Active vs. Passive - Buy & Sell Car Audio Equipment

bass_lover1 · 07-10-2007, 07:01 PM

Tryin to start a nice little discussion here.

What are your guys thoughts on this? I'm personally all in favor of an active setup. My first comp set was the older Type X 6.5s with the big ass f'ing crossovers, believe it or not they did wonders in terms of staging, but the system as a whole seemed to be lacking a bit here or there.

Fast forward, and my current setup my 880PRS feeding a signal to my Next Vrz4.400, which is soon to be replaced by the Diamond D3 I got yesterday (Next will be for sale shortly

), which powers my LPG 26NA 1" tweeters, they reside in the factory locations of the sail panels. Then my Linear Power 2.2hv feeds power to my 7" Peerless Nomex mid/midbass drivers. The Peerless can take a beating, which I expected, but I was surprised how well they do with the 200+ watts per driver, my music definitely came alive when using the 2.2HV as my mid amp. My doors are properly deadened with RAMmatt, two layers on the outside and one on the inside, also closed cell foam is used and completely covers the outside panel.

After a brief description, on to the actual question? Has anyone else here taken the jump and went active? I remember about 2 years ago I was very adamant about not going active because I didn't want the headache, now I'm wondering WTF I was thinking. The way I see it, as long as I have the ability to install what I desire, I can basically use any driver I want, since I'm no longer restricted to off the shelf component sets, not that all of them are bad, but why pay extra for that passive x-over if I'm not going to use it, and to add to that 9 times out of 10 you can purchase the OEM versions of those drivers elsewhere if you just look for, IE Type X drivers are made by Vifa (Peerless V-line if you want to get technical) and their F#1 status is made by Scan-Speak, both of which can be had cheaper than their Alpine counterparts.

Now I won't lie, yes an active setup does take a bit of work to get it where it needs to be, but isn't that half the fun of owning a stereo, tinkering? I guess you could say it's almost like owning a 69 Camaro SS and not wanting to play under the hood, when you get it where you want it, it makes it that much more fun to drive, or listen to in our case.

I'm not a bass head by any means these days, yes I do have a 15" XXX with plenty of power on tap, but I also have a front stage that plays cleanly down to 50hz, or lower depending on material, and it doesn't even break a sweat, to me thats more impressive than these bass heavy systems that sound totally out of balance.

So what are your thoughts on this? Have some of you thought about it but feel overwhelmed? It can seem like it at first, but once you figure everything out, you'll wonder why you waited so long to do this.

blimblam · 07-10-2007, 07:04 PM

passive is easier for a noob like me

dragnix · 07-10-2007, 07:07 PM

i will be doing an active set up soon...not sure when it'll be done. But i can tell u then whether or not it beats passives

I have heard of a couple of passive setups tho and i'll tell u that i did not like them too much. Seems like for the most part the midbass was lacking

bass_lover1 · 07-10-2007, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blimblam

passive is easier for a noob like me

True, it is much easier, much like that Ronco rotisserie oven, set it and forget it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragnix

i will be doing an active set up soon...not sure when it'll be done. But i can tell u then whether or not it beats passives

I have heard of a couple of passive setups tho and i'll tell u that i did not like them too much. Seems like for the most part the midbass was lacking

I've told you for how long to go active? Set up properly passive comp sets can have good lowend output, but usually thats more dependent on install than the driver's them selves, though using good drivers does help.