How good is the crossover in your loudspeakers?
I just watched a Danny Richie YouTube video from three weeks ago (linked below). Danny is the owner/designer of GR Research, a company that caters to the DIY loudspeaker community. He designs and sells kits that contain the drivers and crossover schematics to his loudspeakers, to hi-fi enthusiasts who are willing and able to build their own enclosures (though he also has a few cabinet makers who will do it for you if you are willing to pay them to do so).
Danny has also designed crossovers for loudspeaker companies who lack his crossover design knowledge. In addition, he offers a service to consumers who, while liking some aspects of the sound of their loudspeakers, find some degree of fault in those loudspeakers, faults Danny offers to try to eliminate. Send Danny one of your loudspeakers, and he will free of charge do a complete evaluation of it's design. If his evaluation reveals design faults (almost always crossover related) he is able to cure, he offers a crossover upgrade kit as a product.
Some make the case that Danny will of course find fault in the designs of others, in an attempt to sell you one of his loudspeaker kits. A reasonable accusation, were it not for the fact that---for instance---in this particular video (an examination of an Eggleston model) Danny makes Eggleston an offer to drop into the company headquarters and help them correct the glaring faults he found in the crossover design of the Eggleston loudspeaker a customer sent him.
Even if you are skeptical---ESPECIALLY if you are---why not give the video a viewing? Like the loudspeaker evaluation, it's free.
https://youtu.be/1wF-DEEXv64?si=tmd6JI3DFBq8GAjK&t=1
And for owners of other loudspeakers, there are a number of other GR Research videos in which other models are evaluated.
+1 @mswale
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@texbychoice Danny? Is that you, Danny? Here is the source of my information, for all to witness: https://gr-research.com/product/infinity-sm-152/ Like I said, a few sheets of foam and $40 worth of components. To boot, the so-called "upgrade" actually deletes functionality, and it doesn't cost $800 as I falsely misinformedly claimed, it costs $888 - to make $100 speakers sound like $120 speakers. Thank you Danny, you're a genius! Oh and @russbutton is right.
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Danny Richie aside, there is no doubt passive crossovers can be made to improve sound quality. Claims of amazing sound quality differences are quite plausible, though often relative to the severely degraded originals. Crossover components live a hard life in a harsh environment. Their life expectancy can be short, especially small-value electrolytics’. That has to be kept in mind when comparing a brand new component to a 25-year-old one. |
My crossovers (which I rebuilt and modestly modded) include a 600 uF and a 1600 uF in the bass circuit, both electrolytics. About the largest film cap I can find that would pass your audiophile muster is a 35 uF Audience Auricap. It is of course possible to parallel enough of them to reach the desired value. In the case of the 1,600 uF cap, it would take 46 Auricaps - a large bundle, you will agree, that would surely necessitate you outboard your crossovers. The Auricaps cost $62.49 each, so the 1,600 uF film cap bundle would cost you $2,874.54, in parts only. Per channel.
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@erik_squires Exactly. Electrolytics are usually chosen for cost considerations, but sometimes they're there for a good reason. When I rebuilt my crossovers I pulled out those big caps, which tested fine (predictably), so I mounted them right back.
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There are two very different implementations of non-passively crossovered speakers. - Active-crossovered speakers like @phusis discussed necessitate each driver be individually amplified and controlled by a line-level crossover, which may be either digital (and usually implementing some sort of DSP), or analog (e g. Linkwitz). Although passive crossovers are eliminated, this type of setup is going to require intentionality and be more complex / costly than the same, passive-crossovered speakers. A pair of 3-way speakers will require at the very least three stereo amps or six monoblocks and one active crossover. 4-way will require 8 monoblocks, etc. The system will require a fair amount of design and setup work and the attendent skills. Reliability shouldn't be any more of an issue than with any other electronics. But an active-crossovered system will surely sound better than the same, passive-crossovered one - quite a bit better; but there probably are better choices for folks who value tried-and-true simplicity - Active speakers are entirely different. They too feature individual driver amplification and a line level digital crossover and DSP (I'm not aware of any analog active speakers), but all the components are integrated in just two, conventional-looking speaker cabinets. All a person need do is plug them in the wall, connect a source, press play, and they're ready to go. All the component matching and integration has already been done and optimized by the manufacturer. I auditioned Dutch&Dutch 8c, which fall in the latter category, and they sound fantastic. I think they retail for $18K (?), which is actually quite reasonable when you consider that they effectively replace amps, preamp, DAC, and sometimes streamer. These are perfect for folks who desire a streamlined system of the highest quality, but prize convenience over control. These are only broad outlines. There are multiple other considerations, of which there are pros and cons of course 🙂
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