Active vs Passive Monitors

[chewmanfoo]

I'm in the market for some monitor speakers for my rig. I'm mixing with cheap Sony headphones now, so anything would be great. I'm looking at these:

BehringerB2031 Truth

Alesis M1 Active mk2 Biamp Monitors

Tannoy Reveal Studio Monitors

Event 2020BAS Bi-Amped Powered Studio Monitor Speakers

...all of which are powered. I want good quality, and I would like to spend as little as I can.

Can anyone help me with info on the differences between Active and Passive monitors and which are preferable for a home studio (sheetrock walls and ceiling, carpet floor...)?

Also, are the prices on zzounds linked here reasonable?

Thanks!
chewy

[regebro]

Well, it's not a question about better or worse. Passive monitors can be better than actives without a doubt.

But, active bi-amplified monitors have revently killed almost anything else for home-studio use. And the reason for that is probably that they are cost-efficient.

1. With active monitors you get rid of one piece of casing, and you can trim your amps to work perfectly only with the speakers in question, instead of having both the amps and the speakers working well with almost anything. This spells cheaper.

2. It's pretty cheap to put an extra amplifier into an active monitor, so making it bi-amplified doesn't raise the cost very much, while getting a custom bi-amplified system from separate parts will cost you multum.

This together means that for home-studio price, the best you get are typically the bi-amplified active monitors.

Of the above mentioned, I have only tried the Tannoy Reveal Actives, but they are quite good, I think. As any monitoring it takes getting used to to get the overall balance right in the mix, but it's a very transparent monitor where you can find blatant errors easy. Getting them instead of a normal home-hifi that I had used before was pretty much like putting on glasses.

[tubedude]

Those zzounds Reveals are not the actives, which are about twice that price... heads up...

[chewmanfoo]

Yeah, but are the Tannoy Reveals good? Would they work well with a cheap ($200) amplifier, like this one:

Samson Servo 170 Power Amplifier

What does bi-amped mean? Does this mean ther's an amplifier for the bass as well as the treble frequencies?

Of the list above, what is the best for home studio applications? Would you recommend others?

Thanks in advance,
chewy

[Boray]

Yes, bi-amped means there is one amp for the tweeter (treble speaker) and one for the woofer (bass speaker).

I have the Alesis, and I like them. I wrote a review of them here:
http://www.vsplanet.com/cgi-bin/ubb/...=1&t=012564&p=

I have listened to the Behringers as well (I nearly bought them). They have got a lot of positive comments all over the web. Here is one review: http://www.digitalprosound.com/2002/...r_shootout.htm

(It also review the Tannoys, The Alesis and a bunch of others). The review was originally written on VSPlanet: http://www.vsplanet.com/cgi-bin/ubb/...=1&t=011527&p=

Good luck!
/Anders

[lomky]

So should passive monitors be bi-amped? Don't the internal crossovers take care of this, or am I waaaay out to lunch (which is likely). Here I thought I was being smart by spending money on a decent amp, and less than decent speakers so I could upgrade the speakers later. dum dum dum, Oh well I guess I could use the Hafler for a stereo or something.

[Blue Bear Sound]

If I were you, I'd listen a lot less to this Boray-flake and read Light's post on the subject here...

[lomky]

read. Now my question about crossovers still remains. If there are passive crossovers in the speakers, is another crossover required?

I really need to pad my post count (I don't want to be a newbie anymore!!!)

[Simmons]

Hey chewmanfoo,
http://www.prorec.com/prorec/article...1?OpenDocument

Simmons

[regebro]

Originally posted by lomky
read. Now my question about crossovers still remains. If there are passive crossovers in the speakers, is another crossover required?

I really need to pad my post count (I don't want to be a newbie anymore!!!)

An old post, but the question has not been answered:

No, of course you don't need another cross-over if there are cross-overs in the speaker.

And as to another question further up:
Passive speakers *could* be bi-amplified yes. There is no *should* in this industry.

[LooneyTunez]

There seems to be a myth that an active monitor is the same as a passive one, but that the active one has built-in amps. It's not really like that at all, and the differences between active and passive designs are so great that manufacturers shouldn't even label their two different designs as the same model...(ie, an Active Reveal is not just a powered version of the passive Reveal...or the Yorkville actives are not the same speaker as the Yorkville passives). They are completely different speakers that will sound quite a bit different from each other. I'm not an expert on this subject, but Rod Elliott is, and you can read his lengthy article here. It's an excellent read, and will answer all your questions about bi-amping and passive vs active designs. Which design is potentially better? Read the article and draw your own conclusion.