question about active monitors

[royharper3220]

this is such a newb question.
Do powered monitors have volume knobs? I ve read in some other forum about powered monitors not having any volume control.

thanks in advance for taking the time on a dumb question.

 

[lpdeluxe]

Yes, but not often in convenient places. Many of the powered monitors (like my M-Audio BX8s) seem to have been designed on the assumption that they would be used with other gear that had gain controls, so they put the knobs where they are not easily reached. I run them off a digital mixer so I can turn them up & down from there. It's a good idea IMHO to have some sort of device to do that since it's important to match the outputs of the monitors for good imaging and you sure can't do it by lining up the marks on the knobs! I set mine with pink noise and an SPL meter and the marks on the knobs are somewhere around 20 degrees off from each other. Whether this is due to variation in the pots or (what I think) differences in the acoustic environments of the 2 speakers I'm not sure, but it wouldn't do much good to be constantly turning them up & down by ear.

 

[royharper3220]

thanks
well i'll be running the monitors from a mbox so maybe the headphone/line out mixer will work.If not i might get passives instead.

 

[Richard Monroe]

No problem- either a mixer, a DAW, or a standalone will have a gain control for the monitors. And there's lots of cool things you can do with active monitors- like plugging the line out of a POD into the monitor, and mic'ing it up.-Richie

 

[noisedude]

I think that in the lower price range, from my understanding of active/passive crossovers, that what you gain from convenience of volume controls in passive monitors, you more than lose in sound quality.