SteveB Posted September 29, 2006 Share Posted September 29, 2006 If you do a search of some of the electronic discussion groups you will find similar debates about what constitutes active and passive components. It is one of those topics that some one always comes up with something that doesn’t quite fit whatever definition you use. For what it is worth I usually refer to active systems as where the crossover is pre amplifier and passive where the crossover is post amplifier. A speaker with an amplifier is a powered or self powered speaker, which can be either active or passive. Not that my opinions count for much of course. Interestingly, if what I have read is correct, phase, that other hot discussion topic on certain discussion boards was derived from phasor as in phasor diagrams. The term was used because there was heated debate among electrical and electronic engineers as to whether the relationship between voltage and current in ac circuits could be classed as vectors. (check out “Phasor Diagams” by M. Scroggie for more information). Obviously debates about terminology are an ongoing fact of life. Of course none of these debates has any relevance to anything technical or practical. Their whole purpose is to keep you on form for the inevitable political arguments that always arise when the whole family gets together at Christmas :unsure: Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Gonna dig this thread up, because a lot of this speak has surfaced lately, would be good to educate the less informed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMitchell Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I'm also firmly with MarkPAMan's stance on this one. If you look at the websites of the manufacturers of serious kit (take Meyer, d&b audiotechnik, Turbosound, as just a few examples) they all follow the same stance. The bastardisation of the "A" word seems to lie with the budget end disco tat manufacturers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lewis Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 In agreement. Powered should denote built in amplification. Active should denote active crossover feeding one* or more amplifiers. Passive would usually imply external power amp and loudspeaker level internal crossover. I would just add the term "way" as an additional identifier... So it's possible to have a bi-amped three way system (as some old Turbo boxes we have are). There's a 15", 6" and 1" driver but although two separate amps feed the box (biamped) the 6" and 1" have a passive crossover. * I'd say one, as it's possible to have an actively driven sub... Edited for clarity... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revbobuk Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 In agreement. Powered should denote built in amplification. Active should denote active crossover feeding one* or more amplifiers. Passive would usually imply external power amp and loudspeaker level internal crossover. I would just add the term "way" as an additional identifier... So it's possible to have a bi-amped three way system (as some old Turbo boxes we have are). There's a 15", 6" and 1" driver but although two separate amps feed the box (biamped) the 6" and 1" have a passive crossover. * I'd say one, as it's possible to have an actively driven sub... Edited for clarity... So what would you get if you put a passive crossover before a pair of amps used to drive unpowered speakers? And there's no technical reason for that not to happen, after all. I suspect that the mono out with a low-pass filter on some desks is exactly that. Is it the crossover being active that makes an active system active? Or something else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 With all intents and purposes, I'd say that's active. Because of the various buffering stages, load impedance won't really affect the response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lewis Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 So what would you get if you put a passive crossover before a pair of amps used to drive unpowered speakers? A biamped system with passive line level frequency dividing network. Of course, some of the issues inherent in loudspeaker level passive crossovers would be apparent in the passive line level version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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