Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig
Forum ate my post. 
Take two... this one is not as good but still conveys the same info, sort of.
You are established in the industry where I am an upstart. You have a track record and a pool of familiar resources to draw from. I am still trying to prove myself to people and working alone. As I gather more knowledge and familiarity (plus a crew of trusted employees) I will surely switch back and forth between both passive and active. For now I need the speed, agility and simplicity of active technology while I work to earn a reputation and establish a durable space in the market for my company. You make very good points about the modularity and easy replacement and swapping out of blown parts, but for a new guy just hanging in there simplicity is very important.
I had a passive rig. I sold it and bought an active one. I enjoyed the modularity and fine control I had with it. However, it is riskier to put a noob on a passive system (too much complexity in the amp racks, power distros, too many cables signal/speaker etc etc etc). Speaker cables are a huge PITA that I do not miss. I had thousands of feet of 12 AWG 2 conductor cable carrying it around with me (I sold all of it to one man for dirt cheap!). Mic cables are bad enough! I put my former passive rig (now sold) into a Pathfinder SUV plus a 5X8 trailer. I put my active rig inside of a single mini van. I put my active mini rig (complete with mini subwoofer) inside of a Toyota Corrolla. I can teach anyone to operate my active system (even the X32) without worrying too much about them damaging it and without worrying at all about them hurting themselves. With my passive rig I would have been extremely worried letting a noob muck about on it for fear the rig might get damaged or a processor setting might be changed or worse that they might blow something up literally. Its harder to blow up anything with a QSC powered speaker. Everything from procurement to logistics is altered by choosing one over the other and amplifier racks are not negotiable. I no longer have any amplifier racks AND my passive subs weighed as much as the active ones. No need for heavy processing either. My passive rig sounded like doo doo without the processor and did not get as loud or as remain as stable. My active rig is fire and forget...
