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Not necessarily since there is way less room for error or misconceptions here. As much as I probably seem like a stickler for definitions and rules from my last post, the reason I have a problem with it in this specific case is because it genuinely does confuse people and makes them come up with a wrong conclusion. I have yet to encounter someone who thinks that an active speaker works completely differently than a passive one, it's all said and done with "passive ones need amplification, active ones already have an amp built into them". Done.
Whereas this topic confuses people because there are passive basses, active basses, passive pickups and active pickups. "Can I have active pickups in my passive bass? Wait, do I have active pickups or an active bass? Why do we call them active pickups when they're actually passive? I heard that passive pickups work like this, so these active ones have to work based on a different principle that I don't understand." etc. I think, in general, many people are confused. So just breaking it down and explaining it with proper, technical terms is the best solution.
And I'm not crazy, I know that people will keep using the term and that I won't change that, I just hope that people can learn from it. I don't want to derail the thread entirely, but these are the reasons for why I'm thinking this way and why I think it's important, feel free to disagree, it's all cool.
Man, I've read a lot of conversations on this forum, but this is the most pedantically semantic turn I've ever experienced.
So apparently we need a pickup that houses an externally polarized condenser for it to be truly active. Got it.
So apparently we need a pickup that houses an externally polarized condenser for it to be truly active. Got it.
LOL. Oops. I hope everyone will please forgive me for that flippant comment. I was attempting to illustrate a very subtle distinction. A pick-up is a coil of wire.....regardless of whether it is pre-amplified from a circuit in the pick-up housing itself, from a PCB in the control cavity, a pedal, a stand-alone pre-amp, or the pre-amp in your bass amplifier.
And yes, the same argument can be made for speakers. It is weird that we have an entire category/term for gear that has a form of intimately integral amplification: active.
I do suppose you can make the distinction in that some technologies for speakers and microphones (and hence pickups, I suppose) do require a constant charge. I did mention externally polarized condenser microphones as a joke in my previous post, but they are a great example of something that doesn't even begin to do anything without power, whereas an EMG will produce SOME signal.
A well known example of a speaker design that needs constant power is the electrostatic speaker. Even if they take a standard powered signal through the input, they also need to be plugged in to run at all to keep the panels charged. So even though our friend in this post seems to suggest that the idea of active speakers confuses nobody, I don't think that's true at all. If you went out and bought a MartinLogan speaker today, you'd be surprised to find that you need to plug in your speakers to the wall, yet you would normally need a power amp to amplify the signal because there is such a thing as a speaker design that, even when given an amplified signal, needs constant power to operate. But you could also have an electrostatic speaker that had built-in electronics to amplify as well as keep the panel charged, in which case it wouldn't take an amplified signal. So the idea of active speakers can get confusing, too.
So we can be completely pedantic about this, but really, it's whether something needs a battery or not that people actually care about.
A well known example of a speaker design that needs constant power is the electrostatic speaker. Even if they take a standard powered signal through the input, they also need to be plugged in to run at all to keep the panels charged. So even though our friend in this post seems to suggest that the idea of active speakers confuses nobody, I don't think that's true at all. If you went out and bought a MartinLogan speaker today, you'd be surprised to find that you need to plug in your speakers to the wall, yet you would normally need a power amp to amplify the signal because there is such a thing as a speaker design that, even when given an amplified signal, needs constant power to operate. But you could also have an electrostatic speaker that had built-in electronics to amplify as well as keep the panel charged, in which case it wouldn't take an amplified signal. So the idea of active speakers can get confusing, too.
So we can be completely pedantic about this, but really, it's whether something needs a battery or not that people actually care about.
Just kidding man, forgot how serious these posts can appear, yes I believe one should research before buying something that expensive, one thing that drew me to TB in the first place
Yeah, it's like there's a different word for everything.
