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Do most manu. buy or build their x-overs?

There is quite a bit of discussion concerning speaker driver manufacturers (scanspeak, vifa, morel, etc.) and who uses what. But in general I would say that drivers account for less than half of the overall performance of the speaker. The crossover is a HUGE factor, in many cases perhaps more important than the drivers themselves.
So, generally, do most manufacturers of high end speakers purchase their crossovers in the same manner? Or do they build them to suit the selected drivers?
If they are purchasing them, who are the big names? While I can name off a dozen driver manu. I can't think of one x-over manu., only a few designs named for their inventors (presumably).
jb3

Showing 2 responses by gunbei

gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Interesting question.

I'd think the crossover design is so critical that it would need to be designed specifically for the cabinet design and drivers being used, so that the speaker manufacturers would pick the parts and build them to their own needs.

This is what I did albeit on a much cruder level when I was in my car stereo phase years ago.
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Wow, Sean sounds like an involoving project! It's great you were able to do a before and after listen and note the differences.

From the description of the complexitiy I'm assuming this was no first order 6dB slope set up, but then again you do have 5 drivers, and therefore more components.
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