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Went 2 way active


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#1 Immo_G

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Posted 23 February 2005 - 10:09 PM

Finally ran all the wire to run active today ( can see a serious advantage to amp under the front seat now). Still the response kelvar splits, using the DEX-P1R's active xover. Haven't setup time alignment yet.

Sounds clearer in some places, but wasn't really a huge shift as i was expecting. Surprisingly the bass part of the midbass changed a lot, I think the damping of the passive xover must have been hurting it. Trebel seems less harsh than before, level might be down though compared to passive.

Haven't really got into it with the EQ either, still missing bass guitar something badly, which i think is probably the door's problem.

#2 angelo kanci

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Posted 24 February 2005 - 01:09 PM

Immo_G said:

Finally ran all the wire to run active today ( can see a serious advantage to amp under the front seat now). Still the response kelvar splits, using the DEX-P1R's active xover. Haven't setup time alignment yet.
 
Sounds clearer in some places, but wasn't really a huge shift as i was expecting. Surprisingly the bass part of the midbass changed a lot, I think the damping of the passive xover must have been hurting it. Trebel seems less harsh than before, level might be down though compared to passive.
 
Haven't really got into it with the EQ either, still missing bass guitar something badly, which i think is probably the door's problem.


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#3 Red23

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Posted 26 February 2005 - 11:49 AM

can i ask...what does "active" mean? and what exactly does it do to improve sound quality?and how do u wire up ur speakers active?

#4 Shieldsy

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Posted 26 February 2005 - 12:01 PM

each speaker gets it's own channel/power.
so to run a set of 2 way splits you would need 1 4 channel amp.

does away with the passive xover.

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#5 stazed

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Posted 26 February 2005 - 12:02 PM

Well...

Active means each speaker has it's own channel, Passive means multiple speakers are run off one channel... i think.

An example is 6.5-inch/1-inch splits - using a passive setup, you install crossovers. One channel connects to the crossover, then the two speakers receive a separate high-passed/low-passed signal. Thus, one channel for the front left, one channel for the front right, thus a two channel amp and four speakers.

In an active setup, the tweeter and woofer are directly connected to their own discreet channel on an amplifier. Thus, a four-channel amp would be required.

The advantage of active is greater control using the amplifier(s) - it is easier to fine-tune the setup. The disadvantage is that the effort in achieving this is greater than installing crossovers.

If you looked at a ratio of Time Spent:Results, Passive wins in the short term, but the longer you spend fine tuning it, Active comes out on top.

Or at least that's what I'm lead to believe :)
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#6 Red23

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Posted 26 February 2005 - 12:47 PM

oh now i understand, thanx guys for the quick lesson.

#7 Immo_G

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Posted 27 February 2005 - 11:37 PM

Done a bit of tweaking, quite happy with it now. Whole system seems clearer, trebel is definetly different. Probably need to RTA the whole thing.

#8 mack202

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Posted 27 February 2005 - 11:43 PM

stazed said:

Well...

Active means each speaker has it's own channel, Passive means multiple speakers are run off one channel... i think.

An example is 6.5-inch/1-inch splits - using a passive setup, you install crossovers. One channel connects to the crossover, then the two speakers receive a separate high-passed/low-passed signal. Thus, one channel for the front left, one channel for the front right, thus a two channel amp and four speakers.

In an active setup, the tweeter and woofer are directly connected to their own discreet channel on an amplifier. Thus, a four-channel amp would be required.

The advantage of active is greater control using the amplifier(s) - it is easier to fine-tune the setup. The disadvantage is that the effort in achieving this is greater than installing crossovers.

If you looked at a ratio of Time Spent:Results, Passive wins in the short term, but the longer you spend fine tuning it, Active comes out on top.

Or at least that's what I'm lead to believe :)
hmm i thought that was called bi-amping.

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#9 angelo kanci

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 12:07 AM

mack202 said:

hmm i thought that was called bi-amping.


Correct but since he would have a dedicated amp for his bass you may as well call it active.
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#10 fuddbutter

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 12:12 AM

stazed said:

If you looked at a ratio of Time Spent:Results, Passive wins in the short term, but the longer you spend fine tuning it, Active comes out on top.

Or at least that's what I'm lead to believe :)

i spent 3 months every night tweeking my active setup till i got it where i wanted it.

then i chucked the passive's on and gave it twice the power and it sounded heaps better hahaha

active is not easy to do. the passives have been designed by ppl who know xovers and how to get the most out of them.
no way in the world i would reccomend going out and throwing a grand or 2 at some speakers only to not use the passive's that came with it.

i personly will be going active with my next setup as im using a home audio tweeter and car audio midbass.
same as the last setup was 2 different brands so it was better to go active ( i put the passived on when i change to the original tweeter for the setup)

unless you are willing to spend the time and have the knowlage i wouldent reccomend it. but if you really want to then go ahead. it's fun :D
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#11 mack202

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 12:18 AM

Bobby_Digital said:

i spent 3 months every night tweeking my active setup till i got it where i wanted it.
you must have some sort of time machine bobby!

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#12 fuddbutter

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 01:22 PM

bah!

i spent nearly every night for 3 months...
QUOTE (RMA @ Feb 6 2010, 01:22 AM) My only regrets are:
Selling Fudd an amp (for a fraction of the real price) that had been returned by Autobarn Geelong which had been incorrectly used by AB Geelong and turned out to be faulty when Fudd started using it.
Whilst he was given a new amp after it could not be fixed, he never acknowledged any of the assistance given and bitches to this day about it.

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#13 blue_6006

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 04:26 PM

Ok either I fluked it or have not done it corerectly. I am running my setup actively and it sounds pretty good IMO.

I am using different tweeters to what comes stock with the Polyglass speakers, I am using the old TN46 kevlar tweeter instead of the TN47 titanium tweeter.

Even when I was putting 170WRMS into the passive XO running the TN47, the active setup with the TN46 sounds better.

It only took about half a day to tune and then minor tweaks along the way.

This could be due to the lack of adjustment in the XDP-4000 because it has set steps in the XO etc so I do not really have the option of adjusting it down to the last hz.

Once my XO's have been set, the only thing that I really need to change is channel levels and TA.

Mind you, I have not even touched the EQ, but I am not the biggest believer in them anyway.

#14 niteflyer

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 08:53 PM

mack202 said:

hmm i thought that was called bi-amping.

bi-amping is using 2 channels (bi) to power your woofers and tweeters separately.

active is using the crossovers on the amp only, and not using an external xover

For example, my Z6 xovers allow me to power my midrange and tweeters separately with the signal still going thru the external xover (bi amping)

so my point being bi-amping doesn't necessarily mean you are running active

hope that clears things up :)

#15 mack202

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Posted 28 February 2005 - 09:00 PM

niteflyer said:

active is using the crossovers on the amp only, and not using an external xover
what sort of amps are there that you can run a high pass and a low pass at the same time?
like the woofer needs to be high passed at around 80Hz and lowpassed at roughly 2000Hz.
Are there many amps with this feature?

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