After over twenty years of building and modifying speakers crossover design and components remains a bit of a mystery.
I really think that most good speakers are just a fluke synergy between crossovers components and drivers and something that is hard to replicate in a different set of components.
Of course a lot of experimenting and listening must help but this does not explain why companies with huge research and design resources [Focal,Jamo,Mission,B&W etc]fail to achieve consistently good sounding speakers.Some models are good,others are not,and yet each speaker probably has similar development input.This is also why many cheaper speakers,with cheaper components,often sound better than very expensive ones.
Companies like Spendor and Proac which are highly regarded for the consistency of their speakers and driver integration tend to be very conservative in their model changes and drivers used-as if they evolve new products from long running successful designs rather than designing them from scratch.
I really think that most good speakers are just a fluke synergy between crossovers components and drivers and something that is hard to replicate in a different set of components.
Of course a lot of experimenting and listening must help but this does not explain why companies with huge research and design resources [Focal,Jamo,Mission,B&W etc]fail to achieve consistently good sounding speakers.Some models are good,others are not,and yet each speaker probably has similar development input.This is also why many cheaper speakers,with cheaper components,often sound better than very expensive ones.
Companies like Spendor and Proac which are highly regarded for the consistency of their speakers and driver integration tend to be very conservative in their model changes and drivers used-as if they evolve new products from long running successful designs rather than designing them from scratch.