DSP vs. active analog crossover vs. passive analog crossover. What is your take?

no simple answer to this question.

the crossover should compliment the media, and the degree of room acoustical work that has been done. dsp fixes room<->speaker integration issues. but it’s not the only way to do that. at lower price points and integrated systems dsp does result in a more listenable performance. but past a certain price point it starts to get in the way of signal path purity for 2 channel.

so no absolutes in this question.

it depends....

personally i play at the upper performance levels for 2 channel and home theater. but dsp still has value to me.

i own the ultimate dsp processor, the Trinnov Altitude 16. i use it with my 9.6.3 surround sound system for my home theater. it uses ’object based’ dsp to create soundscapes that do make movies more real. horses for courses, and it’s the ideal solution for those type movie or concert recordings.

for traditional 2 channel i prefer an analog crossover since i’m a big analog recording guy, as well as have no intention of ’double’ converting my digital files with dsp for my 2 channel listening. that would suck the life out of the music. but i do have a separate dedicated 2 channel room. my 2 channel room is purpose built and highly tuned to avoid the need for any dsp. i’ve fixed the room, and retained the purity of my analog signal path.

my 2 channel room speakers have 2 towers per side; each tower is 7 foot tall and 750 pounds (3000 pounds total). one tower per side is passive, from 35hz and up, the other tower is active and powered for under 40hz, (on paper) -3db at 7hz and -6db at 3hz. so serious bass capability. the passive tower rolls off at the bottom and cannot be used as a stand alone speaker. the bass tower uses analog adjustments and gets it’s signal from the passive tower speaker terminal so it’s signal mimics the sound of the main amplifier. the crossover can be adjusted from 50hz down to 20hz for best room integration.

i get awesome performance, considering the years of work i’ve put into the room.

i think many situations can benefit from dsp, but at the tip top of the 2 channel music reproduction food chain it’s a penalty.

With my former passive configured all-horn speakers I at one point had 3 processing stages involved: the passive cross-overs in the speakers as an analogue "processing" stage, the Xilica DSP to high-pass them, and JRiver Convolution hosting a software for room correction in both the amplitude and time domain. It was a capable setup overall, but I prefer my current fully active setup with only one processing stage: the Xilica DSP. Room acoustics have been optimized with both diffusion and light absorption, so no room correction.

@phusis

interesting, i actually own a "new-in-box" un-openned Xilica DSP XP-2040 i had purchased to use with my Trinnov for my 3 subwoofers (happy to sell it cheap). it turned out that my 3 Funk Audio 18.0 subs in my Home Theater have an even better internal crossover, the ALLDSP module that is able to be ethernet networked and tuned remotely.

but back to the subject of a dsp crossover and whether it’s suitable for the top level 2 channel music reproduction?

i think we see it mostly in high performance 2-channel with DIY active horn systems where otherwise it’s just not very doable. so in those situations it’s simply the only choice, not that it’s inherently better than analog.

for instance Magico brought out their $600k Ultimate Horn System some years ago, but it used a dsp crossover for the best performance and they only sold a few. the marketplace did not warm to the dsp idea as most high level users want all analog signal paths. we can argue about performance, but 2 channel at the top has it's perspectives.

it is interesting that the new G3 version Avant Garde Trio uses a completely analog crossover.

https://avantgarde-acoustic.de/en/trio/

agree. the question is whether it's better with an analog crossover in a particular installation. only the designer can say who has heard it both ways.

I doubt very much a designer or anyone else could tell whether an analog crossover has been replaced with digital if the digital is programmed to mimic the original analog.

we will never agree on that. which is ok.😁

if i play my best 1/2" 15ips tapes (or my top vinyl pressings) all analog verses through a digital step it will jump out. OTOH the more processed recordings will be less revealing.

will every room, system, signal path be equally revealing of a digital dsp step? of course not.