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.
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crossovers are the dirty little secret of most if not all speaker manufacturers. Even expensive speakers often have low quality components in the crossovers. The crossover is invisible inside the speaker, seldom discussed by buyers, and not generally in input into a buying decision. Designers are pressured to save money there as more money is put into a beautiful wood or laquer finish that will close a sale. I have updated crossovers and spent a lot of money on parts. many of the parts I used were more than 10x the price of the parts they replaced. and the results were dramatic improvement. Not cheap at all, not easy as it was a lot of work, but like most efforts to squeeze out the last 2%, rewarding if you don't worry about the money. The idea is rejected by many, trying to justify it by saying the designer "voiced" it with the ocmponents provided. I think they are hoping a new "pandora's box" of upgrades doen't catch on that they will be forced by thier own need to keep up to spend money on. They don't really want to know that this upgrade is out there. Do you realize that for most consumer goods the designer is given a parts budget that is about 10% of the sale price? that includes cabinet, drivers, crossover, and anything else they need. so corners have to be cut. If you, the consumer, don't need to cut corners, this is a worthwhile upgrade. Jerry |
It's generally acknowledged speakers are the greatest variable in an audio system, therefore, has the greatest influence on system sound quality. That being the case, it makes sense optimizing one's speaker would provide major dividends. Assuming OEM has optimized speaker using relatively crap crossover parts is plain wrongheaded. For manufacturers, cost may be one deterrent to using better parts, but ignorance likely contributing factor. Also, should we assume OEM's have golden ears?
@carlsbad2 I'd estimate benefit of my crossover mods far exceed the 2% you mentioned, the inductor changes alone provided that. As for determining benefit ratio I'd posit the low parts count from running SET pre and amp contribute to a relatively high benefit ratio for my crossover mods. I can easily hear changes with swapping out coupling caps, resistors, tubes in both components.
For the doubters, empirical evidence should be your gold standard, don't rely on others for your evidence. |
