I think mijostyn1 and barts28 made salient points. Audio Research sold both active and passive crossovers early on when they had a co-marketing agreement with Magnepan. (Some may be interested in learning that Diller was with Johnson at AR way before he went over to Winey's company.)
The passives were available in a few varieties and the actives, which sell for TONS of money today, were also either 2 or 3 and came in several varieties. Back then, Magnepan wanted you to tri-amp the speakers and Audio Research wanted to sell you many amps, so we sold and set up these systems for customers.
As I remember, and it was 40+ years ago, so take this with a grain, the actives were easier to set to the room than the passives, but both worked rather well when set up properly--most good equipment does.
As to which is better, I would (if I were doing this today) probably go active and put as many amps as possible (barts28) in the system. If you have Maggies, they eat power, so more is always merrier if you like to crank up Mahler or Zeppelin or whatever.
Cheers,
Richard
The passives were available in a few varieties and the actives, which sell for TONS of money today, were also either 2 or 3 and came in several varieties. Back then, Magnepan wanted you to tri-amp the speakers and Audio Research wanted to sell you many amps, so we sold and set up these systems for customers.
As I remember, and it was 40+ years ago, so take this with a grain, the actives were easier to set to the room than the passives, but both worked rather well when set up properly--most good equipment does.
As to which is better, I would (if I were doing this today) probably go active and put as many amps as possible (barts28) in the system. If you have Maggies, they eat power, so more is always merrier if you like to crank up Mahler or Zeppelin or whatever.
Cheers,
Richard