Why do powered Speakers sound better then passive ones?

There are generally two actual drivers inside a full-range speaker cabinet; one to handle the low frequencies and one to handle the high frequencies. Passive cabinets direct the right frequency to the right driver via an internal passive high-level crossover. This collection of components does its job very well but has an 'insertion loss', i.e. it soaks up a fair bit of the power that's being sent into the cab before it reaches the drivers. Active cabs separate the frequency bands before they get amplified. The signals are then sent to two different amplifiers; one for low and one for high frequencies. Each amplifier powers the relevant driver. This architecture coupled with the fact that the amplifiers are perfectly matched to the speaker that they are driving means that you have a much more efficient sound system ? more performance for less watts. On a larger scale, this is how big concert PAs are run. Consequently, active speakers sound louder, cleaner and more responsive than passive systems.

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