As a newcomer to the 'Gon, I would feel honored to get flamed by Flrnlamb, sort of as a rite of initiation. So here goes.
I would like to comment on the distinction between "passive" and "active" as I understand those terms in this thread. The crucial point is not whether or not the amplifier is inside the same cabinet as the big cones. Rather, the crucial point is whether the crossover occurs before or after the high-level amplification. I have a VMPS New Larger subwoofer, which is passive in the sense that it does not contain a built-in amplifier, but since I am feeding it an input signal that was crossed over prior to amplification, it yields the same advantages that Flrnlamb enumerates for powered subwoofers.
There seems to be a growing school of thought that the best overall sound quality, for both music and home theater, results from placing the crossover BEFORE the amplifier. The real question in predicting a subwoofer's addition to (or subtraction from) overall sound quality is whether the subwoofer starts with a line-level, already-divided input signal (best solution) or whether the subwoofer takes a full-range high-level input and then extracts the bass from it, sending the remainder to the other speakers (inferior solution).
This idea is nothing new. Audiophiles have been bi-amping and tri-amping their speakers for decades. (Although, if full-range signal is delivered to each set of binding posts, then the benefit of this appoach seems uncertain.)
I found an interesting discussion of this topic in Sigfried Linkwitz's website www.linkwitzlabs.com. Linkwitz, no slouch in crossover and loudspeaker design, designed his Orion speaker with a separate pair of binding posts for each driver, thereby requiring 3 or 4 channels of amplification per speaker. The crossover, which is custom made for the specific drivers employed, occurs at line level, between the preamp and the power amp. The result, he claims, is accuracy and dynamic range that is unobtainable with high-level crossovers (the kind that most of us have).
There are many large full-range speaker systems with flat response down to 20 Hz or lower. According to the viewpoint I am describing, these full-range speakers may have an inherent disadvantage if they divide the signal after it has been amplified. The combination of a high-quality subwoofer, high-quality line-level crossover or surround processor, and high-quality amplifier, would seem to have an inherent advantage over the other system design.
I would like to comment on the distinction between "passive" and "active" as I understand those terms in this thread. The crucial point is not whether or not the amplifier is inside the same cabinet as the big cones. Rather, the crucial point is whether the crossover occurs before or after the high-level amplification. I have a VMPS New Larger subwoofer, which is passive in the sense that it does not contain a built-in amplifier, but since I am feeding it an input signal that was crossed over prior to amplification, it yields the same advantages that Flrnlamb enumerates for powered subwoofers.
There seems to be a growing school of thought that the best overall sound quality, for both music and home theater, results from placing the crossover BEFORE the amplifier. The real question in predicting a subwoofer's addition to (or subtraction from) overall sound quality is whether the subwoofer starts with a line-level, already-divided input signal (best solution) or whether the subwoofer takes a full-range high-level input and then extracts the bass from it, sending the remainder to the other speakers (inferior solution).
This idea is nothing new. Audiophiles have been bi-amping and tri-amping their speakers for decades. (Although, if full-range signal is delivered to each set of binding posts, then the benefit of this appoach seems uncertain.)
I found an interesting discussion of this topic in Sigfried Linkwitz's website www.linkwitzlabs.com. Linkwitz, no slouch in crossover and loudspeaker design, designed his Orion speaker with a separate pair of binding posts for each driver, thereby requiring 3 or 4 channels of amplification per speaker. The crossover, which is custom made for the specific drivers employed, occurs at line level, between the preamp and the power amp. The result, he claims, is accuracy and dynamic range that is unobtainable with high-level crossovers (the kind that most of us have).
There are many large full-range speaker systems with flat response down to 20 Hz or lower. According to the viewpoint I am describing, these full-range speakers may have an inherent disadvantage if they divide the signal after it has been amplified. The combination of a high-quality subwoofer, high-quality line-level crossover or surround processor, and high-quality amplifier, would seem to have an inherent advantage over the other system design.