Is it generally cheaper to get powered monitors or passive monitors plus a power amp?

sort of depends on what you are looking for.

i think for the same price you might end up doing a little better with an amp and speakers.

especially if you are strapped for cash, cause you can skimp a little on the amp, and get some pretty good speakers, then later upgrade your amp. whereas if you shoot your wad on active speakers, you are going to have to shoot an even bigger wad to upgrade. makes it tough.

like you can get a perfectly decent power amp for pretty cheap. there are a lot of consumer grade power amps that will perform well in this role, you will have to ask around. but i know some very respectable engineers who love some japanese solid state amps from the late 70's and early 80's. you can pick them up on ebay for less than $100. i forget the brand... but i remember hearing george martin rave about one manufacturer. i would also guess that NAD amps would do pretty well.

either way, i would look to spend more than $500 on the monitoring system.

personally i think it is the most important part of the signal chain. like i would rather have some genelecs and an sm57 than a neumann and the bottom of the line maudio monitors.
 
Amps and monitors can be a strange combination.....go figure this..

I started with Spirit abs2 with a Alesis RA100...sounded pretty ok to me.
Than I upgraded to KRK V8 active, big world of difference......
Than I bought a main system Tannoy 12" with costumbuild very expensive amp....totally blew the KRK's away, even so much I didn't want to use them anymore....
The other day I ran into the little 8" version of these tannoys and connected them to the old Alesis RA100. The last days I'm mainly montitoring through this setup, and think it might even be better than the big Tannoys....

So to answer your question....
Passive + amp is normally cheaper.
Active is normally more expensive, but has the advantage that amp+ speaker are completely mached to one and another.

But for sound?
Just try it...I would have never believed I was going to use that old Alesis amp again!
 
Passive with amp setup is a lot more flexible when it comes to upgrading. You can upgrade your speaker separately from your amp. Also you can get a second or third set of monitors and use the one amp to power all of them (not simultaneously of course). Finally you have so many more speaker options eg there are many accurate speakers made by hifi companies.
 
and even though the amps in active speakers are "matched to the speaker" they certainly arent made from quality components, unless you start laying out the bucks.

on the other hand, active monitors are way more portable, and take up less space in the studio, and have one set fewer cords. (these are the reasons why i went active)
 
eeldip said:

on the other hand, active monitors are way more portable, and take up less space in the studio, and have one set fewer cords. (these are the reasons why i went active)
Click to expand...

??

passive speakers have only speakercable coming from amp
Active speakers have powercord and signal cable
 
Downside Studio said:
??

passive speakers have only speakercable coming from amp
Active speakers have powercord and signal cable
Click to expand...

but then there are the power & signal cables going into the power amp.
 
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