Hi Nate,
Thanks for the invitation. Never been to Seatle. Maybe one day. If in Perth send me email ( janusz.pradzynski@dpi.wa.gov.au).
My new home/house should be completed within half a year so no problem with making some noise. I already live there most of the time doing this or that. The wiring of the house has been designed to assist HiFi. The living (read music) room and home theatre are on two separate circuits. All house is on six circuits. Power on four circuits 16A wires and lighting on two plus good earthing.
My current speaker system has two 12ohm Dynaudio 7" (17w75xl drivers), Esotec d260 8 ohm tweeter and audax 5.5" HM-130co midrange. It will be most likely complemented by two Rythmik Audio 15" sealed subs hopefully by mid 2008.
Active crossover is two way fourth order Bessel (640Hz) while first order passive is used between midrange and tweeter. Currently used preamp is moded yamaha c-65 (see thread on yamaha preamp c-80 I think). I stll have a few other preamps I built before as well as 1/3 octave equalisers. The new preamp has been designed (even have a face plate and box for it) but never had time to build it.
The new PAs to come are Stochiono's (see thread on Stochino amp). Almost finished the first two modules. Currently I'm still using commercial Technics, Pioneer and Akai amps as I gave away my own built Mosfets (were to be replaced by Stochinos in no time!!!).
In the crossover I use 100V and 250V WIMA metalised polypropylene, Vishay Low noise resitors and opa627AP buffers and opa2132P in filter section but these are to be replaced by opa627au. PS is LM317/337 based. Diodes are fast recovery byw100-200. Electros used are Nichicon Muse, ES and FG in PS. In mid-high frequency Stochino modules I use Black Gates - the only esoterics (?).
Wherever necessary I use no/low inductance caps and resistors such as Mills or even Caddocks.
cheers,
Thanks for the invitation. Never been to Seatle. Maybe one day. If in Perth send me email ( janusz.pradzynski@dpi.wa.gov.au).
My new home/house should be completed within half a year so no problem with making some noise. I already live there most of the time doing this or that. The wiring of the house has been designed to assist HiFi. The living (read music) room and home theatre are on two separate circuits. All house is on six circuits. Power on four circuits 16A wires and lighting on two plus good earthing.
My current speaker system has two 12ohm Dynaudio 7" (17w75xl drivers), Esotec d260 8 ohm tweeter and audax 5.5" HM-130co midrange. It will be most likely complemented by two Rythmik Audio 15" sealed subs hopefully by mid 2008.
Active crossover is two way fourth order Bessel (640Hz) while first order passive is used between midrange and tweeter. Currently used preamp is moded yamaha c-65 (see thread on yamaha preamp c-80 I think). I stll have a few other preamps I built before as well as 1/3 octave equalisers. The new preamp has been designed (even have a face plate and box for it) but never had time to build it.
The new PAs to come are Stochiono's (see thread on Stochino amp). Almost finished the first two modules. Currently I'm still using commercial Technics, Pioneer and Akai amps as I gave away my own built Mosfets (were to be replaced by Stochinos in no time!!!).
In the crossover I use 100V and 250V WIMA metalised polypropylene, Vishay Low noise resitors and opa627AP buffers and opa2132P in filter section but these are to be replaced by opa627au. PS is LM317/337 based. Diodes are fast recovery byw100-200. Electros used are Nichicon Muse, ES and FG in PS. In mid-high frequency Stochino modules I use Black Gates - the only esoterics (?).
Wherever necessary I use no/low inductance caps and resistors such as Mills or even Caddocks.
cheers,
IMHO there is a big difference in caps, Solen are grainy and not detailed, the difference with Hovland is definitely noticeable blindfolded or not, now the difference between "better" caps may not be so noticeable and more of a flavor difference.
Mainly small NP Electrolytics sound terrible the loss is so huge you cannot even tell if they are grainy or not, they just block sound! Motor run PIO are better but still fuzzy.
Again IMHO if you are crossing in a "sensitive" zone say from 800hz to 4khz use the best caps-coils you can afford and go passive XO, you better do a good job here it is most noticeable!
If you need a cross over for 200hz or lower go active, get a subamp, the size of parts here is huge and they take a lot from the signal. I would not recommend biamping in the "sensitive" zone, a change of amps here will jump out at you.
I found preamps are most important on a system and can really make a system or break it, so I would stay away from any signal handling in this area. Now a tweeter amp from say 8khz up is fine.
Passive Line level XO are a good compromise to unload bass from you main amp, but lately I find it is not completely necessary.
Mainly changing one cap in a XO will bring limited benefits, but if you add the smallish benefits of good caps and good coils, resistors,cable, cabinets (or no box) with good drivers etc. the results will be very noticeable.
Cables make a big difference try to use silver cable on a compression driver and horn and you will run out of the room, now try a foil (Goertz) cable, now a thin copper transformer wire and see!!!
One of the biggest improvements on my system has been IC
Mainly small NP Electrolytics sound terrible the loss is so huge you cannot even tell if they are grainy or not, they just block sound! Motor run PIO are better but still fuzzy.
Again IMHO if you are crossing in a "sensitive" zone say from 800hz to 4khz use the best caps-coils you can afford and go passive XO, you better do a good job here it is most noticeable!
If you need a cross over for 200hz or lower go active, get a subamp, the size of parts here is huge and they take a lot from the signal. I would not recommend biamping in the "sensitive" zone, a change of amps here will jump out at you.
I found preamps are most important on a system and can really make a system or break it, so I would stay away from any signal handling in this area. Now a tweeter amp from say 8khz up is fine.
Passive Line level XO are a good compromise to unload bass from you main amp, but lately I find it is not completely necessary.
Mainly changing one cap in a XO will bring limited benefits, but if you add the smallish benefits of good caps and good coils, resistors,cable, cabinets (or no box) with good drivers etc. the results will be very noticeable.
Cables make a big difference try to use silver cable on a compression driver and horn and you will run out of the room, now try a foil (Goertz) cable, now a thin copper transformer wire and see!!!
One of the biggest improvements on my system has been IC
To further Saturntube's points a bit; there was a time when Solens were fine for almost all designs; however the biggest change I've noticed in drivers over the past three decades has been improved transparency. Masking effects have been reduced, and considerations that simply didn't matter before are now clearly audible with drivers of moderate cost.
Well, thank you all for the replies 
As I see it right now, high quality crossover parts are necessary for very high quality drivers. I'm going to get an Audio Technology Flex Unit 12' and a ScanSpeak 2904/7000 and already have Accuton C90-T6 it's a shame to buy less than premium quality parts.
Active crossovers are just to complicated for me, and if I was really confident of my crossover designing skills I would have probably gone active
As I see it right now, high quality crossover parts are necessary for very high quality drivers. I'm going to get an Audio Technology Flex Unit 12' and a ScanSpeak 2904/7000 and already have Accuton C90-T6 it's a shame to buy less than premium quality parts.
Active crossovers are just to complicated for me, and if I was really confident of my crossover designing skills I would have probably gone active
I am a novice too. Having built two pairs of loudspeakers now, I wish that I had gone active. They are aparently a lot simpler to get right, and you avoid the signal changes caused by XO parts. A Behringer DCX2496 is the same price as a pair of my crossovers and can be sold on if not desired (unlike XO components). You would need another amplifier though (or two more if 3-way).
I will go active for my next project.
The Accuton C90-T6 will be your basic driver covering from 120hz to 6khz a lot of freq. this driver is 93.2 db sensitive, the thing is your tweeter is only 90 db sensitive, you will need to pad down your midrange driver (not very advisable!) to match the sensitivity of the tweeter.
I would maybe go for a different tweeter something like this one :
Morel DMS37
1http://www.madisound.com/catalog/PDF/morel/dms%2037.pdf?osCsid=4db151614398443c242268ca47085ce3" Textile dome Shielded Horn tweeter
with 93.8 db sensitivity....but of course do try the ones you got already!!
I would go for a passive Series Crossover at about 5 to 6 khz from the Accuton to the Tweeter. With one amp (tubes of course!) and get a Subamp for the Flex 12” unit. You can play around with cut from 120hz to 200 hz with certain amps. It may be good to unload freq, from 120hz down from your Accuton driver so you wont blow it or have it flapping around doing nothing, this means a high pass from 120-150hz up. A Passive line level XO could be good here, first order will do IMHO. Do align the drivers!
Best of luck!
I would maybe go for a different tweeter something like this one :
Morel DMS37
1http://www.madisound.com/catalog/PDF/morel/dms%2037.pdf?osCsid=4db151614398443c242268ca47085ce3" Textile dome Shielded Horn tweeter
with 93.8 db sensitivity....but of course do try the ones you got already!!
I would go for a passive Series Crossover at about 5 to 6 khz from the Accuton to the Tweeter. With one amp (tubes of course!) and get a Subamp for the Flex 12” unit. You can play around with cut from 120hz to 200 hz with certain amps. It may be good to unload freq, from 120hz down from your Accuton driver so you wont blow it or have it flapping around doing nothing, this means a high pass from 120-150hz up. A Passive line level XO could be good here, first order will do IMHO. Do align the drivers!
Best of luck!
I believe most points posted in this thread are valid. Caps, even cables, can make a big difference. It all depends on the system. For example, if a preamp has a high output impedance while the power amp has a low input impedance (in full audio bandwidth) or if a power amp does not have a high damping factor, interconnects and speaker cables can make an audible difference. Sometimes, perhaps, if a system is not perfect (none is perfect anyway) then a less perfect device (such as a very thin cable with a large impedance) may even help correcting some of the imperfection. There are so many variables here. There are many "conflicting" reports and preferences in audio, and I can understand that they all have some elements of truth, but I would not generalise. I am fairly open minded on these. In the end, you can find any cases should be supported by engineering principles, and if not, they would be snake oil. For example, a less perfect, very thin speaker cable with high impedance that works well with possibly less than 2% of the systems may be tauted as "high-end" "audiophile" cable asking $$$$.
I would first start getting things right from an engineering perspective. For example, I have CD and preamp outputs at low impedance with a 100R resistors at the output and have high input impedance at the preamp and power amp. This makes my system far less dependant on interconnects.
In audio, the perfect system is a straight wire with gain, which does not exist. Any passive or (worse) active components can only introduce various degree of distortions to the sound. Some people may play with audiophile components to obtain the "best" sounding distortions. I prefer less distortions. So less components in the audio chain, as long as they do the right job, the better. For XOs, I prefer passive over active, but passive XO below 300Hz is very impractical - it requires very large capacitors (forget about electrolytic types in the XO), inductors that can reduce efficiency significantly and may possibly kill the sound. So for me, XO below 300Hz must be active.
I would first start getting things right from an engineering perspective. For example, I have CD and preamp outputs at low impedance with a 100R resistors at the output and have high input impedance at the preamp and power amp. This makes my system far less dependant on interconnects.
In audio, the perfect system is a straight wire with gain, which does not exist. Any passive or (worse) active components can only introduce various degree of distortions to the sound. Some people may play with audiophile components to obtain the "best" sounding distortions. I prefer less distortions. So less components in the audio chain, as long as they do the right job, the better. For XOs, I prefer passive over active, but passive XO below 300Hz is very impractical - it requires very large capacitors (forget about electrolytic types in the XO), inductors that can reduce efficiency significantly and may possibly kill the sound. So for me, XO below 300Hz must be active.
In reality, drivers of this level require steep crossover slops to prevent intermodulation distortion. Midrange driver will have a relatively large number of components in the bandpass filter which will introduce a large DCR and significant insertion loss. I don't think efficiency of the midrange will present a problem at all, rather it may work well together with the rest of the filter. Surely the only way to figure it out is to model this x-over on the computer and perhaps build a trial one.
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