive they both have there uses.
absolutely
I'm 65 and an audio nerd for most of my life. I've gone through the whole thing, from passive to active(since I had the ilusion it had to be better) and also DIY, Today I can certify every word that Mister GR said, thank you(the realization just cost me a bit of time (years) and money). To be fair, it has to be said that there are also very good active boxes/speakers, but they come with a corresponding price tag(Neumann KH420).
difficult to beat KH420, or a genelec one speaker, or d&d 8c price wise with separate components (without DIY). At least i couldn't and got a pair of genelecs for 7k euro. Matching this quality of sound with separete components will be at least 10k.
Active speakers have the potential to be cheese free
Only if you throw a lot of money at it.
@@dannyrichie9743 And there's still no guarantee to be "cheese free"...
Also with passive filter components there is the possibility to current drive the speakers ensuring lower distortion from nonlinearities in the actual drivers. When feeding them unimpeded with a voltage any nonlinearities in the voice coils will have maximum effect on the resulting current producing the sound. A lot of people miss this fact about passives.
Also an unprotected tweeter fed by a fullrange to almost DC signal bandwidth can damage the tweeter with unintended hum and clicks/noice. I have repaired active speakers with blown tweeters because of glitching signal input connections causing hum passing directly to the tweeter.
You can do an active driver and do a true current drive or a blended drive far superior to anything you can do with a passive design.
@@robertt7238 I don’t see the point of blended drive. I think current-drive is the way to go.
Excellent insights on a topic not a whole lot of people know enough about to be objective and Informative about.
Active all the way after so many Listening sessions of self called passive High End gear from famous brands. There are way to many pros over cons when you go the Active, DSP based way. Passive crossovers are just compromises with way more flaws than actives. No passive i heard till now sounded as good and acourate as the active ones. And always the ,,con, about change the sound with other electronics (thats why its 2023 and we have HQ dsp & eqs). Switching amps and the idea to ,,upgrade,, like many passive owners do, is just a sign of dissatisfaction with the whole system for me.
Danny you make some valid points, for most home systems just go passive. Years ago I had a triamp system using Bryston crossovers and amps, I still had a passive notch filter to make it work with Focal drivers. A ton of amps and cables and a lot of money. Sold it all and got a pair of Vandersteen 5a speakers. 😊 For pro PA systems active for many good reasons.
No, he did not. Yes, a good engineered passive speaker can easily beat bad engineered bi-amp or tri-amp system. However, good engineered tri-amp system will always triumph over passive system. The main problem here is the market demand. For the engineering point, it is extremely easy to implement variable active crossover in DSP section of a receiver and provide bi-amp and tri-amp speaker out and it cost almost nothing extra for the manufacturer. Having said that, I don't think it will happen in foreseeable feature as this will create confusion for the majority of the population.
Danny I don't find you to be typically biased, but I think you are unnecessarily biased towards passive crossovers. I have been running active for over 10 years but I don't have some cheap active speakers. You have upgraded the active crossover but you haven't similarly upgraded the active system to give it chance to out shine the passive once more. All of the configuration you are saying isn't available to active is available. Having active circuitry built into the speaker isn't the typical way that people do an active system, at least not anyone serious about active.
You have a choice of high end active crossovers with quality DACs (mine uses something like 8 Burr Brown DACs), granted anything half decent is going to cost you very close to 5 figures by itself, and add a decent multichannel amplifier/s and you are definitely now well over 5 figures. So you can't compare what I am using with some budget active speaker. Nothing stops me swapping out interconnects, DAC, amplifier or speaker cables. So there is plenty of configuration options.
Using the same amplifier on both active and passive you still have the advantage of the signal is given it's signal range before it is amplified which will give you a cleaner sound, since no amp is designed to be equally effective across all frequencies. On to of which you have a lot more channels with active so you have a lot more amplifier headroom per driver, which means that same amplifier isn't being driven as hard if it is only powering one driver.
I am not against active systems. Technically our top level systems can be considered active, but we go at it a little differently. We only make the split to separate amps where it really matters and that's down low. I shot a video on it: th-cam.com/video/908BWw1Bx4U/w-d-xo.html
@@dannyrichie9743 I re-watched that video to work out the particular point you are making, and by the way the was a great explanation video. However some of the deficiency you speak of are very case specific. Where you were saying one set of binding posts are better than two, well I am using zero sets of binding posts (your intense dislike of cheesy binding posts is well known). One of the benefits of a separate amp per driver is that you don't need to have any binding posts at all (no binding post equal zero loss at the connection point that isn't there), I go straight from the amp to the driver (soldered connections), you also have the option of amplifying to suit the specific driver i.e. you might want a tube amp on the tweeter, but want a Class D on the woofer.
Now I am not going to try and BS you by telling you that active is a cheaper solution, it rarely is for equal quality, but if you have dollars to spend (and I did at the time, I had lots of them, and no wife) I see real benefits over passive. In the video you use a high pass filter to split the amplified output signal, and while this is a great way to split off a signal to the sub as you described in the video it isn't without its own problems to solve.
Whether it is a separate sub or an additional woofer inside the cabinet, you are still adding an additional component to the crossover which from my limited understanding of passive crossovers is still going to ultimately influence the overall crossover in the cabinet (just a geography thing). Most of us out there in stereo land couldn't even start to fathom what impact that might have from a performance stand point on the rest of the system. decades ago I wrote a software program to design crossovers, but that still gives you nothing more than a starting point, it takes your level of experience to know where to go from there.
Active simplifies things for the "novice" like me. You are sending only that frequency to the driver. All of the crossover slopes, filters etc etc can be applied quickly in the software to evaluate changes without a large amount of time in between listening tests. While I believe it may be possible for a quality passive crossover to sound better than an active setup, it certainly won't be performed by the novice or even intermediate user.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering Having an amp connected directly to the drivers does have advantages. So I am with you on that.
Actually when splitting the signal to the sub and main speakers using an inline passive filter installed prior to the amps only uses a very small value cap as a filter. So that cap can be very high quality and very transparent. So no other high pass filter is needed in the speaker. That cap filters out the lower region very cleanly. So it does not affect the rest of the parts used in the passive part of the filter.
"While I believe it may be possible for a quality passive crossover to sound better than an active setup, it certainly won't be performed by the novice or even intermediate user."
That is true.
@@dannyrichie9743 sorry I wasn't very clear about this "That cap filters out the lower region very cleanly. So it does not affect the rest of the parts used in the passive part of the filter." what I meant by effecting "quality", that was a poor choice of words on my behalf. What I mean was by having the cap in line with an existing crossover, it would have to some degree (how much I don't know) effect the crossover values upstream of the inline filter. Which in turn might have undesirable effects i.e. alter crossover points slightly which leads to a poorer performance.
@@DodgyBrothersEngineering The inline filter used before the amp does not effect the crossover parts used after the amp.
I am running a 4 way active setup with Parasound amps. -3 db in room is 18 hz. I am using 2 RSS210HO 8" Dayton woofers per side. At 200 hz a Purifi 6.5" midrange takes over. At 1khz a 2" dome midrange from Tang Band and 4khz to a Fountek ribbon for now. Want to try a Burilium dome next.not impressed with the ribbon.
Hello there I e been playing with speakers since grade 5 , I have gone down a little different path .it started at car audio in the 90s .got my first rta then made one of my car systems totally flat as per rta , pushed a cd in and yuuuk it really hurt .then made a lot of home audio ,and now I’m in the pro audio and a lot more yuuuk especially with active and plastic boxes . So I’ve been. Building wood boxes with high power custom crossovers they sound great . Most people don’t know good sound until they hear it .oh well just wanted to say hi keep up the good work .
Moore’s law hit the wall 7-10 yrs ago. My best sounding pc used a 2 ghz Pentium 4 single core cpu but was lost in a fire.
My best DAC was a Pooge 5 Phillips 960 with a Phillips 1541 Crown DAC chip, also lost. BUT, I’ve not heard the Denafrips R2R type newer dacs.
In my opinion, hi end speakers should have another set of inputs which bypass the passive crossover to allow active amplification.
imagine the # of warranty claims and bad reviews from people hooking them up wrong and popping the mids/highs.
That’s probably one reason active speakers with no inbuilt amps have not caught on. Should be sold with all liability on consumer. Is that allowed?
Another great vid. I got passive-active speakers, yep. Last week after lots of research, I got Klipsch R-41PM's for $300 - Now, I can listen to GR-Research vids in great near-field HiFi. Great imaging, yeah - when I open my eyes, I see Danny front and center on my computer monitor. Kidding aside, these little Klipsch's sound great for near-field listening of you-tube music videos without having to power up my Parasound separates and worry about rumbling through the walls of this condo with my B&W towers. Also, when I send the passive side of the little Klipsch for a crossover upgrade, the shipping will not break my piggybank. Thanks again Danny for the insights.
I would like to have seen a “before” curve that Danny always shows when he performs crossover redesigns. I suspect the original actives was flatter that the passive redesign, which is an advantage of active designs. The “unwanted” frequencies Danny talks about, IF present are 80+ dB down from the normal signal and are simply a non issue. I’ve designed passive & active. Both can be excellent, both can be bad. An active system removes everything between the amplifier output and the speaker voice coil, so amplifier damping is optimal. When designing passive crossovers, the differences in one driver to the next matter greatly and can alter the response, so one speaker may not sound like the other. That’s why John Dunlavy tested every driver and carefully matched them to within 0.5dB. Then he tailored the crossovers for flat overall response.
With active designs, variations from one driver to the next don’t affect the crossover point and therefore minimizes any effect in the sound.
This thing was sent in because it had a dead amp. So no "before" measurements were taken. From experience though, just because a speaker is active doesn't mean it has a more accurate response.
@@dannyrichie9743 But you don't know in this case because you did no measurements...
@@DWHarper62 It is not just about the measurements. In this case the quality of the electronics and amplifier were also holding this model back.
@@dannyrichie9743 And yet without the amp working you don't know what that quality is in measurement...
@@DWHarper62 The quality isn't just seen in a measurement. A measurement will only show output level over frequency. It won't show the truncation of detail, lower resolution, less space between notes, poor imaging, and flat sound stage caused by the budget level filters and amp used in the production model.
I put the same question to Michael Borresen. He said Active has no advantage over passive if the passive is done right.
what else should he say as an passive manufacture ? the thing is, passive isnt done right in many many speakers, because the parts are bad or and when you want quality, you spend double the money like an active. A active system for 15k outperform any passive system for that pricetag because youve way more control (via dsp) what exactly happens
This just boils down to "you get what you pay for". Some active speakers now cost thousands and you can be sure that the top end ATCs, PMCs, PSI audio and a whole host of other manufacturers aren't using the level of parts available that were available 20 years ago. However these speakers have a hefty price tag and I would suggest that newly designed passive in this case offers some significant cost saving advantages over either older active models or more budget level active equipment. Perhaps these older ATCs are still a better buy than some newer low-mid priced speakers.
Danny’s discussion about quality of parts matters and the rejoinders in some comments reminds me of an ad that was run years ago…
“Parts is Parts. Right?”
😂
I just like to see the impressive internals of ATC.
I shot a few videos showing those internals already.
Of course he has to pick a 20 year old active speaker(and strategically not tell you the model) because he knows especially within the past 5 years active DSP speakers with individually amped drivers offer huge technical superiorities over passive. In the future when built in room correction becomes affordable passive wont make much sense. Companies still like SELLING passives because they are much more profitable. Emotiva for example used to charge $300-$400 for an active DSP set and about $50 less for the passive set.
Actually the opposite is true. The latest DSP based speakers offer a huge amount of flexibility, but overall performance (on average) is very poor. They tend to be flat (flat soundstage) lifeless sounding speakers. Please bring over the $300 to $400 Emotiva active speakers and compare them to one of our passive speakers in the same price range. It will be like comparing and old Chevy Chevet to a new Corvette.
@@dannyrichie9743 you'd need to compare the $400 actives to $200 passives fed by a $200 amplifier, to be price fair. I'm not saying the actives will win, just that comparing $400 passives fed by a $2000 amplifier, to $400 actives is not a fair comparison. Now, the ability to improve the cheap passives by adding a top-end amplifier is a huge bonus compared to the locked-in, can't ever upgrade without replacing, actives. Which is a point you made very clear in the video.
@@dannyrichie9743:
Agreed, to a finite point. I Just want to offer a perspective here, something I keep reading from almost everybody. The whole damn world it seems is stuck on live room dead room acoustics. Then in the same breath and sentence everybody wants to talk about sound stage and accurate reproduction. It's one or the other and 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 be both!
If you want to talk about accuracy then you cannot be adding your room into the mix and calling it an accurate reproduction. The closet you will ever realistically get to accurate musical reproduction is with headphones. Once you add the reverb from every 'non-anechoic' room on this planet, now it's something else entirely.
Sound stage as mixed as intended, or sound stage within your room?
Accuracy as mixed as intended, or as accurate as you can get in your room? It's apples and oranges, but it is 'not' both! For accuracy in either case, you want to be a whole lot closer to anechoic than further from it.
Cheers 🍻
Active speaker fans can be counted on to claim technical superiority. What does that mean? How is it measured? I can design an overly complex product packed with bleeding edge technology that will fail in short order and then function as a nice door stop. The more functionality included in a single package always means many compromises have to be made. If you want minimal or zero compromises the cost goes up exponentially.
Interesting that the low frequency driver had no shield to contain the magnetic field of that huge magnet. A claimed to be 20 year old speaker is no excuse. Maxwell's equations have been around quite a bit longer.
I have a pair of active Focal Trio 11be speakers. Best system I have ever heard by far. I don't imagine there is an amp/system/speaker package out there that can sound better.
You are only scratching the surface.
@@dannyrichie9743 I don't doubt you. I definitely see and respect your expertise. But have you seen/heard these things? $8000 per pair and they are Focal's top of the line for pro studios.
@@BrianDRidgway Yes sir. We even have more Focal speakers in house for upgrades right now.
Honestly, every speaker we offer (used with good electronics) will eat them up, including our budget level desktop speakers like the LGK 2.1. Our actual NX Studio Monitors are in a different league all together.
I bought the Adam Audio S3V because upgrading passive speakers is actually a lot of work (for me). Yes, Danny's upgrade took my B&W speakers to a whole new level (it was amazing, actually), but I didn't want to repeat that process for a main system in my living room. And yes, these Adam monitors do sound lifeless out of the box, but I have two apps that I use on my smartphone- Poweramp Equalizer and Dolby Atmos (virtual surround), the latter of which "juices up" the sound and makes it sound more analog. On some songs, it does nothing. That being said, I do want to someday upgrade a more high- end set of passive speakers to see if I can best the Adams. BTW- I've read that your Be 11 speakers sound even better than the Adams. Both these active speakers, however, are priced too high for many listeners.
@@abboberg We've got models that will blow right past them whenever you're ready.
A nice summary of the limitations of active speakers, but why do you think that active can't be upgraded? Of course they can, just like you upgrade passive speakers, you have to go inside and replace the electronics.
That's true.
and now the same limitations of passive concepts and we're right at the start : sound is just own everyones opinion and taste....
That Amir guy over at ASR has built an ARMY of SINAD followers regarding amps and DACs…yet doesn’t publish SINAD on the studio monitor amps…which are likely garbage by his own standards.
@@joonas4427 even people with poor hearing should be able to hear the hiss, even if they can’t hear or recognize the IMD causing brightness. I can normally hear both.
@@joonas4427 The issue is mostly the ASR community’s reliance on SINAD, yet disregarding low SINAD on the studio monitors they elevate.
@@joonas4427 i’m one of those people who can tell differences between amps. If you can’t no worries you can save money 😉
The only active digital crossover speaker I've used is the NOCS NS2 (Version 2). I think they're really good, despite being kind of old. I'm pretty sure you couldn't make a passive crossover that could fit in those little speakers and have it sound as good. Mmm. I've been itching to set those things up again. They for sure made me curious about active vs passive. At the time, I thought it would be fun to buy some random digital crossover monitors, 4 of them, and have Danny mod a pair of them to be passive. Then do listening comparisons between the stock ones and the passive ones.
We've made those comparisons. We took a full open baffle line source with open baffle servo subs and used it as a test bed. Slopes were matched digitally to the passive filters etc.
And passive filters do not steal power, and at the quality level of parts we were comparing with they do not smear the signal. There was FAR more difference in DAC's being used then anything the crossover parts were doing, and the DAC's were using the same DAC chips.
We were able to get the phase between the main speaker and subs dialed in more perfectly, and at times I thought their was slightly more soundstage outside the speakers. However, the differences in DAC's were still the difference. We used the same source feeding those DAC's too. The all passive design still won out in almost all areas.
The other factor was that the all digital system used a LOT more amplifiers and cables making it a LOT more expensive.
@@dannyrichie9743 Yes, I know. I was merely saying "It would be fun".
Yes, sounds you are stuck in the speaker (as if everything should be in that box.)
When having a full active system with external different amplifiers and DACs and you're not stuck at all and no drawbacks that you are mentioning.
We remove that passive crossover that is the stupidest place to place a crossover if not you just want convince.
But convince trumps most of the time. Convince is not sound quality they don't go hand in hand.
When having a crossover AFTER we have made power amplifing. Then we must use huge passive components (caps, resistors and coils).
Those components is between the power amplifier AND the driver. Stealing power, smearing and hindering the power amplifier to fully use it's damping factor and control the drivers.
But if you have a DSP and fix the crossover in the low power domain it is more efficient and wiser. Yes you have a point if we put everything in the loudspeaker..
The down side is that we have to do the job as Danny does by determine where what and how much the crossovers should be.
There is where the convince come into play. It is easier and more convinent to just by a passive speaker and be done with it..
But you don't learn and you miss out performance. Plus it is not optimized for your specific room and not your listening levels.
So a separate DSP box that does all that Dany does in the passive domain and are also able to do SO much more than that (that also bring the sound quality to a untouchable level of performance that no passive crossover can match at any price.) And connect it to two separate power amplifiers if it is a 2 way. One for each driver. Then connect them to each of the drivers.
That will bring superior quality and learnings for the audiophile.
Plus adjustable on the fly depending on YOUR specific listening preferences (and not speaker designers) plus depending on listening levels. And on top of that that also leaves the passive crossover in the dust! Acustically adjust for your specific room and speaker placement (yes the passive crossover can't never offering us that.)
But it is not convenient setup but the best of the best sound quality wise.
That is also why the most expensive speakers have passive crossovers. When Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett buying a HiFi system they have not the interest and passion like a audiophile to learn and make a perfect sounding system. They just point on the most expensive speakers and amplifiers and someone set the system up for them convinent and they're done.
And it is convenient and third best option to by a speaker from Danny and just start enjoying the music but it is not the "best" that those speakers can sound in your room. But you got there with low effort.👍
We've done all of that stuff that you just said. We took a full open baffle line source with open baffle servo subs and used it as a test bed. Slopes were matched digitally to the passive filters etc.
And passive filters do not steal power, and at the quality level of parts we were comparing with they do not smear the signal. There was FAR more difference in DAC's being used then anything the crossover parts were doing, and the DAC's were using the same DAC chips.
We were able to get the phase between the main speaker and subs dialed in more perfectly, and at times I thought their was slightly more soundstage outside the speakers. However, the differences in DAC's were still the difference. We used the same source feeding those DAC's too. The all passive design still won out in almost all areas.
The other factor was that the all digital system used a LOT more amplifiers and cables making it a LOT more expensive.
would really like to know your thoughts on a passive biamp set?
Linn active stuff sounds great, if you know what your doing you can upgrade as the years roll on. plenty of parts on the second hand market and you can have fun upgrading your speakers.
passive stuff is all great too, just play around and have fun.
But don't you think at some point elertonics will get so good a passive system will become obsolete? will it not get to the point the passive systems will become an obstacle to the signal path? Servo bass systems are already surpassing passive bass systems for example.
Thumbs up for Dannys mains cables they certainly improved the sound from my fully active speakers. 😂
for the most part i do agree with Danny, passive is just cheaper and usually better results. i've had fun with this active stuff too especially the modular stuff.
Really appreciated the explanation with the fact distortions in the signals path will travel throughout the circuit to all speakers attached to the crossover. Speaking as an Engineer; I wish these factors were common knowledge.
Thanks Danny!
I've always had a dream of a purely digital stereo system - including digital components (equalizer, surround sound processor, etc), feeding a class D amplifier the digital signal with no DAC whatsoever.
Danny my good man,the short hair and close cropped beard are top notch 👍
When my KEF Wireless II dies in a few years, I wonder if I could transform it into a pair of LS50 Metas.
great video :)
i tried active speakers, and the only active i could get to work without noise or other drawbacks was subwoofers.
in the end i went with a hybrid approach, dsp preamp into two dac's into two power amps. subwoofers are woofers in a box, mains are 2 way passive with crossover.
best of both worlds and no drawbacks i can hear myself. with full parametric eq and time delay between speakers.
Why dsp preamp?
@@TD05SSLegacy it what worked best for my needs, i only have digital sources, the unit is small, and it does so many things. its a minidsp SHD studio.
i can not imagine where to put a normal preamp now.
Danny you know I love you and your channel but to be fair crossover components are your baby do you ever design ones for active speakers?
Big fan of Yamaha seeing I've never seen another manufacturer have a sound reference manual.. or another manufacturer that builds quality music instruments. Yamaha FTW !!, i like how Danny makes the obvious known, the speaker will only perform up to the amps capabilities, furthermore it will only sound as good as the initial recording equipment the track was recorded through. - Surry Virginia
For as many low end powered monitors there are many mid and high end, this includes the amps and DACs built in, so the argument about components is rarely applicable dollar to dollar. As for the filters, it's a design goal and with active you can push the system up to the point where you shouldn't, you can't do that with a passive crossover. It's just not one is better solution unless you're just looking to mass market your speakers.
How does a DAC that has inaudible noise and thd get outdated? I really wish you wouldn't make these absolute statements that are not.
@@scottcoleman5355 The quality of DAC's change just like computers. It is easy for them to become dated and surpassed by new models for less money. And it isn't just about noise and THD. There are a LOT of factors in how the data is handled and converted that can make huge differences.
@@dannyrichie9743 my point was to how do you improve on something that is inaudible? Not that I don't like the latest, but somethings are just mature as a science..
@@scottcoleman5355 Every aspect of a DAC and how they operate has a ton of variables that effect how it sounds. Jitter filters, how the op amp is biased, how clean the power is, The USB cable, SPDIF verses I2S direct, analog stages.... All audible differences.
@@dannyrichie9743 I agree with all of those factors but my argument remains the same. When you have a product that is currently perfect, how do you improve on that? I mean if a unit measures well with no audible noise, distortion, thd, and "sounds" perfect how is that improved upon? DACs are mature and unless we find a way of improving human hearing, a well designed DAC isn't going to toppled by a product that is just improving on things that are not audible and have zero effect on the sound. I'd be more then happy to do an abx with my current DAC with a DAC of your chosing each year and see if is detectable. Make it like an annual GTG, and do a couple of other things..
If implemented well, a passive crossover can help to provide a good sound from a capable loudspeaker. However the design of any passive crossover is, by its very nature, fundamentally limited and it can only act as a rather basic filter. Large capacitors, inductors and resistors combine to remove unwanted frequencies from each frequency band of the large loudspeaker-level signal in order to ensure the signal is suitable for the drive unit. Passive crossovers can therefore only ever give out a lesser signal than is put in, since each crossover absorbs - or worse, sometimes reflects back into the power amplifier - the parts of the signal that it filters out. Most of the energy that is prevented, by the passive crossover, from reaching the loudspeaker drive units is expended by the amplifier as heat. This inherent inefficiency can mean that, for some loudspeakers, a third or more of the power produced by the amplifier is wasted by the crossover. With the amplifier working much harder than is necessary, this greatly reduces the level of control that it has over the drive unit, adversely affecting the system performance. There is also the problem of the passive filter being connected between the amplifier and the drive unit. This means that the signal is impeded - an effect that is particularly prevalent with the bass signal. Another difficulty arises with the layout of the crossover: physical proximity of components to each other and to other metallic parts can lead to crosstalk (signal leakage from one part of the circuitry to another) and other unwanted effects, again compromising the performance. Since higher volume levels tend to exacerbate all the above problems, when a passive crossover is used, accuracy and power are limited and signal integrity is likely to be compromised.
All those points are valid, but mainly apply at lower bass frequency. Which is why the open baffle subs sold by Danny use active crossovers. The power levels at the mid to tweeter level are way lower, so the effects are less. Different solutions for different frequencies.
"a third or more of the power produced by the amplifier is wasted by the crossover."
This is not correct at all, and easy to demonstrate. I can measure the output of a woofer played full range with no crossover and then with a passive filter. The only reduction in output form the filter comes in the form of the DRC of the inductor used. That is typically fractions of an ohm. So very little is lost.
Also the slight rise in impedance doesn't make the amplifier work harder. Lower impedances demand more current and make the amplifier work harder. So technically the amp can be seen to work harder with no filter.
Resistors (and other elements with resistance) oppose the flow of electric current; therefore, electrical energy is required to push current through the resistance. This electrical energy is dissipated, heating the resistor in the process.
This inherent inefficiency can mean that, for "SOME" loudspeakers, a third or more of the power produced by the amplifier is wasted by the crossover.
Getting into the musical merits of a well implemented fully activated loudspeaker with a person that makes his living selling passive networks via his TH-cam channel is never going to be fun to do.
I never heard a plate amp that I liked. I'll never go there again. I want the flexibility to choose my amplifiers.
That's also possible when you go "active". An external electronic crossover (or digital loudspeaker management system) combined with amplifiers you choose, is even more flexible.
I wonder if Danny has ever thought of creating active versions of his NX range
Technically the NX-Otica and NX-Treme are an active design as the lower ranges are sent to a separate amp to drive separate woofers.
atc or psi are special actives... they dont have dac and are full analog. Another thing is genelec, kii tree, d&d... all digital there.
Active done right can be better regarding xover and phase and getting more bass in small volume.
Will be pretty difficult to find a proper passive match (quality and price) even to actual actives like those from buchard, kef or dynaudio.
What would have been interesting is to upgrade the active filter with the same budget as the passive one and compare; not apple to apple in his video.
In all fairness, Danny finds cheesy parts in most passive speakers, too. He has opened many people's eyes to the quality of crossover parts. However, many people lack the time, patience, or ability to modify passive crossovers or build active speakers. What is my point? Whether you decide to go with passive or active speakers, do your homework first. Ask the manufacturers questions about crossover parts/points/slopes, driver materials, cabinet bracing/damping, amps, sensitivity, impedance, radiation pattern, bass response, etc. If they won't answer, walk away.
So, as an veteran audiophile and a hifi enthusiast I’ve followed your channel for some time. I’ve warmed to your attitude and grown to respect your opinion. What are your views on bi-amping? I currently have the Denafrips Venus DAC at the heart of my digital system. The DAC is connected to a pre-amp and 2 monoblocks, driving a substantial pair of premium 3-way floorstanders, augmented by a pair of subs. The low frequency drivers in my floorstanders cross over to the mid range driver at 400hz and the mid-range driver, hands over to the high frequency drivers at 2.9khz. I’m contemplating investing in a 2nd pair of monoblocks to bi-amp my floorstanders. I’d be interested in your thoughts and advice.
I shot a video on that subject: th-cam.com/video/908BWw1Bx4U/w-d-xo.html
Seems a shame to compare active vs passive crossovers with only a powered and active design built to a price point. It would be great to discuss the potential of each implementation. A comparison with a good speaker, with identical external power amps comparing only passive vs active crossver implementations where all other elements in the chain are equal. Active crossover design doesn't mean it has to be an all in one box speaker system. Removing any components between the amp and drivers with a digital crossover presumably would have advantages over passive? Yes more Dacs, Power amps, complexity and cost but it would be great to hear GRs view on the ultimate implementation of a speaker system.
That would require admitting that active done correctly is going to be vastly superior and active can do thing that passive never can.
Yes, let's ignore the $1000, $2000, + amplifier hooked up to the passive speaker and compare an active speaker that total is that price. Bloody hell.
I have an active tower resto project sitting on the back burner. Nice pair of Altecs from the late 80's. Whats quirky is that they employ passive x-overs backed by pot controlled op-amps for each driver. Would one consider this design "semi-active" ?
Danny great content as ever, u r truly visionary, u know ur shit thats for sure , i would willingly buy one of your speaker builds but im poor as a church mouse , an i just can.t scale those heights, ...
I don't think people understood you Danny. In the biamped system the amplifiers are running full out and sending every hum, distortion etc. to the driver. Analogue wont let these artifacts pass through. Big news to me because I've been having so much trouble with Phase shift or something throughout the entire range. Harmonics from the other driver are ramped throughout the upper and lower spectrum. When you get if nailed it's wonderful,,, but change one thing and it's gone. I think what Danny has come up with may be the problem.
PLEASE don't throw in DSP speakers in with Active speakers. They are not the same! I spent the better part of 34 years in studio work. For the longest time, I did not have active speakers, but did travel with passives, but used the amps installed in the studios. Amp/speaker combinations are thing, as you well know. I finally purchased a non-dsp'ed version of active speakers so I had a consistent listening setup no matter where I went. After retiring from that part of the industry, but still doing an odd gig here and there, I got rid of them. Well, did a gig at the Rose Bowl, which meant hauling up a really heavy amp with heatsinks tearing up my arms, up multiple elevators, with a pair of passive 2-ways. There, in a nutshell is why the Pro side of things uses actives. Ken Kantor built a pair of actives at NHT Pro with the amp and adjustments in its own case. Great idea. Didn't do well in the pro world. So, because of that, I invested in a pair of active monitors again, this time with dsp. Are they the last word in resolution? No. Can I hear what I need to make wise mixing decisions? You bet. That said, I do plan on buying another pair of active monitors, no dsp, no cheesy amps, and wise parts choices. Do I have other stuff I can listen to? Sure, but I'm sure you wouldn't like how they were designed for some reason (Dunlavy).
I enjoy your channel, and watch often, it's just when you come pre-bent on something that drives me nuts. Wish you well, and a bit jealous of you running track again. I'm much older than you but I may have to get back into training to hit the Senior tour. LOL
I actually spent a day with John Dunlavy at his facility. He was the nicest guy. I really liked his speakers. I have also upgrade a bunch of them, but no redesigns. He designed them well. It has always been a parts upgrade.
Even with DSP based systems it can be a lot more expensive to go that route and reach the same performance levels reached with standard passive filters and high end gear.
FIY, indoor track season has started. I have four meets coming up in the next few months including world championships in Poland.
@@dannyrichie9743 Never had the chance to run in any indoor track meets. Back in the day, I'd have loved to "take on the pad" at the end of a sprint. Not so excited to do that after a crash cycling and busting up my elbow, and the surgery that followed. LOL
John Dunlavy was a great guy. So sad to see his company sold and destroyed. A smart guy, for sure. I'm not a dsp kinda guy, event though I purchased something that was extreme value for what I needed. It fits the bill well. Kind of a disposable system as far as length of life. I'd take these 3-ways over a comparable Elac.
I remember when Meridian was doing dsp stuff back, what, the early 1990s? Maybe a little later than that. Even back then, I'm thinking, man, there is so much left to learn about the digital world to be spending that kind of money for a given product, and it was pricey back then. Same mindset as buying active speakers with builtin BlueTooth. No thanks. That said, I'm not afraid to purchase a well-designed, active (non-dsp) powered monitor. There's been some great stuff made over the years, and, to be honest, I'm at a point in my life that it's more about the music than anything else. I'm sure my wife would LOVE for me to dump at least some of the 7 sets of speakers and several amps, and gain one of our bedrooms back. 🙂
Have a great track season!!
I'v been listening a lot at your stories and word but what I missed, it can be I just missed it , but what about speaker cables?
I am just now involved in it again and it makes so much the sound that I wonder how is it to judge a speaker where do you start? Can you tell us in a perhaps new video about speaker cables and its influence and responsibility? Greetings from the Netherlands, Onno Nugteren.
I will add that to a list of new videos. It will be a good follow up for the blind cable comparison challenge I just took.
@@dannyrichie9743 Oh that would be great! :-) I'm curious about your opinion. And also where to start, how do you judge where 'problems' are? Greetings again.
@@onnonugteren2935 Keep watching.
i wonder how good they can make the krk rokits
Great explanation Danny.👍🏻👌🏻
I grew up in the UK 🇬🇧 so my love for ⚽️
Is in my blood.
We went to many Rugby games also.
Thanks 👌🏻👍🏻⚽️
Likewise. I have been playing Soccer (football) since 3rd grade. I love it.
@Danny Richie by the way much Respect Danny for what you bring us.
@@dannyrichie9743 Danny you are the Messi of audio :D
Hey Danny, my Pedest'ale Tower speakers are sounding great. I want to use upgrade components on the crossovers.
I can provide that for you. Just give us a call.
What if one uses an active setup with the 5:34 electronics being external?
Are there the same problems with an analog active crossover that is connected upstream of the power amplifier?
You're talking about active crossovers that are implemented via DSP, right?
Both have pros and cons.
We don't really have to take this guy seriously do we?
Let me guess, he probably makes his living with passive filters right?... :-
)
The "pros" don't believe any of this, nor can they hear it. And the trend isn't only powered speakers but with DSP (ADCs and DACs for analogue inputs). For my computer, I tried a HEDD Type 5, MK II. It had detail but very high digital distortion. Again, the pros love this and jumped on me for my criticisms. So I bought a used pair of discontinue HEDD Type 5s (no DSP), which are very good and have no digital sound. My next move is to get an amp and ELAC Vela 403s.
Danny, Love what you do. I'm curious what the mindsp hd version does with regards to making music lifeless. Can you explain more? I'm not questioning it doing so just want to know what I'm missing if I use one.
The power supply, D/A converter, and analog output stage is fairly poor.
I saw a yowie once and was a like a redish brown wood case single standing with a sub at the bottom with 2 speakers above but 2 tweeters in the middle, what
People spend a fortune on speaker cables and risers to stop the soundwaves from causing distortion from vibrations. Electronics manufacturers spend a fortune on sound deadening their cabinets and circuit boards.
Now throw all that away and cram everything into the cabinet where the sound wave is greatest?
What am I missing?
Cramming all of that inside a speaker does create a whole new level of issues to deal with. Changes in internal cabinet pressures and vibrations are clearly one of them.
Love my active Emotiva Stealth 8 monitors, but I’m curious what would need to be done should I want to make them passive. Without the original DSP I assume it would sound awful. Would Dirac sort that out?
We've designed upgrade for their passive models. Those are easy to surpass.
So there is no advantages working at line level with active for the crossover?
There are some advantages. There are pros and cons to gone both ways.
I currently am using atc 45a pro monitors in my studio. The model he's using is quite old, I'm wondering if atc's current models eliminate the Unwanted frequencies in the amps that Danny mentioned since I've never noticed any extraneous noises on them? I wish ATC would chime in on this.
Of course it does. Active is the future is audio.
ATC makes nice products, but you will always get better sound from their passive models and using high end gear than using their active models.
@@Phloored All active solutions are the future of mass produced audio systems. They are the fast food of the audio industry.
What's the take-away from this video? That throwing a lot more money at the external amplification of a speaker designed to be active than what was built in can improve it? Bottom line is, a well designed active speaker will in most cases be better than separates at the same price point. And this is a consideration for audiophiles only, in the pro market where most high quality actives belong it is a non-issue.
@@gaborozorai3714 Going all active comes with its own set of bottlenecks and limitations. So much so that it is typically avoiding in high end audio.
Active all the way.
No way.
“A simple question might be, with all the fuss over speaker wire, how could a lot of wire (as in air core inductors used for crossovers) and a collection of lossy parts (such as resistors) be a path to improve loudspeaker performance over a direct wire between speaker and amp with nothing in between?”
The problem is all of the disruption to the signal and high noise levels created by the electronics used to split the signals. There is no free lunch.
@@dannyrichie9743 I’ve seen a lot of complaints from people buying $10k active speakers and one of them will have a buzzing sound. Having subtle noise in actives seems like a problem still
@@dougleydorite Yes it is.
@@dannyrichie9743 have you considered active speakers that have an external “amp pack”?
Sorry I'm not familiar with the "hand height" rating format for speakers. Can you be more specific about each hand height please.
Next time I'll use a 0 to 10 scaled system for you.
@@dannyrichie9743 I prefer a number of bananas, actually.
Thank you. thank you. for telling the truth.
Hi Danny, when the new line of speakers are coming out ?
Old school models? We're close.
@@dannyrichie9743 Yes !!!
Worse: When those plate amps fail - good luck finding something to replace it with.
I would only do actives with a plan that they will fail and don’t be emotionally attached to them
What’s interesting is that in the car audio world - a cheap pioneer deck for $150 has built in time alignment dsp parametric 3 sets of line outs - basically a great amount of adjustment available and then you pair whatever you want for amplification - so one dedicated amp channel per driver no exceptions and no passive x-overs are needed…
It’s interesting that the car audio world has solved many of the issues the home audio world will only solve at 10-100x the cost…
Just go browse some nice RF car audio amps…
How can that apply in regards to a subwoofer? Do they need a higher quality plate amp as well or better as passive?
Good question. All all active subwoofer gives a huge amount of flexibility with separate controls for everything.
Normally you never talk about the quality of amplification. You rely on the measurements of a passive speaker and design a new filter for better measurements and much more "clarity"
But what amplifier do you use to test the sound quality and can every amplifier handle the possible complexity of your new design?
In the beginning of this video you make clear that this active system with the cheap built in amplifier sounds better compared to the same system with a passive filter and a cheap amplifier. So I think a good sound quality is easier (and cheaper) to realize with an active system. Isn't it?
Good quality is much more expensive to reach when done all active.
I also have a ton of amplifiers in house right now. I may have Ron come over soon and do an amplifier shoot out just for fun.
I would love to see an amplifier shootout from you! I have come to respect your insight tremendously.
Unshaved danny is manly
Thanks a lot for this video Danny,
I've always wondered, Is it possible to create a system made two Speakers, but instead of having the crossover inside the speakers, build it outside BETWEEN a Preamp and One amp per Speaker (Let's say a 3 way design, so 6 Monobloc Amps, no need to be utterly powerful, just great quality stuff), as I've always heard it sounds better to have main amplification AFTER the Crossover, Is it true ? Can you explain if I'm totally wrong ? Haha
Cheers !
Linn does this in a way. for years theyve offered specific crossover cards for each speaker model which are installed in their amps, if uyou chsange your speakers you just swap out the active cards to the ones for the new speaker model. And in the newer kit such as the Exaktboxes which take the linn proprietary Exakt signal from the streamer / pre stage, the Exaktbox acts as both DAC and active crossover with the crossover being selected in the configuration for the selected speaker model, the Exaktbox has multiple output for Bass, Mid and Treble for Left and right, which you send to your power amps and then to the speaker inputs. very good system if you dont mind having an all Linn system which clearly I don't and haven't since the mid 1990's. But i still learn a lot here and have been upgrading the XO's on all my passive surround speakers in my new Home Cinema, thanks to Danny's teachings. I'd love to hear his system and hear what I might be missing
We've done it both ways using the best passive and all digital filters. There are pros and cons to each, and it is easy to crush either with the other depending on implementation. It the end though, the top dogs are still using all passive filters and they are still our choice for best overall sound.
@@dannyrichie9743 Great, so the answer is something like "There is always a compromise in every single way of doing that, you have to choose which compromise fits your needs", if I understood well.
Many thanks !
@@ThomasL Yes, and to do it as well all digitally or all actively cost a LOT more money.
Besides durability it's hardly about amplifier quality anymore when there's DSP, room correction, drivers that do specific things (The rear drivers in Buchardt A500/700, the Dutch&Dutch 8c etc.) and other trickery that will leave passive systems far behind. That said I prefer passive systems myself simply because they are more fun and "good enough". That doesn't mean they're better.
We've done all of that stuff that you just said. We took a full open baffle line source with open baffle servo subs and used it as a test bed. Slopes were matched digitally to the passive filters etc.
And passive filters do not steal power, and at the quality level of parts we were comparing with they do not smear the signal. There was FAR more difference in DAC's being used then anything the crossover parts were doing, and the DAC's were using the same DAC chips.
We were able to get the phase between the main speaker and subs dialed in more perfectly, and at times I thought their was slightly more soundstage outside the speakers. However, the differences in DAC's were still the difference. We used the same source feeding those DAC's too. The all passive design still won out in almost all areas.
The other factor was that the all digital system used a LOT more amplifiers and cables making it a LOT more expensive.
Most DSP active crossovers are mid-fi (miniDSP) or low end pro audio (Behringer, DBX) soundlkshit
PC-based DSP XO, w/convolution, highend multichannel DAC is SOTA but big money and time
Line level analog filters solve most of the problems you stated, like in Rythmik servo-sub amps, but setup/configuration not point and click so millenials "can't even" and they are the target audiophile market now.
Enter the poster below mine DSP is a poor Band-Aid for poor speakers
I've been very interested in converting an old pair of Dynaudio BM5A's active monitors into a passive pair. Any guidance?
I'm looking to do the same for my Dynaudio Air 20s. The digital internals no longer work.
There is NO reason not keeping music as long as possible in the digital domain.
Passive crossovers can be very good, just like vinyl can be very good, but digital is simply a dimension better.
Kii Three and others show the way this WILL go, there is simply no doubt. Why are we even talking about differences in quality in amps, differences below 0.01% where the speakers have differences going upto 10% and more. Tolerances for passive crossovers are in the range of 1-10%.
Making a lot of sense as usual, Danny. What exactly does the second order high pass look like after you’ve done what you’ve described to level out the tweeter response? I’m having trouble visualizing the circuit. Do you add a cap somewhere? Thanks!
Second order filters for a tweeter are a cap in line and an inductor in shunt.
@@dannyrichie9743 Yes I know. What I was asking was what do you do to that circuit to adjust part of the tweeter’s range like you were describing? You said you were using a small cap somewhere to bypass some of the resistance?
@@alexw890 If a resistor is used to bring down the level then it can be by-passed with a small cap to keep the top up. Resistors can also be juggled from the front of the circuit to the back to determine how active the coil in shunt is.
@@dannyrichie9743 Man, thank you.
@@dannyrichie9743 The juggling I’ve done before and I learned that from you. You use a combination of an up front resistor and an L pad to shape the response. Thanks a lot!
The plate amps from hypex. Upgradable . The sound of direct coupling with all the filtering done digitally before the amplifiers. Yeah, you got a three way you have three amps pushing all pre filtered signal to it's assigned driver. Each driver had it's own amp and dac chip. It's sad to hear Danny say this because he's looking at old active technology. You want to do a four way design, no problem, try that with passive. You'd be a fool.
Hey Danny check out what meadowlark audio it's high end you can't compete with for the price. Or check out Bamberg audio and his three way design. To me you can even come close to that for the money passively. I love both and think your missing the boat on active designs. I bet you would have a ball with the hypex fusion amps and freedom of filter design. I appreciate av conservative appeoach but you need to check out even some of the lower end hi fi systems from kef, or dynaudio. This isn't hate, i own both the system from Bamberg and passives I've built myself. Someone with your smarts will be able to build absolutely incredible actives with the fusion amps.
FIY, I have been friends with Phil Bamberg for years. He has been to my house. I even designed some upgrades for some of his speakers for one of his customers.
It is possible to build a similar sounding and performing system that is all active. However, it will take four DAC's (for a four way system) and eight amp channels. At the level I play, that would be really expensive, and will gain nothing verses the passive system.
You can set any dollar amount for a system that you want and I can design and build you a far better passive system than you can even come close to actively. I can spend money on a good quality DAC and amps, verses having to divide those funds towards many lesser quality DAC's and amps.
Id be more interested to hear about baffleless speakers. Powered speakers are cheesy.
Hi Danny :-) Of course I know that you are a big advocate of passive speakers and I don't blame you for that. But I feel like you are a little biased here. I see that you compare two incomparable things and forgot about passive shortcomings. You don't sell your things with an unlimited budget, right? The price must be one of the criteria. So let's compare. Could you take about 2500 dollars and make the entire passive system in such quality so that it is as good as active or better? This should be with speakers (DIY), amplifier, DAC, DSP (to your liking - maybe Minidsp?). I bet you can't. So when you say that in the future you can change things for the better - I can do it whenever I want, or when I need to move my speakers to another room. Because I can fix some things in the room for free in a few minutes. You can't do this with passive speakers. So please dont compare best things you can do yourself with passive speaker and industrial manufactured active speaker. Becouse its not fair. I expect a question about the shortcomings of passive system.
We;ve made those comparisons. If you want to really suck the life out of the music then use a MiniDSP.
$2,500 might not even cover all the cables needed for an all digital system.
With an all digital system you can't even come close. You need twice as much amplification and cable for a two way speaker, and three times as many for a three way speaker.
@@dannyrichie9743 Well thats where you are wrong. I made it with my friend. Full digital system from scratch. Roughly 2300€ just couple months ago. Three way system with two Audax HMZ210Z0, one HMZ180Z18 and Vifa XT25 in wave guide - powered with Hypex FA123. Couple other friends was invited for listening, not one complained about lifeless music. Or lack of space between instruments. We are people who normally like to attend high end shows like listeners, so we know how we like music. One of my friend compared Truune (14 000€) in shop with Audax I had home and said, that sound of Truune is about 6 of 10. Audax is 10 of the 10.
@@peterpida1840 Been there done that even with a cost no object system.
You can't even get close with an all digital system. I can take the extra money you are having to spend on additional amplification and cables and put that in the rest of the system to blow right past you. With the money you have to spend on a multichannel DAC I can spend it on a really good two channel DAC. That is a huge difference maker.
@@dannyrichie9743 Iam sorry I dont understand what extra money you have on your mind. I mean you cant make whole passive system for 2500 dolars to beat all digital. And the simple reason is if you divide money for Amp, DAC, DSP and passive floorstander (like we made), then you will have Amp and DAC maybe for 300 dolars each. And as we know, thats trash.
@@peterpida1840 I'm not sure where you're coming from. Let's say we are using a three way speaker. You need three times as many DAC channels, three times as many amplifiers, and three times as many cables. Even if the quality levels are the same you are spending three times as much. Dollar for dollar you can't even come close to doing it passively.
Active speakers for convenience, passive setups for more fun and flexibility if you like to try out new components, that about sums it up. Also might I add a lot of the active amps used sometimes have issues in short periods of time and are known to fizzle out and have to be replaced from what I've saw, it's up to the listener I suppose.
Where are the measurements for the original speaker?...
I took none because this one was sent to me with a dead amp.
@@dannyrichie9743 So how can you know or measure the performance of the speaker and amp together?... And how do you know if you made it better?...
@@DWHarper62 I have experience with those amps and know how they sound. I also know what the differences are going to be from the upgrade before I even touch it, because I have a LOT of experience with various upgrades and parts quality. I've done this hundreds of times.
@@dannyrichie9743 You still don't know how that specific speaker with the specific amp sounds like... A human can't remember stuff they hear for more than 60 seconds...
@@DWHarper62 Oh good grief. It is not hard to remember when something sounds like crap.
You have a single stereo amplifier driving a passive crossover comprised of passive components exposed to high currents and voltages with all of its imperfections and distortions and you are telling us that this is a superior configuration to a multi channel DAC/Amplifier/Speaker because you are using an expensive single stereo DAC ? Somehow I don't believe that for one minute !!
I speak only the truth.