Help with active v passive: crash course?

[SomeGuyDude 10+ year member]

I keep hearing about people saying this or that head unit is good because it has the ability to go active and now I'm wondering if that's something I should be looking into.

Specifically, the Clarion DXZ785USB keeps getting praised for its low price and active capabilities, but the thing is, I dunno what that means. Do I want to do active crossovers? Why? Is it hard to setup? How would I go about doing that?

I've googled it, and I've discovered that the main thing is that the passive crossover is the actual unit in a component set whereas active means going through a processor before it hits the amps, but how could I really put that together through the HU?

Click to read more...

 

[ejschultz 10+ year member]

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146726

Awesome sticky on active vs. passive.

 

[spencer321 10+ year member]

an extreme basic explanation is a passive crossover is an inline crossover that is set to whatever crossover point and slope the inductors and capasitors that it is composed of make it to be. It cannot be changed on the fly it is what it is, for example a highpass @ 80hz with a 12db/oct slope

an active crossover is a powered crossover(its own 12v source) where depending on flexibility the crossover point and slope can be changed on the fly with the touch of a button or turn of a dial.

 

[SomeGuyDude 10+ year member]

So if an HU can be gone active with, does that mean the HU itself has the necessary settings inside, or does it mean I'd need to buy some other unit but the HU has the right hookups for it?

I'm not even sure I'd ever want to because I'm so retardedly anal about things that I'd never able to stop adjusting, but I'm still curious.

 

[jdawg 5,000+ posts]

no you wouldnt need anothe external unit, its built in and you have an amp for tweets, another for mids, another for subs, or however you want it, some people run tweets, mids, midbass, then subs, its not hard to tune per se, an rta helps a bunch, but you can very easily blow some **** up

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Active xover setups alter/split frequencies before the amplification stage, hence the term pre-amp, via electronic means. Passives alter the signal post-amplification via caps 'n coils.

 

[krisfnbz 10+ year member]

The best thing about having active crossovers in your head unit is that you can mix and match any mid, and any tweeter together and the possibilities are endless. If your looking for something simple and easy passive is for you. If you like tweaking and really getting the most out of your speakers, active is the way to go. Proper installation of the drivers and placement is key as well. Hope I helped.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Active means you need more channels of amplification, but the increase in performance (usually) is well worth the effort if you know what you are doing.

 

[spencer321 10+ year member]

it is especially nice when your running an extremely heavy substage and have the kind of setup that requires 500w per door for your front stage to keep up with your substage, you can easy run 500w in 3 channels to a midbass, midrange and tweeter, its "possible" but harder to run 500w to a set of passive components

 

[ejschultz 10+ year member]

Keep in mind, a couple of these posts are talking about 4 way active setups which have a sub, mid bass, mid, and tweeter. There's only a couple of HUs out there that support that... the Clarion 9255 and the Pioneer P88RS (not American) are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. When most people say a HU has active capabilities, it will do a 3 way active setup which is sub, mids, and tweeters. For most applications, if you want a 4 way setup, an external processor would be needed.

 

[SomeGuyDude 10+ year member]

The best thing about having active crossovers in your head unit is that you can mix and match any mid, and any tweeter together and the possibilities are endless. If your looking for something simple and easy passive is for you. If you like tweaking and really getting the most out of your speakers, active is the way to go. Proper installation of the drivers and placement is key as well. Hope I helped.

Totally did. So did the rest of you. Thanks again!

Final question: If I'm scrapping the passive xover, what does that mean in terms of hooking the speakers to the amp? Now instead of two speaker systems I've got four distinct speakers, but a 2-channel amp. And who KNOWS what the deal is with the power handling.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Totally did. So did the rest of you. Thanks again!
Final question: If I'm scrapping the passive xover, what does that mean in terms of hooking the speakers to the amp? Now instead of two speaker systems I've got four distinct speakers, but a 2-channel amp. And who KNOWS what the deal is with the power handling.

As I said above, going active means the need for more channels of amplification. With passives you run 2 channels to the passive (for a 2-way setup here) and it has outputs for all 4 speakers. In an active setup, you need 1 channel per speaker, so 2 for tweets, and two for mids. A 2-channel amp wont run a comp set active. You need another 2-channel, or a 4-channel.