Active input vs passive input

[Ryan W]

All of my current basses have active eq and my Peavey Cirrus has active pickups as well. Lately I’ve been using the passive input on my practice amp, and switching the volume pad off on my live rigs. I play with 2 guitarists and I always find myself turning up my volume and sometimes even the gain. I’m just curious if other bassists also do this. I alternate between an Ampeg PB250 and a Peavey Nitrobass, both get paired to a Crate 4X10 cab.

 

[Redbrangus]

Most basses work fine in the passive inputs. I don't think I've ever encountered an actual raw bass signal (no external pedals) that would have required an input pad to use a normal input. The so-called Active/Passive switch is pretty much unnecessary in my opinion. And some amps even use 15dB input pad -- that's huge in respect to the relatively small input signal it's likely to see.

 

[lokikallas]

I use the passive inputs on any amp unless I can’t get a clean signal with the gain knob. If I’m blasting the preamp into clipping I will try the padded active input. Very rare even with my active EMG DC loaded bass.

 

[Aloe]

I commonly use the passive input for everything including active basses and buffered pedalboards.

sometimes the ‘active’ input is not only a pad, but a lower input impedance, thus theoretically the signal might have less hiss, but on my amps I’m not able to hear that difference.