At the request of Matthew on Facebook I am going to discuss the differences between Active and Passive speakers. I touched on this concept in the Subwoofer Recommendations post, but there is a lot more to it.

The Basics

When you think of a speaker you’re usually thinking of a passive speaker. This kind of speaker has a couple of terminals on the back that you plug some wires into that connect the speaker to an amplifier (usually a home A/V receiver). This system works well and it’s basically the “standard” system.

An active (also called “powered”) speaker has the amplifier built-in. The speaker has internal wiring that connects the amplifier to the individual drivers (sometimes through a crossover). The receiver delivers signal to the speaker at a low level, called line-level, rather than the highly-amplified speaker-level signal that is normally used. This “active” method is the standard setup used for subwoofers in a home-theater system.

Comparison

So why use one versus the other? Here are the advantages of each: Read the rest of this entry »

The subwoofer is my favorite speaker. This magical transducer enables you to feel the gentle 20Hz rumble of a distant building crumbling, or the 60Hz whack-in-your-chest of a kick-drum. No other device in a home A/V system can make music or movies come alive in such a unique way. Read the rest of this entry »

In part 7 of this series I talked about a few speakers that would make good choices for stereo music listening. Speaker requirements for home-theater use are a bit different. Like I mentioned in part 2, the first priority for a decent surround-sound system is good low-frequency extension, thus any budget home-theater system should have a subwoofer.

I’ll discuss subwoofers in detail next time, so for now I’m going to share my recommendations on the 5 full-range speakers in a 5.1 system. As an aside, if you’re on a tight budget then you should probably stay away from 7.1 (or larger) systems. 5.1 is plenty of surround-effect for a budget system in most rooms.
Read the rest of this entry »

As I discussed in Part 2, your speaker needs will be highly dependent on the application that you’re going to use them for. The next few posts will provide recommendations on what speakers I think would work well for each type of application.

Stereo Music System

If music is your content of choice then these are some good selections for you. To save money I recommend that you start with a 2.0 system–a stereo system without a subwoofer. Get a couple of high-quality speakers that will grow with your system. Here are some options I recommend: Read the rest of this entry »

Up until now the posts in this series on speakers have generally been about the fundamental concepts and features that go into 99% of speakers. This post is about that last 1%.

Manufacturers are constantly trying to invent new products so that you’ll want to buy the latest-greatest thing. Some of these unique items fall into the “lame” category, but this first one is a great product. Read the rest of this entry »

A speaker array consists of multiple drivers within an enclosure, operating in the same band (there can be arrays of enclosures as well, but those are for pro-audio, not home-audio). Arrays are used to improve the performance of a speaker for a certain function. I’m going to cover two types of arrays: line arrays and bipole/dipole surround speakers. Read the rest of this entry »