Is there an electronic XO w/adjustable CD compensation?

[noah katz]

I have drivers for a WG system, but no XO.

The drivers are 18Sound 12ND710, BMS 4552ND compression drivers, and XT1086 horns.

A good passive XO design is tricky, not that I have the ability to design even a bad one, so I'm thinking an electronic XO w/CD compensation might be the way to go.

I know some electronic XO's have CD compensation, but AFAIK, not adjustable.

Alternatively, is passive CD compensation not that tricky, or will it need to deal with CD's messy impedance.

note: CD means constant directivity or compression driver

[WithTarragon]

On a budget, but with adequate quality, I would suggest a Behringer 2496DCX for about $275. You may need to augment the CD equalization (which is different for different CD horns) with additional shelving filters. The DCX has plenty of filtering available.

Of course there are more expensive options as well.

[noah katz]

"but with adequate quality"

I'm a bit concerned about that, and noise too, after reading about the DCX and the mods people do to the analog stages.

[Sendy]

CD compensation means constant directivity compensation. IMHO it is only simply correction for old style HF systems (more about it in JBL or EV white papers). Are you sure that your combination of horn + driver needs to compensate?

[noah katz]

"Are you sure that your combination of horn + driver needs to compensate?"

Absolutely, it's the nature of the beast.

All tweeters w/o horns/WG's have power response that falls w/increasing freq.

Flat on-axis response comes at the expense of increasing rolloff off-axis.

CD devices greatly reduce the latter at the expense of the former.

[catapult]

If you want to go active analog, the Behringer CX3400 will probably get you close enough for a receiver's EQ to be able to finish the job. It has a fixed CD EQ above 3500 and the all-important time delay (allpass filter) on the woofer. If you feel comfortable with a soldering iron, the Rane AC22 and AC23 let you change the CD frequency by the size of capacitor you solder in -- no switch. Probably not worth the effort though as none of these do baffle-step EQ on the woofer so you're going to need some sort of external EQ no matter what.

[noah katz]

Thanks, Dennis - AC22 sounds perfect!

[noah katz]

I do have EQ in my receiver (Sherwood R-972), but I doubt it would fully correct the HF.

[noah katz]

Dennis,

I didn't read what you said closely enough at first; the CX3400 is pretty close based on these measurements of the same driver/horn combo I have

http://lscon.tripod.com/xt1086/SPL.jpg

The CX3400 is supposed to sound pretty good, right?

[catapult]

ThomasW over at HTG is using a CX3400 and says it sounds fine. His more expensive crossover broke and he put the Behringer in until he could fix it. It sounded good enough that he just left it.