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Anybody have an actively multi-amplified system?

Hello,

I am one of the very rare breeds that has a fully active system, 6 Jeff Rowland monoblocks running Klipschorns with an Accuphase F-25V electronic crossover in front of the amplifiers, and the passive crossovers taken out of the speakers. It sounds absolutely phenomenal, like nothing else out there. I've been in the business 35 years and have yet to meet anyone (in home audio at least) who has done something similar. It's done all the time in pro audio, yet nobody talks about it for home use. It's widely known that an actively amplified setup simply IS better than any passively crossed over speaker, since the dividing is done before the amplifier, each amplifier only amplifies a certain frequency range, and then the output of the amplifier is connected directly to an individual driver with nothing in between. If anyone has such a setup, is interested in learning more about one, or wants to throw in their 2 cents, please do! It's about time we did talk about this, and I can't believe in all these years more companies haven't actively (pun intended) embraced this type of setup. Also, if anyone has crossover cards for an F-25V crossover, please let me know!!!
128x128crispy98006
ngjockey
1,042 posts
 
I like to run active xovers for woofers and subwoofers but find them impractical against passive xovers for higher frequencies such as the tweeter/mid. A lot has to do with the size and cost of the xover components and assosciated phase shifts. A 0.68 mH air core coil (roughly 2.5 kHz @ 4 ohms, 2nd order) is lot less intrusive than a 6.8 mH iron core (approx. 400 Hz @8 ohms). And that's not getting into guage and cost.

Most ribbon tweeters require some sort of xover, or at minimum, a capacitor for protection.
crispy98006's avatar
crispy98006 OP
14 posts
 
Ya sorry it's my first one so it got duplicated from going backward and forwards with the browser. Sorry all.
crispy98006's avatar
crispy98006 OP
14 posts
 
Yes Dfhaleycko...the crossovers eat a TON of power up, and they soften everything...caps by their very nature smear sound by storing energy, then releasing it. No wonder your Maggies are so much more dynamic. Getting the crossover points is crucial to not blowing things up, level matching is fairly easy by ear with the gain controls, and if you have good phase accurate slopes, it should sound even more 3D. I'd love to hear biamped Maggies; that's where they always lacked passively, in the dynamics department. They're time-aligned just by nature too!
wc65mustang
524 posts
 
Amazing.
3 OP with the exact same question.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
active sub-division before amps is the right way.
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