Active vs Passive....Which one?
Choose Your Speaker Configuration
When choosing your speaker configuration you will want to keep a few things in mind. As you go up “active” channels, the more control you have in the DSP, but also the more advanced the tuning becomes.
For the 3-way active configuration, we are running two Arc Audio X2 1100.5 five-channel amplifiers, one per side of the vehicle. This improves stereo separation and the overall sound quality of the system. This option provides you with 6 fully active front channels at 150wrms each, 2 amplifier channels for the rear (DSP in mono), and a remaining channel for the subwoofer which is divided from the two amplifiers. So you will have two subwoofer outputs, each capable of 500wrms at 2-ohm each, for a total of 1000wrms.
The 2-way active is a more common setup that provides you full control over each speaker powered by the Arc Audio X2 1200.6 amplifier along with the X2 1100.1 subwoofer amplifier. This package also includes the PS8 Pro for ultimate tuning control.
When we jump down to the 2-way passive system, we are utilizing a 5-channel amplifier and no signal processing. To do this, we chose the Arc Audio X2 1100.5 amplifier which provides 150wrms to each channel and 500wrms at 2-ohm to the subwoofer.
Here are the configuration options:
- 3-Way Active = 10 Channels Amplification – 8 DSP Processed (Rear Mono)
- 2-Way Active = 7 Channels Amplification – 7 DSP Processed
- 2-Way Passive = 5 Channels Amplification – No DSP