crossbow, compound vs recurve

what is the difference between a compound and recurve crossbow? I thought the cams of the compound was primarily for 'letoff' when drawing back, but i would think this doesn't matter when the bow is mechanically held back. what are the advantages of the compound crossbow?

If you look at stress/strain curves for recurves vs compounds you will see that the compound has more energy (area under the curve). This is somewhat complicated by hysteresis (energy loss on transfer) but usually the compound delivers more.

Thanks! I recently purchased a recurve for $100 on sale. (reg ~$150) Its a Barnett. I was having second thoughts that maybe I should have got a compound. This is for hunting, but it's my first crossbow so I didn't want to put too much $ into it just in case I don't like it.

What do you think? Think the recurve will suffice?

MAaaaaan. Home made is the real deal

If I bought another crossbow it would be a recurve, currently use a 200lb horton Firehawk.

When it comes to Crossbows, I am partial to recurves, less moving parts, my Excal ExoMax (225#) gets 355fps...so it's not a big difference from compounds on the market today, plus you can change out strings in the field in 2 minutes if necessary...If you are serious about crossbows you should check our Excalibur.