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Active speakers stink...there, I said it...


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In fairness to RCF, it could have been up within days or even the next day.[/quote

 

This is true. I imagine any woofer/speaker repair from a quality repair shop is couple of weeks down time. Regardless of issues with stocked parts or special order parts like this particular woofer.

 

I had a passive yorkville box go down from a bad or damaged internal crossover. That box was down about 10 days.

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Me thinks field replaceable amplifiers would be a really groovy ideer. I'm a rookie, I'm sure the higher end gear has this as options.....but One button, lift, pull, replace. I know the B52 Matrix amplifier is user replaceable and they sell replacements (if out of warranty), it's not a easy pull, but eight screws and pull, replace. Yes.


And about the post about the vibrations, the amp is built in the box, I would assume any frequencies traveling through the wood, would it not be vibrating at the resonant frequency of the box? Compared to the bass on a floor, going through the wheels of the rack to the amplifiers, I'm sorry but I would think the vibration would be minimal compared to the pounding those amps are taking (esp on subs) on active speakers??

 

 

Most amps are field replaceable and only need a screwdriver to make the swap (a powered one would be better for fast changes). The bigger issue is that they aren't really available for sale, at least retail. I actually have a replacement for my FOH speakers.

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I've never gotten into active systems, with redundancy being a big concern. I've made a lot of posts on this forum about why I prefer passive systems and why I don't like using active, but whatever. Everyone's application is different and for me, passive systems make more sense.

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"Redundancy" seems an odd concern. Is it just because so many people have been working with passive stuff longer so they have more of it and, as such, more 'redundancy"?

 

Seems to me that if a speaker blows, it's just as easy to throw an extra active cab up as it is an extra passive one. And if the amp blows, just as easy to throw an extra active cab up as it is to wire in an extra amp.

 

The only "redundancy" advantage I would see would be if only one side of an amp blew and, having no extra amps, just re-wired both sides of the system to the single side. Which isn't a "redundancy" issue as much as a LACK of redundancy.

 

And since active speakers are generally better matched to the amps (I've never blown an active speaker OR active amp---no doubt in large part because I'm not overloading one or the other ever...) I would think the lower-failure rate for actives would outweigh the 'redundancy' edge for passive-amps-which-only-blow-out-one-side.

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First, sorry about your bad experiences, Vinny. Ranting is OK.

 

Second, re: redundency/spares. I know that some folks carry a back-up mixer to gigs, have a spare/extra amp channel, or another main in the trailer or truck. I also know that if the (active) main is the same model being used as a monitor, that's also a pretty easy work-around too. Losing a sub is bad, and the least likely spare that is being carried.

 

Question: who here carries a spare DriveRack/DSP? It seems to me that losing your DSP on a rig would really suck, although it might not be show-stopper. (Depending on whether you could use the amps' cross-over functions.) Passive system users, what is your back-up plan for processor failure?

 

Mark C.

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"Redundancy" seems an odd concern. Is it just because so many people have been working with passive stuff longer so they have more of it and, as such, more 'redundancy"?

 

I've never blown a speaker but I've had amp channels go down. When that happens, I re-patch my amps and deal with mono mains or less one monitor mix. Who carries spare speakers anyways? Wouldn't that defeat the advantage of carrying less bulk and weight? If the average user can afford to purchase a spare "just in case" and carry it around, I doubt that one of the speakers going down would be much of an issue regardless.

 

abzurd said he carries spare amp modules, which is a neat idea and a viable option, but is that really something that's available to most end users?

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Miko Man, your point is a really good one that for some reason I hadn't thought of. In my case, one system I am considering is a pair of PRX 612's over a pair of 618sXLF's. I also want a pair to use as monitors, making the total speaker purchase of 4 tops (two as monitors and two as FOH) and two subs. So if, say I am unlucky enough to lose a top. I can then use one of the monitors as a top while I wait to get it fixed and then just bring one of my MR805 wedges to the front of the stage. I intend to use those old wedges for the drummer and bass player and keyboard player, but they can do without in an emergency, or share one.

 

In addition, even if I lost a sub with that configuration, I am sure that for most or all of the indoor venues I am playing just ONE sub will be more than sufficient while I wait for the repair.

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I've never blown a speaker but I've had amp channels go down. When that happens, I re-patch my amps and deal with mono mains or less one monitor mix. Who carries spare speakers anyways? Wouldn't that defeat the advantage of carrying less bulk and weight? If the average user can afford to purchase a spare "just in case" and carry it around, I doubt that one of the speakers going down would be much of an issue regardless.


abzurd said he carries spare amp modules, which is a neat idea and a viable option, but is that really something that's available to most end users?

 

 

OK. So, like I said, the only advantage to passive "redundancy" is the "one amp side goes down" scenario. A) I can't ever remember if that EVER happened to me (although it must have at least once in 35 years of doing this?) and B) I think it's probably at least balanced-out by the fact that actives are more reliable overall.

 

For the record, we usually have at least one extra active cab in the trailer. No extra subs though. But never blown either an active top or sub yet.

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I agree with Don here, the overall reliability of powered speakers is many times better than all of the seperate components. Much of this is the processing and protection built into the system, but some is due to the amp being protected from the outside world better.

 

Amps used in QUALITY powered speakers are generally designed and tested around a standard vibration (component acceleration) test for a defined period of time. It's what's done is all electronic products subject to vibration. I design what is essentially a powered bass cabinet and problems due to vibration are essentially zero.

 

Troubleshooting a powered speaker system, even a very large (as in arena sized) system is much simpler and the reliability in a large system is built into the design. Lose a cabinet no big deal there are others that will cover the area. In a line array, generally there is overlap and the overall pattern is divided by the number of boxes in the hang to determine the EFFECTIVE vertical pattern per box. If the failure causes a problem, it's just changed out. No rewiring amp racks, no gerry rigging, no guessing.

 

Powered speakers are generally designed so that amp modules can be swapped out on an exchange for rebuilt modules, and most manufactures stock an exchange program. I don't know about the cheap stuff but for most of the better stuff that is how it WAS handled.

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Amps used in QUALITY powered speakers are generally designed and tested around a standard vibration (component acceleration) test for a defined period of time. It's what's done is all electronic products subject to vibration.

 

 

Right ... we run these things on shaker tables for a long time. There's usually very little to no damage from self vibration. What takes its toll is the constant loading and unloading from a pickup and the small but sharp jarring from packing and traveling. And that really applies to all gear, self powered or not.

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I agree with Don, to many people treat electronics like luggage. It just gets thrown in the car or trailer haphazardly. Everytime I see it I just shake my head. I'm pretty anal about how things look and baby my equiptment. While some of my boxes may have a scrape or ding. most still appear new, Hell I've been known to armor all the outside of my boxes after cleaning them. As far as carrying a back up DSP. No, but I do carry a spare crossover in case I lose the Driverack PA.

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I will be pulling the cab out of the truck tonight and opening it up to see if it's anything obvious that is wrong with it.

And as far as people wondering how I treat my equipment they can ask the people on this board that have purchased some of my used gear on how my equipment is handled and maintained..

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I've never really understood the redundancy thing myself. You should have a backup of whatever you are using. The vast majority of re-cones I would think are from passive cabinets so there are passive failure galore going on out there. I think many people do not carry backups of speakers and certainly not amps and that is what the complaints are about with active cabinet redundancy.

 

Yes, it's more expensive to have redundancy in both the amp and speaker, but many passive folks are fooling themselves as they have neither currently. A speaker cone or compression driver fails.... no speaker. I always hear about and amp channel failing and how it can be rewired to another amp. This may be true or may not be depending on the capability of the amp and if you're already using it at the minimum impedance. For monitors it could mean rewiring more than one amp as you'd need to get to where you can have a dedicated amp channel for a discrete monitor mix. While there could be more flexibility with passive system in this regard, depending on your setup, it's also potentially much less seamless than just throwing up another active cabinet, which can be done in 30 seconds.

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I've never had a failure with powered speakers, but we, like a lot of people I would assume, use active mains and active monitors. While using four monitors is ideal, if we lost a main, we could get by pretty well with three monitors and swap one out to replace the main to finish the show. That way, we're not really carrying a backup anything, but can be reconfigured and ready to go in only a minute or two if we need to.

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I've never had a failure with powered speakers, but we, like a lot of people I would assume, use active mains and active monitors. While using four monitors is ideal, if we lost a main, we could get by pretty well with three monitors and swap one out to replace the main to finish the show. That way, we're not really carrying a backup anything, but can be reconfigured and ready to go in only a minute or two if we need to.

 

 

What if it's your active sub? can't use a monitor to replace it with..

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What if it's your active sub? can't use a monitor to replace it with..

 

 

But do you carry a spare passive sub with you? If not then what does it matter if it's active or passive? If you don't have a backup you don't have a backup. Most would contend you can limp by down a sub versus losing a main, especially if you're only using 2 main speakers. Therefore hauling around an extra sub isn't as critical, especially if space is at a premium. I keep an extra set of active of subs in the garage just in case, but don't bring them to gigs as it's just not practical.

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So for my current PA cabs...

 

I have (5) Active cabinets, 2-subs, 2-high packs, 1- monitor (now used as a test cabinet)

Two out of the five have now had issues, all bought new within the last 4-years..(3-pcs within the last year)

 

I have (10) Passive cabinets, 2-subs, 4-high packs, 4-monitors.

Zero failures.

The subs are a little over a year old, high packs are 4-6 years old, monitors are 5-6 years old.

 

No driver failures either....

 

Passive monitors get used at every show (approx. 60 per year for the past 6-years)

The other cabinets all get 50% of the shows (half done with Active, Have with passive FOH).

 

No way anyone will convince me that there are less failures with active cabs..

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But do you carry a spare passive sub with you? If not then what does it matter if it's active or passive? If you don't have a backup you don't have a backup. Most would contend you can limp by down a sub versus losing a main, especially if you're only using 2 main speakers. Therefore hauling around an extra sub isn't as critical, especially if space is at a premium. I keep an extra set of active of subs in the garage just in case, but don't bring them to gigs as it's just not practical.

 

Simply responding to what was posted about switching out monitors for mains.

And no I don't carry any spare subs :)

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No way anyone will convince me that there are less failures with active cabs..

 

 

Don't know what to tell you then. Some people will "never be convinced" that smoking causes lung cancer either. But the facts is the facts. Just like it's great that your Uncle Charlie smoked a pack a day for 60 years until he finally dropped dead at the age of 95, it's also great that you've had a better no-failure rate with your passive system than with your active stuff. But it doesn't change the fact that what happens generally across the wider spectrum of the population is the opposite.

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To summarize:

 

PASSIVE...

 

If an amp goes it can take the speakers with it. If the passive speakers survive you can switch the amp out with a spare.

 

If the passive speaker goes you can switch it out with a spare but be careful because the amp might be the reason the speaker went in the first place.

 

If the amp goes and you don't have a replacement you are done. If a passive speaker goes and you don't have a replacement you can run the other speaker.

 

ACTIVE...

 

If the amp goes the speaker goes with it. If you have a spare the switch out is fast and simple.

 

It is VERY rare for the speakers to get blown in powered units. That really doesn't matter because no sound is no sound.

 

SO, you can either carry a spare amp and passive speakers or a spare active cab. IMO, I'd rather carry the spare cab or be able to repurpose an active monitor quickly compared to having to rewire a new amp into a rack. Basically, it seems like somewhat of a wash. Either way, the true professional should have spares (active or passive) ready to go because both can go down.

 

I'll stick with active for now. My reasoning is that one of my PRX618XLFs was DOA. We tried it at a non-important gig and the second PRX handled the job just fine. If our amp went, both subs would have been dead if we didn't have a spare amp available. It turns out a connection came loose during transit and all is well. That is why we did the "practice" gig. I was better off with the single sub than I would have been with none. I stick with active and someday carry a spare top and sub.

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So for my current PA cabs...


I have (5) Active cabinets, 2-subs, 2-high packs, 1- monitor (now used as a test cabinet)

Two out of the five have now had issues, all bought new within the last 4-years..(3-pcs within the last year)


I have (10) Passive cabinets, 2-subs, 4-high packs, 4-monitors.

Zero failures.

The subs are a little over a year old, high packs are 4-6 years old, monitors are 5-6 years old.


No driver failures either....


Passive monitors get used at every show (approx. 60 per year for the past 6-years)

The other cabinets all get 50% of the shows (half done with Active, Have with passive FOH).


No way anyone will convince me that there are less failures with active cabs..

 

 

I have had issues with my powered speakers as well - 1 compression driver went out on a Yorkville NX550P. I replaced the diaphragm myself. I've also had multiple issues with my RCF 522A's due to a design flaw that was later corrected, but RCF chose to replace my first amp module with another with the same engineering defect (and did so knowingly!). So my history hasn't been without problems either. Still, I'd never go back... never. Day to day it's simply easier. Less pieces to haul around, more redundancy in cabling, and just all around better sounding.

 

There are also benefits you simply cannot get, or would be impractical with a passive speaker. For instance, I often have to provide a remote PA system in another location in the venue. Active cabinets allow me to run my in ear monitor system to a speaker and provide FOH sound "somewhere else" as long as it's within a hundred feet of the mixer. Running a speaker cable that far simply isn't an option in almost all of these situations. If it's really far away or I need a discrete system in a second location I can put a small mixer and cables in a bag and carry that with a speaker pole in one hand and a small 10" active cabinet in another and set up shop in about 60 seconds. No carts, no cases. Sometimes I don't even need the mixer and can just plug in my iPhone to provide music or a microphone straight to the back of the cabinet if I'm just cattle calling people to dinner.

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Don't know what to tell you then. Some people will "never be convinced" that smoking causes lung cancer either. But the facts is the facts. Just like it's great that your Uncle Charlie smoked a pack a day for 60 years until he finally dropped dead at the age of 95, it's also great that you've had a better no-failure rate with your passive system than with your active stuff. But it doesn't change the fact that what happens generally across the wider spectrum of the population is the opposite.

 

Okay, that's a great analogy. I'm with you. But let's be clear about something: The documentation about smoking causing lung cancer is so absolute, so empirical, and so obviously scientific that the "one example" of the proverbial 95 year old guy who smoked his whole life has to be an anomaly. You can reference literally tens of thousands of university based clinical studies that have all been peer reviewed and journal published. But I seriously doubt that you can produce anywhere near the documentation to support the premise you are espousing. Now, bear in mind that I am NOT disagreeing with you. I don't have the knowledge to, but I have been following this thread and I see good points made on both sides. So basically now I am playing Devil's Advocate. I want to believe what you are saying because, quite simply, it would make MY LIFE a helluva lot easier if you are right.

 

I am trying to sift through this ongoing debate and get at the truth of it. The problem, however, is that from what I see, NOBODY has any proof of their premise, which is why, as much as I like your smoking analogy, for the moment at least, I have to reject your premise. Why? Well, because if you were to take the side of the smoking debate that Phillip Morris does whenever their team of lawyers and PR people talk to the public, I could then come back with a barrage of empirically proved scientific studies to prove you wrong! There would be absolutely NO QUESTION in the minds of any thinking person that your advocacy of smoking was due to self interest and keeping your job.

 

But while I see a whole lot of people making a whole lot of claims in this thread, I have yet to see ONE SHRED of anything remotely resembling proof or empiricism. Not that I would expect anywhere near the same level of research on this topic as there is on smoking, mind you. But from an outsider's perspective (mine) here is what I see:

 

Debate with no substantiation, or rather, all anecdotal evidence. The people advocating active gear all seem to have some great reasons why they do! Sounds convincing to me. Then I read all the arguments by people who support passive gear, and guess what? They sound just as convincing to me!

 

Whatever it is, this is this forum's very own Creation Vs Evolution debate! The problem is that as a science minded person, I can sift through evidence like fossil records, biochemistry, genetics, etc. and make some sense of that topic because there is plenty of it. In this debate, so far EVERYONE has posted nothing but opinion. So I am not just saying this to you, guido61. I am asking BOTH sides: Is there any proof of what you're saying? Statistics? Published numbers? Empirical data that someone like me to sink their teeth into?

 

Because you know what? The other side of this debate could have just as easily used the same smoking analogy to support passive speakers as you used it to support active, and nothing posted so far that I have seen in this thread would have made that analogy ANY LESS accurate if it were used against your point than for it! :)

 

Again, not picking on you, just playing Devil's Advocate. I would LOVE to see some proof here, not just, "Well you're new Chiro! I can assure you that ALL The sound men in this forum use active and they don't have a problem!"

 

Because that, my friend, is anecdotal evidence, by definition.

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