As opposed to the Statement!
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Thank you for the detailed response but I can think of a scenario where it can make sense. My 30.2XDs can be sold to fund the SBL, snaxo2-4, supercap, nap250 and nac A5 cables.
The question is would it sound better and would it be worth the hassle? I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the SL2 speakers in passive as much as the Harbeth 30.2 Annies. Yes the speed was from a different world. Beautiful treble response. But they sounded thin to me. Have I matured in my sound preference? Perhaps. I do know that I enjoy the attack and definition in music more so than ever before.
At the time of the SL2 I had the NAC 552DR pre.
Speaker sound signatures are different, their crossovers are (mostly) different, how they sound passive is different, and how they sound active will be different. How can anyone tell if one active would sound better than the other passive, if that is what you meant? It is impossible to answer that when you are considering different speakers, unless someone has done the same comparison (and then it is down to their speaker preference, which may be different from yours). You would have to make the comparison yourself.
I wouldn’t expect active driving to change the fundamental character of a speaker, just how well it does it. So if you have compared them passively and don’t like the sound character of one, then it would be surprising if active driving of the one you don’t like changes that, But this is not definitive - you would just have to try.
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All things being equal I’m finding instruments are more solid, and follow through with more strength.
So, I don’t have to play particularly loud to “hear it all”.
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One of (several) key attributes of all the active configurations I have owned which is not always mentioned.
Bruce
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Lots been said about active v passive and ot does have its place.
For me active takes me back to the 80’s, when you would find every hifi shop would run active naim gear, on the naim rig.
Going back then for sure the naim speakers worked best active, maybe made that way, so it made you want to upgrade, but whatever the reason it worked, also remember the best amp back then was the 135.
Move forward 40 years and things are very different, that is unless you still using naim speakers, but the amps have certainly moved on. Take a 500dr, this has so much more grunt and can easily drive most speakers, but going passive on old naim speakers, you still have to use that naim crossover and for me thats the problem and the bottle neck in the chain.
So you either get different speakers that have decent crossovers and happily run passive with a nice modern amp, or you go with the old way.
For me after running active for many years with sbl’s and s600, i dont really want to ever have to go back to active, as the expense to do it right and keep it right doesn’t work out for me these days, rather run a much better amp and speakers.
But as said active still has its worth, but mainly if you run older speakers
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I think discussed a few times… an active setup has greater performance potential than passive… not least the broad bandwidth speaker amp coupling… especially when into a crossover with multiple drivers is quite a compromise…
However listening to recorded music is a series of massive compromises so I suggest you choose where you want to focus.
I would suggest if running under high power… say in a very large listening room I would say actives are the way to go… but in typical domestic environments a good passive setup can work really well… and that is what I do currently.
There is then whether your go active by multiple amping into speakers, or use active speakers with purpose made amps for the speakers they are driving… I would go active speakers… and keep the speaker cables short… use balanced lines into the active speakers… also that way one doesn’t have to match / fiddle around with and match the cross over filter slope responses to the speaker design. There is more to cross overs than cross over frequencies.
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Wow, there was quite a lot I didn’t know. What’s the bottle neck with the Naim xover. Does it just lag behind with component quality or is it a very old design that can easily be bettered?
Even with systems consisting of other brands, active isn’t demonstrated or used very often other than active speakers.
I can only think of the reference Infinity IRS system at PS Audio as an example.
There might be some truth in that Naim Paxos might limit ultimate performance in Naim loudspeakers. However I have used SBLs since 1989 passive with great success. I have heard them active with 250s and while excellent was only an incremental step over a single 250. I now use a 300 to great effect.
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Another thing I read fairly often is that one needs mammoth amplification to drive Naim SL2s properly presumably a 500 series but that a SBL can get you near its performance peak with a lot less investment. However they both have the same sensitivity and 6 ohm rating.
I am not familiar with so can’t comment. But even the best of passive crossovers made with the very best components still sits between the amp and speaker driver, and the more complex the crossover the more there is in the signal path, compared to the direct drive of active.
As for active being uncommon, that is not surprising given the double or tripled amp cost, and added complexity unless active speakers where the amps are attached directly to the speaker (E.g. ATC). Regarding availability, I’ve never sought that out, but considering current/recent speakers I believe PMCs and ATCs higher ranges are available without the crossovers even if you don’t buy their amps (PMC do active versions, but unlike ATC, in most cases the amps are physically separate), while many in their ranges are designed with the crossovers easily removable making conversion very simple.
For me the theory of active operation makes perfect sense. I wont bother explaining the technical reasons as others including @Simon-in-Suffolk @Innocent_Bystander have already done so.
At the risk of being scoffed at;
My system LP12/Dynavector 17D3/Prefix Hicap/Ekos SE1/Karousel/Keel/Trampolinn 2/Klimax Radikal
Nac 202/HCDR/NAPSC
IXO
2 x Nap 90/3’s
Naca 5
Allaes
This system to date evolved from the entry level active system Naim use to present with the 3 series CD3.5, Flatcap, Nac 92 flatcap, Ixo, Nap90’s, Intro system.
I love the sound of those baby 90’s in active mode and as my front end has slowly evolved I’ve felt no need to “upgrade” they still sound fantastically musical and capable of revealing improvements at the source.
A few years back I decided to have Naim service them, while they were away I loaned a serviced Olive NAP 250 and connected this onto the system passively.
Well, yes a bigger in terms of scale sound, very dynamic and “HiFi” but to my ears a tad sluggish.
The active 90’s whilst not as “big” sounding, were to my ears more musically involving, particularly in terms of speed and timing. I often liken the NAP250 in this context to a big dinosaur trying to do the hokey cokey with the active 90’s being the musical equivalent of a whippet racing out the traps loaded with (to me) the all important PRaT.
I often listen and ask myself, if I were to “upgrade my amplifiers what would I be looking to improve?” My answer always to date comes back as “nothing”. So their still keepers. I think theres a synergy that makes them very much greater than the sum of their parts.
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Some passive speakers are designed purposely with very simple passive crossovers, using high quality components (e.g. air cored inductors) working sympathetically with speaker drive units with their own natural roll-offs. Whereas an active crossover (which is still in the signal path) can be quite complex in comparison, especially if the active crossover uses integrated circuits, which themselves internally route the signal through multiple transistors. So not sure, when looked at end-to-end, that active offers a simpler signal path.
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It’s not so much the components, it’s the interaction between amp output, speaker cable, crossover, transducers, heating, and cabinet/room… they all interact, not least changing the performance of the passive crossover… therefore it is usually best to keep the amplifier matched to a specific transducer, and the input to the amp optimally filtered at signal level. Also usually best keep a short cable length for best performance.
A passive crossover … including speaker voice coil reactive components is often a compromise and it creates usually reactive resonant loads for the power amp to handle … but given compromises elsewhere such as room coupling then can work relatively very well, but overall the active crossover is less prone to distortion, and separate speaker amps and active crossovers are less prone to intermodulation.
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And complementary to Simon’s observations about passive crossovers, active crossovers work differently even aside from not having to handle high power and not interacting with the driver impedance. There are basic types, analogue and digital. Analog designs typically work using amplifying stages with frequency characteristics set by low power resistors and capacitors - just like those in the main amplifiers but with values chosen in the direct or feedback path that roll off in the audio band. Digital use DSP to achieve the same.
Just like with a passive crossover, a good active crossover will have cutoff rates and characteristics to suit the drivers, levels set to compensate for different driver sensitivity, and if necessary baffle step compensation, frequency compensation for non linear response drivers, and phase adjustment. There is the added advantage that some of these parameters, or all with digital XOs, can even be tailored in the specific listening room.
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The naim way of doing active, is old school, the better way if you want to do active is buy active speakers with amps built in, this matches amps to drivers perfectly, no multiple runs of speaker cable, much simpler.
But when you think about all this, the best speakers in the world are they active or passive?
Like i said naim speakers benefit from being driven active, but this is 40 years ago design and thinking. Plus driving sbl’s or whatever, active isn’t going to change them massively, as i know as been there, and depending on what amps you are using active or passive makes a bigger difference
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No, but long runs of cable carrying low/line level signals?
One run of probably balanced cables per side, if you are going to do it right, is miles better than speaker cable
Professional audio systems dont use afaik passive crossover/speaker arrangements like domestic audio systems. Why would home audio lovers not want to do the same? Other than inconvenience of increased box count and more limited choice of speakers perhaps.