Just like a recipe of a food helps a person a lot when cooking, a particular tip of an item will save you much time on selecting among hundreds of similar products. Do you feel puzzled when standing in front of a counter without a clear mind to choose a right item? Are you afraid to be cheated by a shopping guide? With these in mind, you’d better read this article to find something useful for you.

First, let’s take a common item for instance, say, a pen drive. I guess it is frequently used if you have a computer-relative job. Obviously, a pen drive is not activated by a battery, so there is nothing to bother you except its lifespan. Pen drives have write cycles which means once the end of a write cycle is reached, the USB will stop allowing writing. The USB's owner will not lose all their data but merely not be able to write any more to it. The length of time before this happens varies based on how often a pen drive is used. One used to store an operating system which runs a computer off would be constantly written and read, which makes its lifespan considerably less than that of someone who occasionally used their pen drive to transfer a few word documents. So next time when selecting a pen drive you don’t have to take someone’s suggestion to buy a pen drive made from special new material.

Anyway, when it comes to buying a speaker, things will be much different. As a matter of fact, there are more factors to consider when selecting a speaker. You may be asked to buy one for portability or sound effect, as speakers can be divided into active and passive speakers. The difference between an active speaker and a passive one is the way the speakers treat the sound.

An active speaker system will amplify the sound, or apply some effect to the sound, which makes listeners feel authentic and wonderful. Besides, it needs a power source, with some models this will be provided through a USB cable which you connect to your PC, but more likely it is provided by an external power supply which needs to be connected to the mains electricity supply, this can be a concern when it comes to portability. Actually, this is the main reason why many people choose a passive speaker instead.

A passive speaker system simply reproduces the signal it is sent without any amplification or audio effect. It does not require a power source; since they are driven by the audio output from your PC or laptop. Although this is useful when electricity sockets are scarce, it does mean that they are limited to the amount of volume your PC or laptop's soundcard creates, which in some cases can be minimal. And these drawbacks absolutely cannot be overlooked when buying.

Generally speaking, people are suggested to purchase an active speaker for better sound effect or to purchase a passive speaker for portability.