Active & Passive?

[U n K n O w N ? 10+ year member]

Whats the Difference between and Active setup and a Passive setup? I keep hearing people say im going active or going back to passive? just a simple ? if you can help me id appreciate?

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[kidwolf909 10+ year member]

Whats the Difference between and Active setup and a Passive setup? I keep hearing people say im going active or going back to passive? just a simple ? if you can help me id appreciate?

From what I understand, passive setups use the typical crossover in component sets that takes in one signal, splits it into highs and mids passively (without electrical input), and outputs two signals to tweets and mids.

An active setup has separately amplified tweets and mids (so two amps) which are crossed actively within the headunit to direct the proper frequencies to the tweets and mids, for ULTIMATE tuning to your liking.

Hope this helps!

 

[WrenchGuy 10+ year member]

A passive setup is your usual component set where there are set frequencies for the drivers. You can interchange drivers on these crossovers with know how. Active lets you pick and mismatch drivers of your choice to your pleasure. You use amps for each pair of drivers, sound processors, and electronic crossovers and set the frequency to each driver by choice and handling capabilities. Thats a little bit of it.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

active is when you can actively set your own x-over points and slopes for sub, mid, and high via HU or external processor. The mids and tweets will be amplified separately, giving you more control of gain levels.

There is more tuning capability when going active.

 

[mikey7182 10+ year member]

Going active means you ditch your passive crossovers that come with your component set, and determine at which frequency they cross over using either your deck or your amp. Decks that have this feature include most of the higher end Alpine stuff, like the 9887, the 7998, 9835, etc. Many other brands can do it too... Pioneer Premier, Eclipse, etc. The advantage(s) is that rather than having JL or Alpine or whoever determine where your mid cuts off and your tweeter picks up, you can pick for yourself. Car interiors are all different, which can make predetermined crossover points less than ideal sometimes. "Going active" allows more versatility to compensate for this and can sound a lot better in most cases as long as you know what you're doing.

You'd set it up so that basically you have your sub from say 80Hz down, your mids crossed in at 80Hz, up to say 2.5kHz, then have your tweeters crossed in at 3kHz. If that doesn't sound quite right, rather than being stuck at a 2.5kHz crossover point, you can bump it up to 3.5kHz or 4kHz and let the mid do a little more work and see if that sounds better, whereas with the passive crossover you'd be stuck with the set crossover point. The decks that have this capability also let your determine the slope, or how steeply the speaker will stop responding below or above the crossover points, which can affect the sound as well.

 

[blackbonnie 5,000+ posts]

there is a thread on this you know

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

Look at the gat dam STICKY at the top of this forum. Lazy ass

 

[mikey7182 10+ year member]

I think there are about 20 threads //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[U n K n O w N ? 10+ year member]

Thanks for the help guys //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif if you have anymore input or some 1 else would like the share any info plz do so //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

I think there are about 20 threads //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

repetition is a good way of learning and remembering //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[mikey7182 10+ year member]

repetition is a good way of learning and remembering //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

That's how I learned! I think I started my own thread on this about 4 months ago //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[mazzasec 5,000+ posts]

Wait so when you run it active you dont use the crossover that came with your kit? Cause if not im about to be pissed cause the shop that did my install i belive did it actively and they just decided to keep my crossovers that came with my comps!

 

[Hintzyboy 5,000+ posts]

Wait so when you run it active you dont use the crossover that came with your kit? Cause if not im about to be pissed cause the shop that did my install i belive did it actively and they just decided to keep my crossovers that came with my comps!

You have to have a certain kind of head unit or an outboard acitve crossover to do active. Most people who run acitve setups don't buy "kits", they mix and match drivers. Chances are they just put the xovers behind the door panels.

 

[mazzasec 5,000+ posts]

You have to have a certain kind of head unit or an outboard acitve crossover to do active. Most people who run acitve setups don't buy "kits", they mix and match drivers. Chances are they just put the xovers behind the door panels.

alright i feel better now lol there probably are behind the door panels

 

[mikey7182 10+ year member]

Hopefully they didn't keep them! lol //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif What kind of HU and what component set

do you have?