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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 2 responses by prof

prof
3,534 posts
 

 

The crossover is in my speakers are good enough so that they sound amazing!

I’m using Joseph audio perspective 2s and Thiel 2.7s.

There’s always been a certain section of audiophiles who believe “ the less parts the better.”

But that just doesn’t seem to be sound engineering principles.

I’ve heard things like  “ lots of parts in crossover obscure the sound and also drain energy and dynamics.”

I found that to be clearly untrue decades ago whenever I heard, and eventually owned, Thiel speakers.  They have notoriously complex crossovers with lots of parts in order to achieve gym, attempt at time and face coherence along with flat frequency response.

Do the Thiels lack detail, clarity, imaging focus,  dynamics or energy?

Hell, no!  Those are all strengths of the Thiels!  They have always been among the most clear, focused, detailed, and dynamically lively non-horn speakers that I’ve heard. 

 

 

 

 

 

prof
3,534 posts
 

@ronboco 

 

 

 

I like them both in their own way.

 

The Thiels sound clear and detailed, but bigger richer and thicker with more focused, dense imaging.  Also a bit more authority in the sound and bass

The choice of audio perspectives sound particularly pristine, clean and pure. They are more refined sounding than the Thiels, while still providing plenty of punch and kick and fun.

So I like them both.  I think at the moment I consider the Joseph audio used to be my default two channel speaker speakers, with trips back to Thiel-land sometimes.

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