If you ever speak to twenty different home theater specialists you will probably get twenty different answers as to which is superior, passive or active design.
Active home theater speakers, like almost all Canton speakers, have the audio amplification built in the system so they are typically heavy in design and will require a main power connection as well as the sound cable.
On the other hand, passive home theater speakers require an external amplifier to make them work and so they only have an audio wire connection and don’t need any sort of local power. Without really getting too technical, when audio is transmitted it may be sent in a variety of different methods and some of them are actually much better at maintaining sound quality while others can be less vulnerable to disturbance and generally you will find it is a trade off between the two.
For example, active home theater sound systems require a sound line level cable to make them work. Now line level transmission may be prone to interference if it is run together with main cables for example. This can result in a reduced hum over whatever sound is released from the speakers that can be really annoying and degrades the quality of your home cinema.
Passive home cinema sound systems on the opposite require a speaker level cable to make them do the job and are less vulnerable to disturbance. The actual trade off is that the line level transmission maintains a much better audio quality than loudspeaker level and therefore if the wires are running over an extended distance, let’s say over twenty feet then you’ll get a lower quality sound reproduction.
To go one step further you may also look into digital or analogue home cinema speakers which both function on line level transmission but one is digital and the other is analogue so let’s talk about the distinction. Digital transmission sends all the sound signals in ones and zeros while analogue sends the audio signals in waves. In essence you will find that digital loudspeakers will probably be less prone to disturbance but will lose some of the sound quality as they need to round everything to either a zero or a one.
Home cinema loudspeakers are made up of different sound drivers that are essentially just cone formed parts of papers that force air out from the speaker. They’re different sizes based on the type of sound to be reproduced and generate the sound for your home theater.
In essence there are only three distinct kinds of drivers and every one deals with a distinct audio wave length or to be much less technical, a distinct audio pitch. One of them deals with the high end, called the tweeter, another one deals with the middle range, the mid range, and the third deals with the low end, the woofer.
You’ll need to look for a speaker that has one of each of these drivers and ideally two or more to get the very best sound reproduction. For speakers like this check out the Boston Acoustics speakers range. Now there are lots of other factors that will need to be considered when choosing home theater loudspeakers such as the quality of the audio cable used to link them along with the build quality of the speakers themselves as you of course want to reduce internal resonance that can have an effect on sound quality.
Click Here to See the Different Types of Home Cinema Speakers
