Any thoughts on passive v. active speakers?

Next I'm going to throw my Braun L200s onto of my ADS810s and run them in parallel to get to 16 Ohms.... Actually, I only get to 12 Ohms with the ADS & the Braun, but its a step in the right direction...

For the two impedances to add, the speakers have to be connected in series, not in parallel. Based on a quick Google search, it appears that the L200 and 810 have nominal impedances of 4 ohms and 6 ohms, respectively. In parallel that combination would have an overall nominal impedance of (4 x 6)/(4 + 6) = 2.4 ohms.

Also, using non-identical speakers in series is usually a recipe for poor sonics, as their differing impedance curves will cause the voltages supplied by the amp to divide up between them differently at different frequencies.

Regards,
-- Al

Roger, another point to keep in mind when connecting speakers in series is to be sure to connect the + (usually red) and - (usually black) terminals of the amp and speakers correctly. The proper way for a series connection of two speakers is as follows:

Amplifier (+) to Speaker 1 (+)

Speaker 1 (-) to Speaker 2 (+)

Speaker 2 (-) to Amplifier (-)

It doesn't matter which speaker is connected as speaker 1 and as speaker 2.

If you don't do that correctly it won't damage anything. But the sound will definitely suffer, assuming the two pairs of speakers are in the same room, or at least if both speakers can be heard at the same time.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

You could scale this up and the sound would just get bigger and sound better wouldn't it, as long as you kept the load reasonable.

No, I don't think so, Roger. The problem that would arise is that the same sound would be arriving at the listener's ears at multiple times, due to the different path lengths to the various speakers, and probably also due to different signal delays within the speakers and their crossover networks. That will degrade the sound as a result of what are known as comb filtering effects.

Regards,
-- Al