Difference Between Active and Passive?

[Duran 387]

Okay guys, I hear you all talk about active and passive front stages all the time, but I don't know the difference between the two. I am tired of not knowing and finally worked up the courage to ask. I hope I'm not made fun of or anything for it!

[JimJ 11]

Okay guys, I hear you all talk about active and passive front stages all the time, but I don't know the difference between the two. I am tired of not knowing and finally worked up the courage to ask. I hope I'm not made fun of or anything for it!

A passive setup uses fixed crossovers that are at speaker-level (i.e., after the amplifier but before the speakers). Other than adjustable tweeter attenuation, they usually are fixed at a certain crossover point and slope, at least without modification.

"Active" implies some sort of electronic crossover that's placed before (or in some cases, built into) the amplifiers. This way, you're only limited by the processor itself, you can change points and slopes to whatever you'd want. This is advantageous in a vehicle because you might not know exactly what crossover point or slope will work best for your install - you could get extraordinarily lucky with a passive setup that's somehow set up correctly, but you'd probably have better odds playing the lottery

For an active setup, you need as many amplifier channels as speaker drivers you're powering. That means, for a 2-way setup (midbass & tweeter per side), you need 4 channels of amplification. For a 3-way setup (midbass, midrange & tweet), you'd need 6.

[Duran 387]

Okay guys, I hear you all talk about active and passive front stages all the time, but I don't know the difference between the two. I am tired of not knowing and finally worked up the courage to ask. I hope I'm not made fun of or anything for it!

A passive setup uses fixed crossovers that are at speaker-level (i.e., after the amplifier but before the speakers). Other than adjustable tweeter attenuation, they usually are fixed at a certain crossover point and slope, at least without modification.

"Active" implies some sort of electronic crossover that's placed before (or in some cases, built into) the amplifiers. This way, you're only limited by the processor itself, you can change points and slopes to whatever you'd want. This is advantageous in a vehicle because you might not know exactly what crossover point or slope will work best for your install - you could get extraordinarily lucky with a passive setup that's somehow set up correctly, but you'd probably have better odds playing the lottery

For an active setup, you need as many amplifier channels as speaker drivers you're powering. That means, for a 2-way setup (midbass & tweeter per side), you need 4 channels of amplification. For a 3-way setup (midbass, midrange & tweet), you'd need 6.

Thank you so much for the help! But does the quality on the passive crossover matter? I just put in Kicker SS Components, and I know that they cost so much because of the high quality crossovers, does it really matter?

[Blitz 0]

For your subwoofers, you will also need to add 1 channel to what Jim recommended to run active. So 5 channels for 2-way, and 7 for 3-way.

[JimJ 11]

Okay guys, I hear you all talk about active and passive front stages all the time, but I don't know the difference between the two. I am tired of not knowing and finally worked up the courage to ask. I hope I'm not made fun of or anything for it!

A passive setup uses fixed crossovers that are at speaker-level (i.e., after the amplifier but before the speakers). Other than adjustable tweeter attenuation, they usually are fixed at a certain crossover point and slope, at least without modification.

"Active" implies some sort of electronic crossover that's placed before (or in some cases, built into) the amplifiers. This way, you're only limited by the processor itself, you can change points and slopes to whatever you'd want. This is advantageous in a vehicle because you might not know exactly what crossover point or slope will work best for your install - you could get extraordinarily lucky with a passive setup that's somehow set up correctly, but you'd probably have better odds playing the lottery

For an active setup, you need as many amplifier channels as speaker drivers you're powering. That means, for a 2-way setup (midbass & tweeter per side), you need 4 channels of amplification. For a 3-way setup (midbass, midrange & tweet), you'd need 6.

Thank you so much for the help! But does the quality on the passive crossover matter? I just put in Kicker SS Components, and I know that they cost so much because of the high quality crossovers, does it really matter?

For in-car use, I would put flexibility over ultimate quality in the parts used. I think foil inductors and high quality caps are great, yeah, but if the Xover point/slope is wrong for your install, even the best quality components are going to sound like crap. Save those really high-quality crossovers for the home, where things are much less demanding

[Duran 387]

Okay guys, I hear you all talk about active and passive front stages all the time, but I don't know the difference between the two. I am tired of not knowing and finally worked up the courage to ask. I hope I'm not made fun of or anything for it!

A passive setup uses fixed crossovers that are at speaker-level (i.e., after the amplifier but before the speakers). Other than adjustable tweeter attenuation, they usually are fixed at a certain crossover point and slope, at least without modification.

"Active" implies some sort of electronic crossover that's placed before (or in some cases, built into) the amplifiers. This way, you're only limited by the processor itself, you can change points and slopes to whatever you'd want. This is advantageous in a vehicle because you might not know exactly what crossover point or slope will work best for your install - you could get extraordinarily lucky with a passive setup that's somehow set up correctly, but you'd probably have better odds playing the lottery

For an active setup, you need as many amplifier channels as speaker drivers you're powering. That means, for a 2-way setup (midbass & tweeter per side), you need 4 channels of amplification. For a 3-way setup (midbass, midrange & tweet), you'd need 6.

Thank you so much for the help! But does the quality on the passive crossover matter? I just put in Kicker SS Components, and I know that they cost so much because of the high quality crossovers, does it really matter?

For in-car use, I would put flexibility over ultimate quality in the parts used. I think foil inductors and high quality caps are great, yeah, but if the Xover point/slope is wrong for your install, even the best quality components are going to sound like crap. Save those really high-quality crossovers for the home, where things are much less demanding

I want to upgrade my Kicker KX350.4 to a Sundown SAX 100.4, would the crossovers on that count as Active? From what I hear the crossovers on that are really good...

[KU40 173]

is there any way we can make this a sticky or something? It gets asked every other day in people's front stage threads.

[JimJ 11]

I want to upgrade my Kicker KX350.4 to a Sundown SAX 100.4, would the crossovers on that count as Active? From what I hear the crossovers on that are really good...

Yeah, in a pinch you can use the amp's internal crossovers. Just personally, I'd rather have good onboard processing on the head unit or an outboard processor located in a convenient place, because often times the amp is mounted somewhere where it's a pain in the ass to adjust - and so much of tuning an active setup is done in the driver's seat, it's a lot easier when you have everything you need right at your fingertips.