>>>The other point of this was to make it easier to integrate the laptop into the full band, which so far has been a huge struggle technology-wise.<<<

What kind of problems have you had with this? What have you tried so far?

Glad you found a good setup. :)

You have the choice of Bi-Amplified and Active when it comes to self powered speakers. The Active powered speakers have the best sound quality, and here’s why:

A Bi-Amplified speaker uses passive high pass and low pass filters (coil crossovers) built on to each high and low driver. So your signal first goes into an amp, then through the filter, and on to the speaker.

An Active powered speaker has amplifiers built specific to then desired frequency range of the driver. The processing is done digitally befor the amplifier. So your signal goes first into a digital processor, then to the low and high frequency amplifiers which are actually built on to each speaker. Therefore you can drive them much harder because the amplifiers are never forced to drive frequencies that they can’t handle.

So, this is why a typical Bi-Amplified speaker will distort easily at high volume. An Active speaker can put out much more volume, without all the noise, and a lot more low end.

Just the basics: Bi-amplied goes amp to filter to speaker. Active goes processor(filter) to amp to speaker.

Super basic:
Passive filter=OK.
Active Processor=Totally kick ass.

Examples of Active speakers are the Mackie SRM, SA, SR, etc. – Active series: http://www.mackie.com/products/srmv2series/splash.html
or the JBL JRX Active Series: http://jblpro.com/products/portablesound/prx/prx512m.html

Although the Bi-Amplified Peavey’s you have are indeed great sounding speakers, they are definately geared more for guitar type playback. You may find that if you play some hard hitting dance music, the bass will go “POO POO” instead of “BOOM BOOM”.

So, that’s the nuts and bolts man. Hopefully not as opinionative as some of those bloggers!
Feel free to email me with any AV questions you may have.
Your music kicks ass! Thanks!
-Shawn