Am I wasting money on the theory of Bi-amping?

The very basics: a [speaker] passive crossover comes AFTER the amps, operating at speaker level.  The drivers are connected to the crossover not the amplifiers; active crossover /electronic crossovers come BEFORE the amps, operating typically at [balanced] line level; the drivers are individually and directly connected to a specific amp channel that is for that driver and that driver alone.  

It is hard to understand how anyone could think shoving a bunch of passive electronics with lots and lots of wire into an audio chain between the amplifiers and drivers could be a step up in quality and create a better, more pristine audio chain.  I wonder if passive fans realize how much wire is in an air core inductor used in a high quality passive crossover (300-500 feet or more?).  We don't do any other processing after amplifiers, why is the passive crossover somehow an exception?       

There is so much science here that is quite established and well accepted, since the 60s-70s at least.  ATC and Genelec were offering full [analog] active crossover loudspeakers to the market in the early 80s, some with internal amps, some with external amps.  Both companies sold into home and pro simultaneously.  Now there are many more companies offering active crossover speakers and some use DSP, some still analog.  

There are plenty of options and choices as to how one can approach this active issue and adapt it to your liking, make it sound one way or another.  It does require some work to understand what is happening, but its certainly not complicated.  It is not more expensive or more difficult to operate.     

I cannot help but observe the entire "passive crossover is better" argument appears to be a clear example of marketing not science.   

Brad

@knotscott - yours is probably the only legit answer for not investigating active more thoroughly.  I get that once invested downa path, its difficult to change.

@unsound - comment about passive crossovers having "implmentations to compensate" for driver anomalies sounds like you think active crossovers cannot offer the same or better "compensations".  Actually this is one of the primary arguments FOR active, its much beeter to solve all these issues before the amplifier, not after.  

Why no comment about all the wire and passive components between the amplifier and driver ?   This seems to be the elephant in the room doesnt it? .  

@knotscott 

Well thanks for taking a stab- I was thinking more of @unsound than you, as he made the comment about passive crossovers compensating for drier irregularities. But regarding youor comment, yes-its hard to not agree with you!  I agree it is IS difficult to come up with a good clean electronic crossover that's not digital, and then most of those are low end pro units (Behringer, etc) that i wouldnt put in any hi fi rig. I think we'll see more of them in the future though.   .  

@unsound - You have a point there about active outboard crossovers, and there are very few available. Most active loudspeakers have a purpose built electronic crossover designed specifically for their speaker within their internal or external amps just like passive ones do. Outboard is not where you find most active loudspeaker’s crossover. It’s usually built into the same circuit board as the amps themselves. Its easy to implement the same level of quality throughout the entire signal path.

I think my point was you presented this as "passive crossover advantage is compensation built in" while that is certainly not what I have seen across a long period of time. Im not saying it doesn’t exist, but the typical passive crossover is a simple, passive device that cannot be adjusted and has no "processing". Maybe EQ? Is that what you mean by compensation?

Active is much more likely to include additional controls such as phase controls and individual [band specific] level controls to calibrate the drive units to work as seamlessly together as possible. This is the case with the brand I work with, ATC, and multiple other studio/home speaker companies. I have seen some companies offer full-on EQ within some of their control sets, in both analog and digital form, so a user can tailor a speaker to their liking. Now we are seeing a new wave of loudspeakers with room correction and/or adjustment software within their internal crossovers. Such companies are Genelec, Kii and Dutch and Dutch. This level of control or adjustment is not available in a passive crossover. This means that some common issues a designer chooses to address cannot be accounted for in passive crossover.

By the way, I am NOT advocating that passive speakers should be torn apart and modified- this is far too difficult for most of us to actually pull off without a lot of information that tells us exactly what to do. I am speaking about an active system designed as active by the manufacturer from the beginning with all the parts supplied vs a passive system of the same type designed as passive with all its needed parts. ATC does both active and passive so perhaps I am able to contrast these two ideas without getting lost in gear/brand/type differences.

@elliottbnewcombjr : You are using the word Bi amp in such a way as to cconfuse us more.

There is only one explanation for biamp.  Bi-amp requires an external [line level] crossover BEFORE the amplifiers.  The example above is a bi wire set up, with or without jumpers, as a passive [speaker level] crossover is AFTER the amplifiers.  One of the side effects in the bi wire set up is the amps are still running full range and do not specialize in one band: the crossover after them is filtering part of the full range amplfier output out.   Electronic crossover bi-amp divides the preamp output into two, LF and HF, sending only HF to one amp, only LF to the other amp per the instructions from the crossover.  Now you can have the large amp for bass and it will pay off. 

Brad