How good is the crossover in your loudspeakers?

The thing that Danny Ritchie loves best is Danny Ritchie and far too many believe him.  But it sells, so bully for him.  Of course nobody here seems to remember that the best crossover is an active crossover.

Here's WHY active crossovers are so very much better than passive. A single loudspeaker driver is an inductor, and provides a frequency dependent, reactive load to an amplifier. Looking at the image here, the blue line on the bottom is the frequency dependent impedance curve for an SB Acoustics SB29RDAC Ring Dome Tweeter, and it typical of any dynamic tweeter. As you can see, it is anything but flat, yet it is listed as having a 4 ohm impedance. It's 4 ohms at about 1200 hz, but at 600 hz, has an impedance of nearly 10 ohms.

Now if you put a passive crossover circuit in front of it, you add capacitors, resistors and inductors, which then give you a frequency dependent impedance curve which looks like a Coney Island roller coaster. And that's just for a tweeter high-pass circuit.

Now when you add in mid and bass drivers, with high and low pass filters there... It's a real mess. But we're not done there yet. Nope. Many of your extreme hi-end loudspeakers add in equalization to their crossover designs, which makes that impedance curve even worse. This is very hard for an amp to properly manage. That's why people drop many, many thousands of dollars on things like Krell, Threshhold, Bryston, or Rowland Research solid state power amps.

Now when you use an active crossover, an amp channel only has to manage a single driver. There's no passive, reactive component in between the amp and the loudspeaker driver. Then you don't need a megabuck amp to deal with it.

Many of the best pro studio monitors are powered, with active crossovers and multiple amp channels.  All of the Linkwitz loudspeaker designs use active crossovers. His  designs have used both analog and digital crossovers. There are some digital crossovers that offer DSP EQ, which allows you to tailor the total system response for the room you are in. Then you're not just limited to whatever sound your speakers give you in the room you're stuck with.

The lowest cost active crossovers are typically pro grade, from manufacturers like Behringer, dbx, Rane or even Nady. There are many manufacturers. Some of the best known home audio digital crossovers are from miniDSP.  Even a Behringer active crossover is far superior to any passive crossover.

Another major benefit is that you can use much, much lower powered amps when you use active crossovers. A lot of power is wasted having to push through a passive crossover. You really don't need to push many watts into a tweeter or mid-range driver to get a lot of level out. You could even run a single ended tube amp on your tweeter, and a mid-level tube power amp on your mid-range driver, and a solid state amp for the bass driver. You have a lot of options.
 

@curiousjim You ask why you see so few active crossovers in home systems.  There are very good reasons having to do with sales and marketing.  A system with an active crossover means that you need more channels of amplification.  How easily do you think a hi-fi shop owner would do offering a loudspeaker with an active crossover and telling his customer that he needed to buy two power amps, not just one?  Most customers already have an amp and are now looking for a good loudspeaker to go with it, so theyʻre not going to want a loudspeaker that demands they buy at least one or two new power amps and thus having to sell off the old amp.

An active crossover doesnʻt mesh with someone running an integrated amp or vintage receiver either.

Those few loudspeakers which have been sold with an active crossover, also have come with power amps as a package.

Pro loudspeakers are now typically powered with built-in active crossovers and amp channels (most of which are Class D).

Just because it is a better technology doesnʻt mean you can sell it.  Active crossovers in home audio systems are mostly seen in DIY projects.  So many advantages, but not from the view of a hi-fi shop owner.