2. speakers
  3. 194482-2248

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. 

 

 

bdp24

Showing 1 response by mswale

mswale
222 posts
 

There are a few different things going on here. 

1. Most speakers comes crap crossovers. Even with higher end speakers, there are compromises with the crossovers. Any company will skimp on parts for profit. Putting in higher end parts of the same values will give you much better sound. As everything audio, there is a point of diminishing returns. Replacing a $1 cap, with a $20 cap will be a night and day difference. 

2. Danny has his own view of "perfect" sound. His goal is to always have a pan flat response. He tunes everything to get that.

3. Danny's kits re expensive, and offer mid-grade parts. He also rinse and repeats most of his kits. He is the place to purchase "No-rez" dampening, so it's in every kit. Along with his tube connectors for speaker wire.  Again, high priced stuff that is more mid-range. 

4. Yes, some of the stuff he is done, the manufacture has noticed and incorporated some of it in the later design. Why not? They get almost free R&D.

Almost any component we purchase some kind of compromise in it to reach a price point. Most of the time, replacing the lower end part with a higher end part will produce better results. This is why we purchase expensive power cables, speaker cables, etc...

More to discover