Active Speakers Don't Sound Better
I just wanted to settle a debate that has often raged in A’gon about active vs. passive speakers with my own first hand experience. I’ve recently had the chance to complete a 3-way active center channel to match my 2-way passive speakers.
I can absolutely say that the active nature of the speaker did not make it sound better. Or worse. It has merged perfectly with my side speakers.
What I can say is that it was much easier to achieve all of the technical design parameters I had in mind and that the speakers have better off-axis dispersion as a result, so it is measurably slightly better than if I had done this as a passive center. Can I hear it? I don’t think so. I think it sounds the same.
From an absolute point of view, I could have probably achieved similar results with a passive speaker, but at the cost of many more crossover stages and components. It was super easy to implement LR4 filters with the appropriate time delays, while if I had done this passively it would require not just the extra filter parts but all pass filters as well. A major growth in part counts and crossover complexity I would never have attempted. So it's not like the active crossover did any single thing I couldn't do passively, but putting it all together was so much easier using DSP that it made it worthwhile.
I can also state that as a builder it was such a positive experience that I may very well be done with making passive speakers from now on.
All the best,
Erik
A very fair and detailed review of the ATC SCM 50 active / passive. My take is if you have a big budget for a poweramp, then sure, the passive ATC version may suit you better and indeed sound better. But the VFM with ATC actives is undeniable, the performance vs money spent is crazy good.
https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1135-atc-scm50-passive-active-loudspeaker |
I think @prof best summarized what I was trying to say at the beginning:
At the end of the day the active or passive speaker is an amalgam of all the choices made between the listener and the preamp but for the home there's no big paradigm shift in perceived sound quality due to the use of active or passive alone. Given that, I'll take simplicity and value as significant value indicators. |
I didn't read previous posts so apologize if I'm repeating someone. The appeal of active speakers for me was the frustration of buying passive speakers and bringing them home to find they sounded completely different! Dealers will say the speakers need time to break in to get past the return date and after that begin the component merry go round! active is supposed to remove the variable of component matching. |
@steve59 To be fair, much of that is the room. A well treated dealer room is not going to sound like your average living room. |
