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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => Product Reviews => Topic started by: Kobe Goudeseune on October 28, 2021, 09:40:50 AM

Title: EV active vs passive
Post by: Kobe Goudeseune on October 28, 2021, 09:40:50 AM
Hello,

I've been looking at the EV ELX200 speakers for a while now, for both front and stage monitors on small gigs. I like the idea of going passive and setting them up with Dynacord amps as they suggest on their product website. Just wondering if I'm not missing out on any features from the active ones, as it's actually more cost-efficient while it seems to offer quite some modern technology integrated.

What do you think? Is it worth the money to spend extra and go passive, any chance that it will sound better or have a better performance? Or is it just plain stupid to be stubborn and should I pay less for an active system that actually seems to offer more attributes?

Many thanks in advance for your opinion!
Title: Posting Rules
Post by: Mac Kerr on October 28, 2021, 10:18:44 AM
Hello,

I've been looking at the EV ELX200 speakers for a while now, for both front and stage monitors on small gigs. I like the idea of going passive and setting them up with Dynacord amps as they suggest on their product website. Just wondering if I'm not missing out on any features from the active ones, as it's actually more cost-efficient while it seems to offer quite some modern technology integrated.

What do you think? Is it worth the money to spend extra and go passive, any chance that it will sound better or have a better performance? Or is it just plain stupid to be stubborn and should I pay less for an active system that actually seems to offer more attributes?

Many thanks in advance for your opinion!

Please go to your profile and change your name to your real full name as required by the posting rules.

Mac
Title: Re: EV active vs passive
Post by: Paul G. OBrien on October 28, 2021, 12:36:21 PM
Just wondering if I'm not missing out on any features from the active ones, as it's actually more cost-efficient while it seems to offer quite some modern technology integrated.
Yes you would be, the DSP included with the active version is custom tailors to the drivers.

Is it worth the money to spend extra and go passive, any chance that it will sound better or have a better performance? 
No chance. At the level these boxes reside at you are not getting highend drivers, they are designed to a price point and the active version extracts as much reliable potential from them as they are capable of producing. Injecting more power will just shorten thier life and you will not achieve better limiter performance, you will blow lots of drivers trying. There are good arguments for using passives as stage monitors related to cabling but again unless the boxes include beefy drivers that are abuse tolerant the plug and play self protecting functionality of powered boxes has it's advantages.
Title: Re: EV active vs passive
Post by: David Sturzenbecher on October 28, 2021, 01:06:43 PM
Yes you would be, the DSP included with the active version is custom tailors to the drivers.

You mean, just list the DSP in the Dynacord Amps right?

Title: Re: EV active vs passive
Post by: Kobe Goudeseune on October 28, 2021, 01:54:37 PM
Injecting more power will just shorten thier life and you will not achieve better limiter performance, you will blow lots of drivers trying.

I'm not really looking for more power, I'm mainly wondering if it would improve the sound quality, noise floor and/or lifespan and if it's worth considering.

But I see your point and appreciate your advice a lot! If the extra cost of external amps makes no sense, eliminating that might also allow me to maybe upgrade to EKX. I like that thought.
Title: Re: EV active vs passive
Post by: Paul G. OBrien on October 28, 2021, 06:42:28 PM
If the extra cost of external amps makes no sense, eliminating that might also allow me to maybe upgrade to EKX.

Yes.. that is a much better way to spend your $$.