Get active or passive monitors?

[Fantastic_Mad]

I'm looking to buy a pair of monitors and I was wondering what the advantages would be if I got passive monitors with an amp, or active monitors with no amp. Why is one choice better than the other? My budget is around $500-$600. Thanks in advance.

[littledog]

The advantage of powered monitors is that the internal power amp provided by the manufacturer is already matched to the speakers. This means you don't have to audition a bunch of power amps yourself to see which one works best with your particular monitors. It also means less cabling (just a line level into each monitor - no speaker cables necessary).

The advantage to a seperate amp/speaker system is mostly if you already have a power amp, non-powered monitors are usually cheaper. Also, one amp can be used to power several sets of monitors (with a switcher).

In general, for home studio use, if you are starting from scratch, I recommend getting powered monitors. If you don't have a power amp already, given your budget, by the time you get a good one there won't be enough money left over for speakers.

[Smokepole]

When using passive monitors with my digital recorder do you have to run it though some sort of preamp like on a stereo receiver or a mixer, or would the recorder be acting as a pre, allowing you to go directly into a power amp?

The question may sound a little silly so I'll explain. I'm kind of doing my recording in two different areas of the house. All the mixing, drum machine programming and direct recording I do in my office with the stereo receiver right there. I just plug in to the stereo to run my monitors.

For mic recording I have switched to another area of the house and am using a really awful receiver to power the monitors there. I plan on replacing it but am not sure if a straight power amp is wise or not.

[littledog]

If I'm understanding your scenario, a power amp should work just fine. The disadvantage to having "only" a power amp is that most of them do not allow you to manipulate the audio in any way except for volume. But if you have EQ and effects already being added ahead of time, and don't need to set up headphone mixes, the regular power amp is all you need.

[Smokepole]

Thanks that helped a lot.

Your mention of headphones lit up a little light bulb in my head. With a receiver I can benefit from having another set of headphones run off of it. This way when I have guests over to record I can run one set of headphones off the deck and another off the receiver with independent volume levels.