Active vs Passive Monitors

[ajay_m]

I have an acquaintance who installed a very elaborate hifi setup and then asked for assistance running the calibration process which sends a series of tones through the speakers and as I recall these are picked up by a microphone a bit like the systems we have with high end monitors like the Neumanns.

The room was untreated. I clapped my hands and the flutter echo was spectacular. I said you'll need to add acoustic panelling before this is a useable environment.
What he heard was "woof la la la" , can we do the calibration? Sure I said but it'd be pointless. "La la la". He simply wasn't listening. His expensive system would magically bypass the terrible room acoustics because it could be calibrated.

I left him to it. You cannot reason with these people.

[ajay_m]

There is also the apocryphal story about the hifi enthusiast who went to his first live classical music concert. Afterwards he was asked what he thought. "Not enough treble. Not enough treble"

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I think it is worth pointing out that active monitors, whilst generally having technical advantage are not always superior. The main advantage is crossover design and maybe damping factor from very short wiring from the electronics inside 1 box.

They will still potentially suffer from poor reflex loading design, ultimate driver quality, amplification ability, early roll off of sub bass (often requiring a sub). You then have 4 amps to malfunction and 1 broke internal tweeter amp and you have a set of unusuable monitors. (for anything critical anyway).

There is a lot to get wrong with speaker design and active monitors do not guarantee the quality of anything. Many very low cost studio monitors are active, many that you would ideally not want to use.

I suspect 99pct of 'studio monitors' are active, even the budget options but many of those I would personally not want to have to use as a choice and absolutely not for critical work.

Active are most common, but I am happy to work on passive or active high quality monitors. I use some budget actives in my spare time music making pursuits, they are good enough for rough mixing for sure. (Presonus Eris 8)

Every now and then I have been thinking of an upgrade from my Dynaudio BM6P nearfields. (I use these as a secondary ste of monitors in mastering, just because I have used them for so long and I like a quick and immediate perspective shift on everything I work with, against the PMC IB1S. The BM6P are a very punchy passive speaker, especially driven using a Hypex amp.)

As yet I have never felt new actives would really give me much, there will be no change from £2-3K for the active ones I am interested in.

This upgrade may just well happen though, I shall see how the rest of year goes.

I've used passive and actives, my choices have had nothing to do with quality at any time, I've never bought a passive speaker, and if I have, it's been twenty quid from a boot sale, or someone has given them to me, amps the same.
I'm currently using a pair of Behringer 3130 actives, and they seem fine to me, I have thought about upgrading, but my yardstick ATC's I just couldn’t justify buying, Presonus? yes, I like them a lot, personally I think they are the best budget monitor you can buy, but, I bought a pair of Eris 8’s, and the transformers hummed like crazy, so much I had to send them back, and I never got another pair.

Zero hum here on Eris 8 (hobby music room only), just a very slight hiss but I am usually 12 inches from the tweeter and of no consequence when making tracks.

There is not a set of 2 way active speakers in existence that I would swap my 3 way PMC IB1S and 1 KiloWatt Hypex amp for. This covers my point nicely and whilst it may seem like (to use that internet phrase) apple to oranges, it clearly shows there are many variables beyond active / passive design.

There are also a fair few active 3 ways that I would prefer less.

Active / passive is just one factor of many that need to come together to reproduce sound accurately.

Either way good speakers can be active or passive. Very good speakers can also be active or passive. There are clear advantages to actives in 2025 I am aware of that but there is a lot to consider.

I am quite sure my Dynaudio Acoustics BM6P Passives can be thoroughly destroyed by the spending of 2-3 grand ! (The BM6A sounded a little more punchy even back then at £1,200.00) Though Dynaudio knew a lot about low distortion drive units (uniquely designed) and they not easy to improve on in a budget design situation. I paid £600.00 for the passive pair new back then.

I cannot quite justify the £10-£14K required to get active 3 ways that would improve on the PMC IB1S passives and retain then same bandwidth down to 25Hz. (or just the incredibly useful 'scale' they present.)

[Arpangel]

It depends what you do, my music is very undemanding of speakers in general, a lot of it is low-fi anyway, and I’m not looking for real world references to compare to.
I could use anything really, as long as they give me a reasonable bandwidth, and reasonable power handling.

[ManFromGlass]

My pair of Radio Shack Minimus 7s refuse to die
And sound as good
As they always did
Perhaps even more than I know due to high frequency loss (mine)!