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

I found going Active to be huge step up in Linn speakers/amps - incredible change in dynamics, clarity, spaciousness.  Unless a room is designed to acoustically match the speakers, properly applied DSP is requirement to achieve clean/natural/flat sound.

@mikelavigne wrote:

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....

We may be addressing different aspects here. Digital Signal Processing can be many things, but in my use of the Xilica DSP unit it serves only one purpose: acting as a digital cross-over, and nothing else. No "room<->speaker integration," surround processing or other; 2 channels only (i.e.: 3 outputs pr. channel), with 4 outputs dedicated for the 2-way main speakers, and 2 outputs for the subs. It’s worth noticing that as a digital XO in my case there’s no passive ditto in the signal path, so each amp output channel sees its respective driver terminal directly.

Is this how your experience with DSP, acting actively as a digital XO solely, has also been formed - apart from being used as a room correction unit over already passively configured speakers?

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.

I looked up the Trinnov - an impressive beast of a multiple-feature, high quality apparatus. For home theater use in particular I gather it’s a godsend, and with digital inputs and a digital source one would avoid the A/D conversion, not that I find the added A/D conversion to make much of a difference sonically, if any.

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.

The A/D to D/A conversion necessitated with a DSP in your case with an analogue source - if the DSP were to act only as a digital XO sans any passive XO - to my mind would be the lesser evil compared to the influence of passive cross-overs on the output side of the amp, but again, that’s just me.

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.

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.

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.

Indeed sounds like an awesome speaker setup - kudos. Have you tried running the whole system fully actively with no passive XO’s involved?

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.

I differ here, certainly as outlined above using a DSP unit as a digital XO - sans any passive ditto - only.

Having built many Xovers ,passive such as a passive preamp is not active and 

you loose a lot of dynamics , electronic Xovers will change the Xover points and enhance certain aspects of the frequency band but imo,flatten the sound no life a true active Xover you choose the parts especially capacitors, Such a Duelund being a top quality capacitor, 

vh audio ,Jupiter Jantzen Alumina Z , there are many ,

resistors for speakers there are only two, theNewer Mundorf Ultra Copper foil is most neutral and detailed , Path audio a bit warmer ,not quite as detailed but still very good in absolute terms. ,I have never cared for electronic Xovers except in Bass where it is not in the critical midrange region ,,I am speaking in Loudspeaker terms , in electronics such as preamps ,absolutely a Active preamp,

if A tube preamp many top ones don’t use capacitors on the output ,there are trade offs, with capacitor output stage you Taylor the sound with capacitors ,I use Tinned Copper foil Duelunds, in Top Vacuum tube some use very high quality chokes and Transformers to couple the output stage ,then it comes down to design 

for many use Lundahl transformers and chokes , then Upper Monolith, or Hashimoto .all depends on budget. All depends  on the application design engineering.

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.

I agree!

Mike

I agree with @phusis, when I horizontally bi-amped my speakers with an analog active crossover design by the same manufacturer (of the speakers) it brought my speakers three notches above the passive crossover in sound quality. 😎

Mike

See Active Vs. Passive Crossovers (sound-au.com)

There’s not a passive crossover that can do what DSP crossovers can no matter the price. One of the most fascinating speakers around and I would love to hear it is the Genelec W371a. Paired with the 8351b’s or 8361a using GLM 4.2 calibration. Not to mention a complete immersive system. If money was no object this is world class.

https://www.genelec.com/immersive-hub

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.

It will depend on the quality of the electronics that you use as well as the portion of the frequency spectrum you are processing (e.g. just bass frequencies or full spectrum).

Personally, I can always tell when a full frequency signal has been run through DSP and have tried high end solutions like the Legacy Wavelet and DEQX, as well as cheaper soluions like MiniDSP. Especially with tube equipment, DSP tends to null a certain sense of breath and decay, resulting in just a slightly more mechanical sound, even if just in the "nth" degree. For this reason, I will always avoid full-frequency DSP moving forward.

I don't mind DSP to improve bass integration and response, say for 150hz and below. I believe DSP is more effective for the bass than a passive crossover as DSP can be more finely tuned, through phasing / time alignment, parametric EQ, crossover slope, etc. where an analog crossover is more limited.

I like the tone of analog crossovers, but have found them harder to integrate, and if they can't be properly integrated, I couldn't care less for them. I currently integrate my subs with DSP, but I run my speakers throught the full frequency. I guess one more step I could take would be to run the signal going to my speakers through a high-pass filter or analog crossover to possibly make for even better efficiency and control, but I haven't felt the impact would be worth adding another step in the chain. Maybe one day I'll try.

Apart from listening to a variety of bundled-package active speakers I’ve heard passively configured speakers that I knew very well being converted into active ditto, and it has certainly convinced me of the merits of properly implemented active configuration.

Most relate to "active" as bundled speaker packages - calling them simply, and rightly, active speakers - with built-in amps, DSP/electronic cross-over and sometimes DAC(s). However ’active’ per definition simply means the filtration is done prior to amplification on signal level, and not (passively) on the output side of the amp between that and the drivers.

That is to say: active configuration isn’t defined solely or even strictly as a bundled package (that one usually calls an active speaker), but can as well act - true to the definition of active config. - as a separate/discrete component solution; with a free-of-choice DSP/electronic XO, the number of amps necessitated to drive the respective driver segments, and DAC and cables - essentially as you would operate with separate components and cables with a passive speaker setup (sans DSP/electronic XO), the vital difference though being - to reiterate - that it would be actively configured.

With that out of the way my reference above to the passive speakers being converted into active is as a separate component solution - i.e.: fully and truly actively configured. Running them actively meant a more resolved, transparent, smooth/easy on the ears, transiently snappy, dynamic and tonally more authentic presentation. More accurate, in my understanding of the term, and yet more musical. The passive iteration by comparison felt sluggish, coarse and veiled (which to some may equate into more "musical"), and it wasn’t due to a badly implemented passive XO with so-so component quality.

Setting up a separate component, actively configured speaker setup without preset filter settings from a manufacturer comes with a caveat: you’re left to your own devices dialing in those filter values, and to a newbie this may come off as intimidating and even off-putting. It’s a learning curve and a process that takes patience to wring out the full(er) potential, for sure, but it’s very rewarding - not only eventually.

In my own case with my separate component, actively configured speaker setup, it came as a surprise how fast I was able to dial in filter values on my Xilica DSP unit for an initially quite satisfying sonic result, but as time went on I was able to refine the results much further with measurements, extended listening and gaining more knowledge. Having a horn that amplifies linearly (as opposed to some waveguides) no doubt helped with the pleasing initial results.

To me active configuration ultimately holds the bigger sonic potential, insofar one is able to harness it either finding the right preassembled and -configured active speakers, or going about it on a self-taught/collaborative separate component basis. The latter scenario has the advantage of a carte blanche plate; every parameter, physical as well (and not least), can be scaled and chosen according to desire. There are no limitations other than what you impose on yourself or am willing to learn in the process.