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

[madjack]

I am surprised that "lazy" came into this as an epithet. Much of technological advancement has come either directly or indirectly from "lazy" people looking for an easier and/or more comfortable way of doing something.

[abzurd]

I'm not "worked up" in the least. I simply found your viewpoint to be extremely short sided and asked for clarification of opinions, which were seemingly expressed as fact.

 

The funny thing is I didn't really take a stand for active over passive, merely that time is time and if you spend your time on mastering the proper processing nuances of a passive PA system, you have less time to spend on other aspects of the endeavor. That said, I willingly go on the record in my belief that people thinking they are smarter than the engineers at JBL and can make a comparable passive box sound as good as an engineered active equivalent are fooling themselves.

 

Can you get acceptable results with a passive system? Duh!....Sure and nobody is debating that. Almost all of us have used passive equipment for most of our lives. But, the subject of reliability not withstanding, the engineering benefits of an active system are real. Assuming quality cabinets, a DriveRack type processor or amp with DSP gets you most of the way there and possibly to a point that is undetectable versus the active equivalent, but it's still a generic engineered solution and technically not as good as something designed for a specific cabinet.

 

Going active certainly does not guarantee desired results. Regardless of where the amps and processing are in the chain, at the end of the day you have to purchase gear up for the task at hand and operate it effectively. I've heard fantastic passive systems and dreadful active systems. We all have. If you have a considerable amount of money invested in passive gear there's no reason sell it off and start over. If you're starting from scratch however, I think you owe it to yourself to at least investigate active. If you don't, well, that's the first lazy decision right there

[Vito Corleone]

Am I lazy because I buy sliced bread instead of slicing it myself? Or because I use a programmable synth instead of one I have to manually reconfigure for every patch?

The laziness argument here simply doesn't seem to wash. If a good argument could be made that a trained engineer using the very best passive equipment can dial in better sound than he can with an active system, the laziness point would have some validity. But nobody has made that good argument yet. And considering that we're talking about the vast majority of people who are neither trained engineers nor use the very best equipment, it makes even less sense.

[jwlussow]

 

...Does it bother you that I think you are ignorant for spending double the money on something that has a higher risk of failure?

 

 

WTF are you talking about. This is probably one of the most noob posts I've seen here. You obviously need to do some learning yourself.

 

This is a troll post right? The sad part is some noob might read your conclusions and think you are right. Hopefully they realize that your opinion is not the only one and is, in my experience, only shared by a few people that "think" they know it all. Sorry dude. You are wrong.

 

And twice as much? Active speaker vs passive speaker, amp, EQ, processing. I'm guess in reality is is pretty close or even leaning towards the passive system costing more. That is unless you are talking RatShack speakers and Realistic amps. Somehow, I think you might be.

 

Higher risk of failure. You are obviously a noob because I doubt if anyone here would consider actives having much more tendency for failure. Both systems fail and generally, actives are less prone to blown speakers because the power and processing are designed by engineers. You have lost on so many levels that I didn't even need to go farther into your post.

[Craig Vecchione]

MX DRUMMER,

 

I read your PM reply. I read what you edited. Obviously you're trying to say something that you can't express in writing, and you tried to edit it. So no ban, but the posts have to go. We don't need the drama here.

 

And I'll repeat to everyone else, back off, and let's move on to something else.

[Vito Corleone]

Using what seems to be the standard "discounted" pricing available online, a set of active JBL PRX 612Ms and 618S-XLF subs will cost $3796.

The equivilant passive PRX 400 series stuff (I presume this new line is equivilent since it has the same name and seems to be the replacement for the MRX line), 2 Crown XLS 2500 (class D/440W a side at 8 ohms so I figure this is the closest to what's inside the active PRXs) and a DBX Driverack PA will run you $3993.

The equivilant passive system is actually a bit more it seems?

[Marko]

Minions? I want minions. How do I get minions? Details man, details!

[Vinny D]

As my luck would have it, I emailed Yorkville at there *Field Failure Report* link......and the person is on vacation until Friday!

I did determine that this is my older 801P, probably about 4-years old.....I figured it out because it has the annoying pole cup that rattles like crazy when there is no pole in it.

I will talk with my dealer tomorrow, didn't have enough time to deal with anything else today accept getting my cable/internet service switched to Verizon.

[witesol]

don't know if we're still supposed to post on this thread. anyhow, I have some active stuff and a pile of passive. all the drawbacks and attributes have been discussed enough but i will add my $.03

I do think to hit attractive price points(and maybe even weight specs) that maybe some active designs have compromised a bit of quality here and there. Whether that adds up to less reliability? maybe, or it depends.

I am no designer and have far, far less understanding of design than Agedhorse or Don Boomer might. But, i wonder what the long term effects might be by putting components inside the speaker cabinet itself, in terms of vibration and heat.. Also every power amp I have is fan cooled along with some heat sink stuff inside. Every Active cabinet I own is convection cooled. The QSC HPR stuff i have has never let me down. The EV ELXp stuff i bought was obviously trying to hit a price point. It's not made all that well, and in hindsight I should not have spent that money. It has let me down repeatedly. from now on it's QSC KW, RCF or Yamaha DSR only

there is something to be said for stringing out a simple NL4 cable to a wedge or top and having a power amp rack central where things derive from and power can be dropped. When i run my active setup I have to carry a lot more AC stuff and IEC cables for sure. power distribution is handled differently with an active setup. for a quick setup and go scenario I do think the active does sound better quicker.

I'm undecided whether active is any less reliable.

[agedhorse]

This is not a simple debate, there is a lot of consideration all around when making the choice of a powered speaker SYSTEM and a set of passive speakers that YOU have to make into a SYSTEM. It comes down to how much you understand, whattest equipment you have, your access to the REAL speaker data, and your ability to program (and check your work) accurately. There's cost to all of that, and powered speaker systems enjoy an economy of scale with regard to all of these (NRE's). In general, powered speakers are considerably MORE reliable for the average user and offer better sound quality overall.

[ChiroVette]

This is not a simple debate, there is a lot of consideration all around when making the choice of a powered speaker SYSTEM and a set of passive speakers that YOU have to make into a SYSTEM. It comes down to how much you understand, whattest equipment you have, your access to the REAL speaker data, and your ability to program (and check your work) accurately. There's cost to all of that, and powered speaker systems enjoy an economy of scale with regard to all of these (NRE's). In general, powered speakers are considerably MORE reliable for the average user and offer better sound quality overall.

 

I have been thinking about this issue a lot lately and based on a lot of very intelligent, well thought out information, both from guys like you in the forum and from my two sound man friends who are unbelievably knowledgeable as well, I have come to a few conclusions, which I believe are accurate representations of the position of many people in this forum:

 

First, if you are a REALLY good sound man or you have the aspiration, time, and the logistic situation to really study sound, then chances are you can get a better sound from passive gear, assuming all else is equal and we are comparing apples to apples (such as MRX compared to PRX, and so on and so forth)) and not passive JBL SRX verses some entry level Yamaha powered boxes for $150.00 each.

 

Second, it may or may not be worth the "extra potential" in sound quality for even very experienced guys like you and that is a very individual thing based upon your vehicle size, (lol) the shape your lumbar spine is in, how much weight you want to move, and whether or not you want a drive rack filled with amps and crossovers versus.

 

Third, at one time, and probably throughout most of the history of pro gear, passive gear was absolutely the way to go because the way active cabs used to be made was they tossed a speaker into a box with some random amp, wired it all up, and sold it. Whereas now, the gulf between passive and active quality of sound has greatly diminished because brilliant engineers at the high end speaker companies (EV, JBL, Yorkville, QSC, etc.) are meticulously matching components and even having amps custom made specifically for the speakers in the box. They are also putting in excellent crossovers as well as all kinds of cool DSP and other features to make the active cabs sound simply far better than they ever have before, to the point where even top guys like you would have to work pretty hard to tweak out a passive system to make it sound better than the equivalent quality active gear with someone equally as skilled as you running that rig.

 

Fourth, there is a risk of n00bies like myself hooking up an amp wrong, or even the wrong amp, say accidentally hooking my subwoofer amp to my tweeters in a bi-amped system and destroying them. In addition, while I may be "competent" at doing sound for my own band, there is simply NO WAY that I am going to get the equivalent passive gear to sound as good as the active because I don't have the skill!

 

Fifth, also pertaining to guys like me, I am a musician and have NO aspirations to become a world class sound man because I am too busy, you know, being a musician! Therefore, a more "idiot-proof" but high quality active system would not only sound better under my control, but would BE BETTER in every discernible way, not the least of which being lighter components, less storage space, shorter set up times, and very little chance of my IGNORANCE frying my gear because I am in a rush to set up so I can run to the stage and start playing and singing with my band!

 

Anyway, since I am really studying this material and trying to learn as much as possible, is that a fair assessment of what you guys have been teaching me? Or am I missing stuff I need to know?

 

Thanks!

[OneEng]

don't know if we're still supposed to post on this thread. anyhow, I have some active stuff and a pile of passive. all the drawbacks and attributes have been discussed enough but i will add my $.03 I do think to hit attractive price points(and maybe even weight specs) that maybe some active designs have compromised a bit of quality here and there. Whether that adds up to less reliability? maybe, or it depends. I am no designer and have far, far less understanding of design than Agedhorse or Don Boomer might. But, i wonder what the long term effects might be by putting components inside the speaker cabinet itself, in terms of vibration and heat.. Also every power amp I have is fan cooled along with some heat sink stuff inside. Every Active cabinet I own is convection cooled. The QSC HPR stuff i have has never let me down. The EV ELXp stuff i bought was obviously trying to hit a price point. It's not made all that well, and in hindsight I should not have spent that money. It has let me down repeatedly. from now on it's QSC KW, RCF or Yamaha DSR only there is something to be said for stringing out a simple NL4 cable to a wedge or top and having a power amp rack central where things derive from and power can be dropped. When i run my active setup I have to carry a lot more AC stuff and IEC cables for sure. power distribution is handled differently with an active setup. for a quick setup and go scenario I do think the active does sound better quicker. I'm undecided whether active is any less reliable.

 

Whoa! Good points.

 

I agree that there must be design issues to consider with the much larger temperature variation associated with active cabs. This would require better glue, higher thermal cycling stress capability of any connections, and possibly even a more robust voice coil to allow for operation at higher temps.

 

I know that the QSC K series uses active cooling (they have a little fan that moves air through the speaker to keep things cool) while most of the other speaker manufacturers use passive cooling (a big metal thing with fins ).

 

The active cooling appears to be a good idea, except it allows much more contamination to enter the cab and gunk up the system while the passive cooling can stay much more clean.

 

Having said that, these are issues that I am pretty sure speaker design engineers are able to solve quite effectively.

 

My PRX618S-XLF's get decently toasty on the back after a hard night of rockin (hot to the touch, but not painfully hot to the touch) while my tops (DSR112's) remain only "warm" even when pushed hard.

 

I suspect that this is also a design trade-off. It is possible to make an extremely powerful amp that is so efficient that it creates very little heat. This does, of course, cost more to do.

[agedhorse]

pretty fair.

[abzurd]

...I suspect that this is also a design trade-off. It is possible to make an extremely powerful amp that is so efficient that it creates very little heat. This does, of course, cost more to do.

 

Yep, and I think that's where proponents of the "active costs more" argument get ammo. It's not apples to apples to take a cheap, inefficient amp that's a few hundred bucks and stress it to a 2 ohm load with mains on one side and subs on the other then declare, with the right operator, it's just as good or better than passive at half the cost. Yes, it's cheaper, but it's more prone to thermaling, catastrophic failure, the dampening factor is reduced, etc. That said, I know lighter, cheaper, amps like the IPR are becoming mainstream.

 

Simply put, it's easier to shoestring together a passive system by cutting corners somewhere along the way. A good active box is usually good throughout - good drivers, good amps, good processing. Add light weight to the equation and the price goes higher. I was willing to pay for what I consider a kick ass active box that weighs under 40 lbs. I get that some aren't, can't, or even shouldn't for their application and situation.

 

BTW, I just looked up the Peavey IPR's. Good grief, some of the models are still not shipping? Weren't they announced like 3 yrs ago now? Also, what the would one one do with a Peavey IPR DSP 7500 (assuming one could buy one)? That thing would the hell out of me!

[Vinny D]

what the would one one do with a Peavey IPR DSP 7500 (assuming one could buy one)? That thing would the hell out of me!

 

If they ever built it you could do a lot with it, until then you use a IT8000....

 

For the few that are actually still paying attention to the issue I have with my speaker, it stayed on all day (approx. 12hrs) without cutting out.......

[abzurd]

 

For the few that are actually still paying attention to the issue I have with my speaker, it stayed on all day (approx. 12hrs) without cutting out.......

 

 

Apparently you need to be gigging with it to get it to fail. BTW, I Googled your issue and someone posted in several forums your exact situation back in April. I don't know how rampant it is, but you aren't alone with this problem.

[Craig Vecchione]

don't know if we're still supposed to post on this thread.

 

Absolutely. I only asked that people back off MX DRUMMER's issues. If I didn't want anyone to post at all I'd simply lock the thread.

[MrJoshua]

As with most things, it's impossible to declare that either passive or active is definitively better than the other in all situations. It has to come down to weighing the pros and cons of each for your personal situation and picking the solution that's right for you. I just changed from a passive rig to an active rig. After a lot of time and research I concluded that it was the right way to go for me with my particular needs. Does that make it right for everyone? Of course not. It just means it was right for me.

 

If you would rather use a passive system, by all means, use a passive system. If you would rather use an active system, please do. Pick the one that's right for you and go run some sound.

[jwlussow]

OK. I do have to admit. If I had the help, the trucks and the money I would love to have a huge system that impresses everyone that looks at it. As a teenager I used to sneak the Carvin catalog into the bathroom instead of a Playboy. I always wanted that Super Concert System 10 and still dream about the semi pulling up to my house full of amps and cabs. As a 51 year old active musician with basically no help and a minivan, I'll stick with my awesome sounding, small and light active system.

 

I'm pretty sure that I would be all passive if that was my lucrative full time gig but I can't beat the 20 minutes from parking lot to downbeat that I have going now.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]346318[/ATTACH]

[MrJoshua]

 

...but I can't beat the 20 minutes from parking lot to downbeat that I have going now.

 

 

Good grief, man. It usually takes me longer than that just to run mic cables! Well, in the larger bars where I'm doing drums and everything, anyway...

[jwlussow]

We are emulated bass and guitar (Line6 PODxt Pros), e-drums (TD-20), wireless mics (AT 3000) and IEMs (Shure PSM200). Everything is racked and ready to go. Just get stuff on stage hook up a couple custom snakes, hook up a custom power/XLR run and we are ready to go. The drummer is the slowest part. That 20 minutes also includes lights.

[gonzobassman]

ChiroVette,Good post,and based on it active would probably work best for you.The PRX system seems to be the most poular on here,but Yorkville,and RCF have solid selections as well.Now that you have your direction,the fun part begins!!! Good luck,and happy hunting.

[gonzobassman]

 

We are emulated bass and guitar (Line6 PODxt Pros), e-drums (TD-20), wireless mics (AT 3000) and IEMs (Shure PSM200). Everything is racked and ready to go. Just get stuff on stage hook up a couple custom snakes, hook up a custom power/XLR run and we are ready to go. The drummer is the slowest part. That 20 minutes also includes lights.

 

 

I have always been intrigued by your set-up/system,and would really like to hear it sometime.The whole no-amp,electronic drums,and powered system,I still think has to freak some people(who aren't used to it)completely out.And that was even BEFORE you got the new subs!!!

[Vinny D]

The drummer is the slowest part.

They always are!
Doesn't matter if they are using a electronic or acoustic kit

[abzurd]

We are emulated bass and guitar (Line6 PODxt Pros), e-drums (TD-20), wireless mics (AT 3000) and IEMs (Shure PSM200). Everything is racked and ready to go. Just get stuff on stage hook up a couple custom snakes, hook up a custom power/XLR run and we are ready to go. The drummer is the slowest part. That 20 minutes also includes lights.

 

My system / band configuration is similar. I also permanently strapped my subs to a hand cart with an extension nose (one sub per cart). A main, monitor and pole all ride on the cart and there's a backpack strapped to the back with the power cables, mic cables, and 20 foot extension cord reel. We just wheel into place and hook up without having to leave the stack to get things. For fancy gigs it gets covered in black cloth. For bar gigs we just leave it exposed. At the end of the gig we can throw all cables back in the bag, stack the speakers on the subs and roll it to the trailer.