define active front stage rather than regular

[michael707]

ive covered alot of ground in the audio world but this active stuff still has me off a bit. im not on here alot but ill check back but also i dont even care if somebody wants to call me up and run there mouth in my ear for a while (no homo) about the differences in running an active comp set/hu vs whatever regular kind of front stage. my number 707-954-5876. if you have a few minutes of free time give me a hoot. as much knowledge you can fit in there is good. but i will check this here in a bit. i just hate signing in everytime i get on. my computer deletes the history by itself everytime i close IE, FML

[ejschultz]

So, an active setup is basically a setup where you have crossovers before amplification. Passive setups have crossovers after amplification. Passive setups are most common for people who run components for a front stage. A passive setup uses the crossover that comes with the component set or another crossover from another set, or whatever you have. The crossover points are generally set in stone (or at least in inductors and capacitors) as are the slopes. Usually, passive crossovers will have a resistor or two in line with the tweeter and a switch to take some power away from the tweeter if it's too "bright" for your liking or your install. Passive crossovers also introduce some loss into the system. The components are not perfectly efficient. Whether or not that's a reason to go active can be debated. That's about it for a passive setup. An active setup is achieved by using either a high end line output converter, sound processor, or HU. All the crossover points, slopes, and even levels are selected withing the unit before the signal actually goes to the amp. This is definitely beneficial because you can change the cutoff points to what works with your stage. Most HUs out there are capable of doing a 2 way active setup which allows for a sub(s) and mids/highs. The mids and highs will require the passive crossover network however in this setup. Three way network or 3 way active setups allow you to tailor the sub, mids, and tweets separately, as far as crossover points and slopes go. Some active setups will allow for even more customization than that. My 800PRS lets me adjust the crossover independently for each driver (point and slope), the level of each driver, and even the phase of each driver. With that kind of control from the HU, system tuning is definitely harder, but the payout after all is done is worth it in the long run. Active setups also separate the channels earlier in the signal processing. This leads to better sound quality. With a passive setup, the HU will process both mids and highs together, the RCAs will carry those signals as one, the amps will amplify that signal, then the passive crossover will have to take that signal and separate it. In an active setup, the HU will process the mids and highs separately, the RCAs will carry mids and highs separately, the amplifier will amplify the mids and highs separately (a 4 channel amp will required for a front stage in an active setup), and the speaker wire will carry those frequencies to their dedicated drivers. This comes from the bi-wiring theory, but takes it even a step further with not only dedicated speaker wire from the amplifier to the driver, but dedicated processors, RCAs, and amp channels as well.

Hopefully that cleared up a little for you. I know it's a lot to take in and I'm sure someone else can chime in and add/correct/or just make that easier to understand.

[michael707]

na actually you did pretty good dude. i appreciate it. at first i glanced at all that and thought, "ok so i guess active is out of the quesiton now lol" but na it doesnt seem to hard. maybe a lil unique but if i had an active ready h/u and knew how to work it im sure that would make it all alot easier. only thing now i think is if i ever did do the whole active thing id just ask for a little bit of wiring help but dont worry about that just yet because i dont think ill be going active because of the h/u im getitng. i guess its crossovers are supposed to be very good as far as sound quality goes. i would like to hear a nice passive setup, then hear a nice active setup but unfortunately livin in bumfug egypt doesnt help much

[ejschultz]

I've actually got a pretty nice active setup and a pretty nice passive setup. What pisses me off, my passive setup was substantially cheaper than my active setup. Passive is almost plug and play with some tuning. Active isn't hard to setup from an install standpoint, but I'm still playing around with tuning it. That is another story.

[michael707]

lol figures right

[ejschultz]

For sure.

[Loud n Clean]

Yea, tuning an active setup is always the hardest part. That can be made harder too if the install isn't right.

[ejschultz]

I've been looking for a decent mic so I can use some RTA software I have to start trying to get that flat response curve. The only problem is, decent mics are damn expensive. I'm decent at tuning by ear, but I don't have any flat response curve to reference. I can hear some trouble areas, but I'm not good at guessing which frequencies they're at to attenuate them properly. It's actually more of a problem in my Jeep than my Caprice.