Karaoke Forums

Couldn't have said it any better myself London.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

being completly naive on the powered speaker concept
So I take it the INPUT goes in once ? and then just daisyed thru out all the speakers
and there is no QUALITY LOSS from the 1st speaker to the last ?
And the only real drawback is the electrical hook ups ?

seems pretty flexiable

I figure if the larger acts, opera houses, symphony halls, and the like use them, they must be ok.

Jam, that is correct. One line out from the mixer to the first speaker then daisy chain them out to in.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Hell, JBL, QSC, EAW and others produce powered ("active") line array cabinets. Talk about the ultimate display of the flexibility of powered speakers. Need a taller line stack, just add more speakers. No need to worry about bigger or additional amps. Just fly a few more and off you go.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

You seem to have missed the basic point that out-board power amps are interchangeable and may be used with a variety of passive speakers. This is not the case with plate amps (and any built in DSP, etc.) in powered/active speakers. By definition, this is less flexible.

You'll note that I haven't said "powered speakers are bad." I am well aware that there are professional line-array cabinets with integrated amps. You're still buying amps that are tied to that specific cabinet, and if you stop using it you have to buy new amps to go to different boxes.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

I think I will have to agree with others about flexibility. To me flexibility means ability to mix and match sets of equipment. If I have a 1000 watt amp in my rack and someone brings me 100 watt max speakers, I would not be able to match my most optimal sound from that. I would even be more scared of reversing that trend, may blow up my speakers. Not to mention the impedance you have to match between the output and the speakers. How about different types of connectors on each amp/speakers? Bare wire? Banana plugs? What about the gauge of the wire? You can't stick a 36 gauge speaker wires using 1000 watts per channel.

If I had a bunch of powered speakers, I use the same cable, same connectors, right out of the mixer and to the speaker, daisy chain to next speaker. All I have to worry about is where to put the speakers. That, to me, is flexible.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

I think simple is a much better way to think of it than "flexible."

I use the same amps for 100w RMS wedges, 1600w RMS subs, and everything in between. I don't blow them up largely because I bring the right speakers for the job and don't need to push things beyond their limit.

Some of my speakers have only 1/4", some have NL4, and some have both. I have speaker cables with both types of ends, though I wish I had bought all NL4 to NL4 and some adapters (lesson learned.) All my amps have NL4 connectors. If they didn't, I would get patch panels or adapters.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

Love my Mackie 450's but I am going to have to part with them for unpowered.
They are too heavy for ME to carry up lots of stairs.
Ok I'm a light weight.

True, but why is it that the best speaker manufacture (my opnion) EV have mainly passive speakers in their line

Love my EV SB122. It's light.
Sounds awesome.

Sorry, I guess we disagree on the word flexible. From my experience in the past, I don't always have choice on what equipment I use. Sometimes I have to plug in to the house board, sometimes I have to use their players. Having powered speakers allow me "flexibility" to adapt to any situation. That to me is flexibility, not simple. I only have to carry one type of cable, XLR for both the mics and speakers. If I have to use their mixer with my speakers, simple. Every mixers has XLR output, older ones may have 1/4" but almost every situation I have run to had XLR.

Same with using the house amp/speakers. I have to bring my same cables and adapt to it. Having the powered speakers and the accessories that goes with it gives me more flexibility.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

Every time one of these threads come up, I state that powered/active speakers usually take up less space and are easier to transport since you don't need out-board amps, but you can certainly bring out-board amps along with passive speakers if you want to. I still can't agree that your powered speakers are more "flexible."

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

In our tiny little area, which is definitely not the world, the venues often have house speakers in place that you plug into. They don't provide the amp/mixer, however. So we had to go amp rather than powered speakers in order to have the flexibility to use either the house passive or powered speakers. Our own speakers have yet to leave the living room. I guess flexibility would depend on what is the common set up in each area.

And how often do you actually swap amps and speakers around? And why would you? Every production company I've worked with has always had their amp racks marked for the PA they go with. There isn't shifting around of amps (unless going to a spare in event of failure) because you're going to use the amps that are best matched for the particular PA you're using. You're not going to change the amount of power you're sending to each speaker, that doesn't make sense. Sure I guess you can call the ability to do so flexibility but in reality it has little applicability.

I too have not said one is better than the other, in fact I use passive speakers for my Karaoke. For the band we have both active and passive configurations depending on the venue. And all but one rig that the production company owns are traditional passive setups.

Let me give you an example of the flexibility factor. Say I've got 6 SRM-450's that I use for PA and Monitors. I can have 2 or 4 in the PA and 2 or 4 operating as floor wedges. Each could have their own seperate mix or could be on the same mix, all that matters is the cable routing. Add subwoofers to the mix and I can either use external cross-overs or the internal one's built in to most of them. I can have some of the top end boxes receiving full-range signal while others just get the high pass. Again it's only about cable routing. Think about this scenario in terms of a typical passive setup and there's much more than cable routing to be done, even if you have a separate amp or amp channel for each speaker (which is very unlikely in any real world application where more than a pair is used).

As for the question Micky posted, EV makes both Powered and Passive speakers. Passive is the technology that's been used for decades and it's what production people know and trust. Powered speakers are relatively new to the game and so their slowly gaining trust of audio engineers and production companies (just as the case is with digital consoles and previously wireless mics and instrument packs). We're just starting to see the growth of high-power concert series amps mounted to the backs of line array and sub-low cabinets, but it is happening. However, none of this has anything to do with flexibility which is what our discussion is centering around. I will throw one back at you though, consider this, the overwhelming majority of studio monitors on the market today are powered units.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Now that's a very odd situation, one I've never seen before. Typically an installed system is going to have the speakers and amplification (whether active or passive). As an audio engineer and production representative, I can't imagine trusting incoming acts to have the proper amplification to match my installed PA cabinets. That's a new one on me.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Why do Ford, Coke, make so many of a similar product? Passives are cheaper than powered. Why do people buy SGB and BS instead of SC or CB?

Listen I can take any powered (300, 450, 550, 750) speaker and mix and match brands (Yorkville, Mackie, Meyer) and wattages (300, 450, 550, 750)and not worry about blowing them because one has nothing to do with the other. The only thing that connects them is the cable from the mixer to the first speaker and the daisy wires.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

It IS rather nervewracking to worry about blowing someone's speakers. But that is how they've been doing it be it bands or karaoke. The other hosts use powered mixers which seem to be not enough. We have a nice Yamaha amp that gives us an edge on sound. Down the road the host was using the little juke box speakers rather than bring in his own. We don't know why nothing has ever blown but evidently that is how they have been doing it for years. We volunteered to do some after school karaoke for the Boys and Girls Club and that will be the first time we will get to use our own speakers since we bought them a year ago.

Anytime I need to have more than two systems out at once, I pull amps for the third one. I do it because I don't want to buy more amps that would get used maybe a couple times a year. Also, if I can leave speakers at a bar all week and still take the amp rack with me to do another job, I can do that. It reduces my work and the amount of equipment I need to own. It's true that it would only cost me a couple thousand dollars to have the same amps with the same speakers all the time, but I can think of many better ways to invest a couple thousand dollars than in the convenience factor of not needing to re-rack some amps once in a while.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

Never had passive, unless the sound is better, in my particular situation and opinion, I will stick to powered and my Yorkies. 2 extra extension cords? Yeah, so big deal? They (speakers) only weigh 47 lbs and I'm not that big but I can lift them easily to the pole over my sub.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Sorry Mickey, EV makes lots of powered speakers, Sxa100, Sxa250, Zxa5, Sb2a sub is the powered version of the Sb122 and a few more. They are pretty much all powered versions of some of their passive models.

Back a few years ago powered speakers weren't the most reliable and they were generally heavier. Nowadays several of the top companies have come out with lighter weight and reliable powered speakers. I don't own any yet, but I'm getting tired of carrying power amplifiers around.

Powered speakers are generally a good bit more expensive than passive+amp, but I imagine lots of folks feel the extra money is worth it so they don't have to lug around heavy amp racks anymore.

I'm still toying with the idea. I've passed up some very good deals on used powered speakers on craig's list. I imagine I'll be getting a pair sometime in the next year or two,but I'm very happy with my super light weight Zx1s and my super light weigh Sb122 subs so I really don't have much motivation to get something else.

If you get a light weight amp like a QSC PLX or one of the new light weight Carivin amps then it becomes a matter of personal preference whether you use an amp and passive or powered speakers because who can complain about carrying around a 15 pound amp?