Audiophiles understand the importance of speakers in a home entertainment set-up. This is arguably the most important decision made when purchasing and assembling the audio components for the system. It is certainly one of the first features shown off when fellow audiophiles drop in for some aural sampling. When selecting speakers, consumers may find themselves confronted with the option of active speakers, passive speakers, powered speakers, or some combination. To make life more difficult, not all vendors and experts agree on the usage of those terms. We’ve attempted to clear up the confusion and spell out some of the strengths and weaknesses.
Defining Active, Passive, and Powered
The terms passive, active, powered, and unpowered are often confused and used incorrectly, or at least interchangeably. The confusion lies in what, specifically, is being addressed with regards to the speaker. When used, these terms are either in reference to speaker amplification or speaker crossover. Hence, active is sometimes used interchangeably with powered, and passive with unpowered. Here’s a quick breakdown:
Active Speakers
In an active speaker, the word active commonly refers to the crossover components/system. The crossover components in an active speaker split the frequency band of the audio signal into smaller parts (low, high, and sometimes mid-range), which are then sent to individual speaker drivers designed to handle those frequencies.
Where an active speaker has electrical crossover components and powered amplifiers for each driver, these speakers are, themselves, “powered.” This is why active and powered are often used synonymously. So, when a speaker is referred to as active, it is nearly always referring to the crossover components, which by definition require amplifiers for each band, and separate power.
Incidentally, active speakers suitable for home entertainment and home theater solutions most commonly house the active crossover components and amplifiers within the speaker enclosure, but this is not always necessarily the case. In larger home theater settings, the crossover components and amps can be outside of the speaker. With an active speaker system, one will often see “active speaker” with “bi-amp” or “tri-amp” scenario, referring to active crossover and two or three separate amplifiers for the separate drivers.
Bart LoPiccolo, National Sales Manager for Genelec, Inc., takes the definition of active a few steps further, explaining that Genelec’s speakers are active because, “they have active electronic crossovers before the amps, they have dedicated amps for each driver, each channel has protection, and there are room response controls per driver.” Active speaker proponents like LoPiccolo believe that an active speaker system has certain advantages over a passive system due to the fact that the crossover components, amps, drivers, and speaker enclosures are all manufactured with one another in mind.
Passive Speakers
In contrast to the active speaker, passive speakers feature:
Although high-end passive speakers can contain high-end crossover components, LoPiccolo says that, by nature, passive crossover components and passive speakers have some intrinsic drawbacks. “Passive crossover systems dissipate heat, and can lose as much as 30-percent of the amplifier’s power,” LoPiccolo states. “And as the crossover components heat up, the performance of the speaker changes. So a movie may sound differently toward the end than it did in the beginning,” he continues.
This article is well written and does an excellent job at identifying the important distinction between “active” and “powered” loudspeakers which by design has misled consumers for some time. The drawbacks inherent to passive crossovers are many and Bart LoPiccolo from Genelec did a good job at explaining some of the key issues from the company that is most credited with the proliferation of active speaker technology. What I believe is worth mentioning is, just because you may own or choose to purchase a receiver with an amplifier section, this does not negate the advantage of active loudspeakers. Many feel that this is a waste of the money spent on the built-in amp portion. Not so, even if you utilize on the preamp section of a decent receiver by connecting preamp line out to your active speakers you still have gotten your money’s worth. Receivers from companies like Denon, Integra and the like have an economy of scale that could be considered to make the amplifier section free. Dedicated preamp/processors begin at price points well above the pedestrian $1200 receiver. Preamp/Processors are costly in large part due to the fact that engineering costs must be distributed across far fewer sales when compared to a receiver that will be sold at countless mass merchandisers. The receiver is a very economical way to put a full-featured preamp in front of a nice pair of Genelecs, Dyns or whatever you may choose and the active technology will have first-time listeners breaking out their CD collection for a fresh listen guaranteed.
My2cents: If you’re using a consumer grade receiver the power amps are a good part of what you paid for and it makes little sense to buy powered speakers. If you are in the middle, between mass consumer, and “high end” i.e. you opted for an AV preamp/processor sans amps but are not a died in the wool audio file then powered speakers are definitely your best bet as they will keep you from throwing money away on amps that are over speced, over engineered, or mystically engineered.
I use powered Event monitors in my studio and in my media room use biamped ML Prodigies powered by what most audiophiles would consider low grade amplifiers that are driven by DBX digital Xovers. I’ve yet to have anyone who auditioned the system find fault with it and that includes professional classical musicians and engineers.
Interesting article. I have a query - i have 2 pairs of speakers which are beolab 8000 & Beolab 6000. I am currently running both in different rooms directly with an ipod. These are active speakers and which I want to now use together. How do i match any good preamp with it ?
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overrated no doubt
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Nice balance in the article. Not. Love how all the “experts” are from companies that specialize in powered speakers. Why bother to write something this one-sided?