Active vs Passive

[Silent Jim]

Can anyone explain the relative merits of active and passive pickups for me? Cheers.

[Strtlvr]

Actives sound better. That's all I know. Passive's sound good. But actives have an eq on the bass, pasives dont. and with actives, you need a battery. Hopefully that helped a little.....

[smfulla]

that guy had it a bit wrong
actives sound good, and so do passives
merits of active:
generally louder

merits of passive:
no need to change batterys every so often

otherwise they're basically the same. You can get basses with passive eq, and basses with active eq.

in the end, its up to personal preference.

[ESP_Viper]

Actives are hotter and they can be more punchy. With active you can get EQ on the bass for further tone shaping, which is cool. Passives don't require a battery and they are the more classic tone that most people know. I love both passive and active.