Is anyone using active instead of passive crossovers with their DIY speakers? I'm thinking about going this route, because I have a couple of XTi 1002 amps, so I see no reason why I can't do this. Shouldn't I be able to get at least the same if not better results as a passive xover? These will be for some 88 specials.
many folks are.
the trick is designing them well and keeping noise out of the system for the top end.
not sure if one exists for the 88 or not.
look into a protective cap for the cd.
Thanks! Keeping the noise out shouldn't be a problem since the xovers are built in the amps. Playing around with crown's "Bandmanager" looks pretty complete. I can't see what a passive crossover could do over a XTi/bandmanager.
Plenty use active crossovers including myself. Unless there are active filters available meant for your particular speakers, then it's not going to be so easy. Whether it's active or passive you still need: measurement gear, the knowledge how to use it correctly to get good data, and you still need to know some electrical filter theory to design the actual crossover. You also need to know a thing or two about transducers and how to use them in the way they are meant to be used.....what they can and can't do. The only thing "easy" about active crossovers is you don't need to know how to build electrical filters with passive components, but the theory about why they are used is very much the same.
That said, if you're like me, sometimes you just gotta get your hands dirty to find out. Don't expect good results for some time......
If the above interests you, you'll probably find yourself in a few years with thousands of dollars worth of audio gear and drivers laying around. Unfinished projects, miles of speaker wire and cables, and time spent at work thinking about audio when you should be working . I've got a bit of a horn graveyard in my spare room upstairs........
When you sent me an email asking if you could skip the crossover and just use your amp that has a built in crossover that you can set at 950hz, I said it wouldn't be a good idea. But you didn't mention you had a miniDSP.
Oh! my bad. I want to get the speakers xover correctly first before adding RC in the mix. With a lot of trial and error, I think I can get it working the way I want with the amps crossovers/dsp. After I get them completed I'll run REW for each driver and see how it goes. I'm building the speakers with 4 pole speakon connections, so i'll make the passive crossover in a little external box with speakon connections. That way I can add/remove them for testing and such.
Just made room in my shop for test boxes, gonna have those babies bumping very soon. I can't wait. By the time you get 'em it'll be like sloppy seconds, oh Ya
You might want to plug in the parts and their values into Xsim program and take a look exactly what's going on.... Once you figure out the slope/order/frequency of essentially what's going on you could program a similar into your minidsp and compare/measure. If you can AB test against the passive external crossover it should be interesting. I'd like to see some measurements, pictures and hear the results.
I think Jeff B keeps his crossover private so a word of advice would be it's fine to dissect it or reverse engineer it for your project by just keep his wishes in mind and don't publically post and share the nitty gritty. I know this doesn't make that much sense but some designers are particular. I understand not wanting to get ripped off but I never understood what stopped someone who wanted to do that from just buying the kit to get it?
Yeah, I already got the values, so that is why I don't think it's all the difficult. I know order/the cutoff and the zobel network value, so yeah I have somewhere to start.
Always great to learn. So I suggest getting a RAW frequency sweep of your speakers in the intended cabinet and go from there. While it may take a while to figure out everything just have patience. Keep at it and keep going. Dont worry about the rest. If you dont have the time to do this then just build a predone design. Other wise have at it nothing is stopping you.
I think more people NEED to take the plunge and just learn as you go. You have to start some where. While some can say this and that about how to do it will ultimately come own to you and learning. A few online books and helpful guidance are always great.
I will be going active with my setup and I will enjoy every minute of fumbling and stumbling around to get it right. I am new at designing from scratch but I dont mind the struggle. Hey its DIY after all.
Some people like to quote others and stay away from DIY from scratch because they themselves dont have a clue or patience. Just take the plunge ignore the rest.
I am not talking about Tux either.. I just see a few people who quote others from the past and dont have a clue either, which only discourages others from taking the step.
We warn people cause they often think they can program their Minidsp for 1000hz and adjust the gains until it sounds right. Problem is the response looks terrible 99/100 and looks mediocre 1/100. We warn them that there's more involved, which is why more DIYers aren't doing it.
I wasn't scared away by anyone saying it couldn't be done. In fact I think the community here on the forums is awesome and would provide as much support as one could ask for. I backed away because I started reading the content I felt I needed to understand to design a crossover to the standards I expect, and I decided it was a larger time commitment than I'm currently willing to make.
As well, I have heard many DIY designs and I know that getting exceptional results cannot be easy because I rarely hear exceptional results. That's not to say they're bad or anything like that and I don't want to insult any DIY'ers, it's just that the exceptional designs are, well, the exception IME. If it were easy exceptional would be the norm.
But please, this is not meant to insult anyone and the designs I've heard from anyone reading this post have all certainly been exceptional .
I agree 100% gaddoc. It's a huge time commitment to get exceptional results. And lot of experience also. i think all to often a first time DIYer think it sounds good is the honeymoon effect. Their new creation sounds "amazing" but after some time goes by the start wanting to change things for a reason. I've been guilty of this. It's hard not to. Take your speakers for instance, you have a host of great designers tearing apart the speaker for months until it sounds great to more than one person.
None of this is meant to discourage. Simply a warning to set expectations where they should be. It's not as simple as measuring in REW from the LP.
I specifically remember your warning about the honeymoon effect, which is why I haven't posted any opinions on the sound quality of my project yet. Although it sounds pretty good compared to my fusion 8 right next to it. I'm going to wait til the very end to judge, and try to escape the honeymoon effect. Or if I can't I'm going to at least try to be mentally self aware of it.
I realize this is an old thread . But maybe we could get some interest in it again .
Although I’m a long ways out from even building my DIY speakers , I’ve been researching active crossovers for home use , and don’t see a lot of options .
In my case , I’d want a 3 way active crossover , and this one from dbx looks interesting,but I believe there intended for band PA systems . Not certain how well it would work in a home environment for running two towers with 3 drivers each, but it looks promising, and it’s not a fortune . The time alignment would be a nice touch too .
I reckon I'd be the active xover cheerleader here. I don't do passives anymore.
Best value xovers are the MiniDSP. I have a couple and they are excellent units and there are plenty here with experience in them.
I've also build an HTPC for my bedroom and will be using it to do xover duties as they system is only 2 ch (speakers are 4 way). I also snaffled a DEQX for cheap recently as part of a complete system I bought including a 3 way PHL and Fountek speaker so it will be getting used at some point or another; seems a waste not to use it. If I can get it to play nice with a MD to do the subs work, it'll be for the mains.
Pro based units like the dbx and the DCX2496 (I had 3 modified units in system earlier) have a couple of issues over the MD for instance. They are very limited in terms of the types and slopes of xovers available to choose and being designed for high signal levels typical in a PA, they can be noisy in home use unless you can get the gain up before them. The DCX was maligned for many years for it being noisy, but it's not at all. It's just most people bought one and simply shoved it into an unbalanced (domestic) level system and expected it to work.
Early posts in the thread correctly point out that you still need to know what you're doing to use an active xover well. I have enough experience I can dial it in fairly quickly, but don't expect it'll be a 10 minute job your first few times. A tip; once you have it dialed in and you're happy with the sound, leave it alone! Oh, and very importantly, when testing change one thing at a time only. And work out a file naming convention in advance so that you can tell what each one is doing to trace your modification history, be able to check files against each other and make sure you don't cover the same ground many times.
I’m familiar with active crossovers, but in a car audio environment. The dbx does have some pretty intense looking menus . My pioneer Deh p9 and q9 had four way crossover capabilities,adjustable slope and freq, 8 outputs with separate time alignment , 31 band 1/3 octave eq , parametric control , you name it . Why is it so hard to build for us home stereo guys is beyond me?
Although the dbx states a high snr, I don’t doubt they would likely add noise in the system . Shame really .
I seen a review on the Mini DSP and it had lots of features . But they showed it created a lot of distortions unfortunately. Don’t know if they have that corrected
Active isn't easier but it does have some advantages:
1) Easy to combine vastly different driver efficiencies
2) Making changes doesn't involve soldering and buying different components (caps,coils ect)
3) Saves you the migraine from reading about boutique crossover components
4) Opens the door to phase alignment solutions (FIR, time ect)
5) Eq can occur pre and post crossing
I use the VENU360 from DBX and have no issues with noise
I wish they’d just step up the components and charge more . Although I believe the distortions are probably inaudible anyways .
The 4x10 does everything I’d like
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