Building active loudspeakers...

[ptwining]

I was curious, is anybody interested in a "building active loudspeakers" forum? That's pretty much all I do these days and was wondering if anybody else was doing it too and might want to swap notes.

[edit] : P.S. Probably in the wrong forum but I didn't know where else to put it... :-)

Regards,
Tom

[Francec]

I am interested in an active forum. Why people bother with passive cross-overs is beyond me when the benefits of active are as clear as a bell and, dare I say, easier than passives.
Hopefully, it may encourage more to make a decision they definitely won't regret.

Frank

[planet10]

Since there is a mix of amplifiers, XOs, & speakers there is some rationale for a separate forum to keep from having to spread a discussion over multiple forums. I'll bring it up with the other mods.

Althou i think the arguments for active XOs are numerous (and i have been advocating them forever) i don't think it is as clear as a bell.. there are definite reasons for single amp systems.

dave

[Radioman62]

Why not tell us, who is on the start line of building, how to do it?
This forum is the right place I think.

I have the recent week edjucated myself about what I allready have in my old DIY speakerkit I once built. Before there was a descent computer in the house....
I want to modify them and have decided to go active but maybe only partly. I'm thinking of biamping and use passive filters for the mid and tweeter.
If I go triamp I understand I have to deal with some more safety precautions for the tweeters if I not want a capacitor in between? How have you solved it?

I have some schematics and maybe want to do my own single side PCB. But I have a lot of questions.
Is a baffle step amp something you need in an active filter?
Phase/time control, how do you do it?
Should you start with matching the Z position as good as you can or do you solve that alltogether with the allpass filter or other phase/time control?
Do you need several allpass filter in chain?

[Francec]

Althou i think the arguments for active XOs are numerous (and i have been advocating them forever) i don't think it is as clear as a bell.. there are definite reasons for single amp systems.

In which case, dave, there is another reason for an active forum. (And maybe you won't be interested in visiting it so you don't have too.)
BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1
BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 2
I think Rod provides compelling arguments that more than justify the worth.

Frank

[planet10]

I've had links to Rod's articles on multiamping for almost as long as my TL site has been up, over 10 years and have been multiamping for 30+ years. I know all the advantages and the disadvantages.

As an active system gets better and better, the XO often becomes more obvious... it has a really hard job to do and making a truly transparent one is not trivial.

For my last active system, i went with PLLXO and clever speaker design to get quite a stunning result.

dave

[SAC]

Interesting idea. I too am loving my tri-amped open baffles. I would agree that it can be the easiest and sometimes cheapest way to get the best sound depsite initial appearances. I have recently moved into active crossovers, specifically passive line level crossovers (PLLXO).

To find info/support on implementing the different PLLXO configurations such as how to go about implementing notch filters was awkward. On the forum I got referred to Linkwitzs pages which was a start, but I can see how an active forum would make things easier.

P.S. Radioman62 - If you want to protect a tweeter crossed actively, people seem to add a speaker level capacitor as well to protect it from mishaps. It is still an actively crossed tweeter.

P.P.S. As Dave has alluded to, PPLXO has huge potential with the right drivers, considered the ideal in some respects. Yet from all the time I spent on forums I saw this mentioned only a handfull of times.

[Francec]

As an active system gets better and better, the XO often becomes more obvious... it has a really hard job to do and making a truly transparent one is not trivial.

dave, I have no idea what you mean. Please explain?

Frank

[Pano]

By "active speakers" do we mean just multi-amped with active crossovers - or speakers with amps and filters built into the cabinet?

It's the latter that I think of as "active speakers."

[doug20]

Originally Posted by panomaniac

By "active speakers" do we mean just multi-amped with active crossovers - or speakers with amps and filters built into the cabinet?

It's the latter that I think of as "active speakers."

Isnt any active speaker where the crossover resides before the amplication of each individual driver?

Btw, I have only built active speakers also since I suck at building crossovers and a product like the DCX is just so easy to use. Phase, CTC, Lpad are all just to easy to handle and I love that I can adjust my speakers response based on my needs.