Passive crossovers are built from capacitors, inductors and resistors and require no power supply to operate. They are used inside hifi speakers and mid/top boxes for PA systems to crossover the HF and LF driver. Since they sit between the amplified output of an amp and the speaker drivers they must be capable of handling high levels of power. Passive crossovers become bulky and expensive for higher power applications, and for powerful PA systems are not practical.

An active crossover splits the signal when it is at line level and goes before the amplifiers in the signal chain, so it doesn’t need to be able to handle high power levels. In a typical PA system, the signal chain goes DESK > CROSSOVER > AMPLIFIERS. Note in an active system there will be a separate amplifier for each frequency band (i.e in a 3-way system, one for top, mid and sub). An active crossover is necessary in a large PA system.

So to answer your question, my hifi speakers have passive crossovers built in, but on all but the smallest PA systems I deal with, I have to use an active crossover. You can’t say one is better than the other – they are just designed for different applications.