Two questions: Solder vs mechanical connections and active amps/speakers.

[twelvebears]

OK guys (out of curiosity, are there actually and ladies on AOS?), couple of questions for the collective brain:

First question: are soldered or mechanical electrical connections best?

Gut and brain say (assuming it's not botched) that a soldered connection is better but I wanted views. Reason for asking is that my Volt bass drivers use hefty pro-style spring connections which look identical to the ones used on ATC drivers. Thus far, I've always used these, but I'm now wondering if I should solder instead. Doing so would be easy and wouldn't present any danger to the voice-coil.

Second question: at some point, I may wish to experiment with active crossovers (not for a while however) and was wondering if anyone had played around with this themselves? There are several companies who produce pre-built, adjustable crossovers where you can play with the frequency, roll-off rates and system Q.

Although I own a MF M3 integrated, the pre and power sections are actually connected internally using proper phono leads and it also has pre-outs, so introducing an active crossover would be quite easy assuming I can find a matching amp to partner it, so suggestions on the latter two if you have any.

Thanks in advance for your input.

[DSJR]

Firstly, solder should only be used to anchor a good mechanical connection. I wish this was always thus, but it isn't unfortunately...

If you know what you're doing and have an understanding of what the drivers actually DO in the chosen cabinet, then my view is that active can work really well. HOWEVER, there's a lot to go wrong in the same way that badly designed, complex passive crossovers go wrong.

[smithy]

I am currently using an Ashly XR2001 analogue active crossover, not easy to source in the UK though.Lots about them on the Lansing Heritage website though, popular with the Altec users.I use a Crown K2 at the bottom end crossing over to a MC2 650 midrange and currently a little class D amp for the top end.I wouldnt really like to say whether it sounds better activated but it is an interesting exercise.

[freddiecas]

Active is always better than passive in the sense that high frequencies don't have to ride on top of the waveforms of low frequencies, thus the separate amps can give a subjective impression of almost a doubling of amplifier power even though using the same amp clipping power as the passive system. There is also distortion and damping advantages with driving voicecoils direct rather than through lossy capacitors and inductors with relatively large currents and voltages.

But if the passive crossover has equalisation built in to achieve a flat response the same has to be incorporated in the active design values so a universal active design of say textbook theoretical sallen key filters will be as bad as a general passive design of theoretical values not matched to the driver/box used.