How good is the crossover in your loudspeakers?

I had a set of very nice speakers that were also offered in a "reference" edition (for an additional $900.) Curious about upgrading them, I spoke with the manufacturer who advised on the components, and I replaced the caps and resistors with parts costing $450; these were the same brands as the ones int he upgraded model but much higher in quality. I didn't hear a significant difference. 

And then there's Wilson Benesch who run their midrange directly coupled to the amp, i.e., no crossover, and use primarily first order electronic crossovers or acoustic crossovers. 

The best crossover is no crossover, followed by an acoustic crossover. 

KISS

My biggest issue with Danny is that he offers "better" kits. I'm no resistors guru, but they, caps, and coils actually do make differences, often significant differences. That said, he uses okay caps. Sonicaps are bettered by many others. Some ClarityCaps are much better, not to mention Myflex and V-Cap ODAMs. Were I running the business it probably would never have gotten off the ground, but I would offer good, better, best as Radio Shack did for several decades.

Having said all of that, one suggested leaving speakers stock. Remember, all audio is personal. I know a fellow who has serious loss of high frequencies. If it doesn't send me out of the room covering my ears it just doesn't sound good to him. 

So, if you are content, ignore and enjoy. If not, see if Danny can hook you up. If not, you can go lone ranger, and depending upon your skill set, and test setup, you may better Danny's kits. My son recently purchased a speaker. I looked at the crossover and suggested 3 solutions, all of them included Mills resistors, I am not a resistors guru. The good included ClarityCap MR MPK caps. Better used ClarityCap CMR MPK caps, while the best and by far the most expensive used V-Cap ODAMs. My insane cap upgrades include ODAMs bypassed with V-Cap CuTF caps for slightly improved highs. 

The bottom line though is that truly bright is going to be right for some. IME many consider transparent or neutral to be bright, and many consider "warm" to be dull. What "others" consider is right should only influence you if you are building the system to please others, which you'll likely never do if they are the least bit selective in their listening. So, try to build a system that you believe that you will enjoy. Don't worry about pleasing others. Where music is concerned, tastes just differ.

I believe Danny will substitute an individual's choice of caps for the Sonicaps, recently saw one of his videos with Duelund CAST caps loaded on crossover.  Physical space limitations are generally the greatest issue with using the best of best film caps, Sonicaps much smaller footprint, this, as well as cost likely the reason they seem to be de facto replacement cap.

I ripped out my passive crossovers in my Magnepan 20.1 and have an active crossover from Danville Signal Processing using the DSP Nexus 2x8 and apply room correction and time alignment via 12 biquads per channel. The results are stunning. Why bother with the passive components at all when you can do it digitally processing all 8 channels at 192kHz/24bit and get all the power of the amps directly into the speakers. It’s simply fantastic. 
 

Thanks,

Steve