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.
@invalid I'm not saying that they are bad caps, just bright/detailed. Have used them in both ribbon and horn speakers, they were too much for them. Think more modern less sensitive speakers will benefit from them, also any speaker on the darker side. Put them in a bright, high sensitivity speaker and they become overwhelming. |
Perspective, this is a major determination of what is best for a certain set of criteria, budget being the most important one in most cases. I have had great experience in upgrading crossovers, designing them from scratch, using very high end manf ones and using active crossovers, all to great effect when done right. My preferences adjust as the system requires it to but when I must use crossovers I much prefer active, if I can make it work for that particular setup. Most speakers that use passive crossovers are substandard, built to a price point, money goes into how they look more than how they sound, sadly so. Many very high end speakers use much better crossover components and design but I would rather go active on a much less costly speaker setup and spend the money where it matters the most in that case, active crossover, amps and decent cables. Looking forward to my next build, mentioned in another threat, Frugel-Horn Joann with MA200 drivers, no crossovers, one pair of great DIY cables, simple, cheap and will be great as long as work in my restrictive space. Rick
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You provide an interesting alternative path that can work if one likes massive over-complication that introduces numerous paths to problems. Unless big bucks are spent, the number of cheap, wide tolerance, low reliability components increases at least 10 fold over a passive crossover. If spending a few hundred to improve a passive crossover is unreasonable, the russbutton solution is insanely costly.
Completely uniformed claim that just proves you to be a hater.
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