Scrolled quickly through the posts, didn't see the Rolls models.
Entry level units with rca's; quick easy hook up.
Rolls Corporation - Real Sound - Products The SX45 Stereo Two-Way Crossover
Rolls Corporation - Real Sound - Products SX21 Tiny Two-Way Crossover
Entry level units with rca's; quick easy hook up.
Rolls Corporation - Real Sound - Products The SX45 Stereo Two-Way Crossover
Rolls Corporation - Real Sound - Products SX21 Tiny Two-Way Crossover
I'm curious as to how many board members use active crossovers?
At least a 2 way?
How about 3 way systems ?
With a full blown 4 way, being of course, the cat's meow
I'm curious on this because, it seems to me, that around 1980 there were several active crossovers on the market, but these days, other than Marchand, not so much. Or am I missing something ?
couple of months late to answer, but yes: ''full blown 4-way'' for me
at this moment: DEQX HDP-3 + miniDSP + external DAC.
As far as i know, the most cost-effective (quality) solution would be:
miniDSP nanoDIGI + 1 quality DAC for the high frequencies + low-cost DAC(s) for the other ways + ICEpower amplifier modules.
You put the money only where it has the most impact on overall audible results.
Hello
maybe you interested in a free GPL software solution for a 4 way - crossover.
You can see my setup here:
diyAudio server HTTPS page
HIFI-FORUM » Do it yourself » Lautsprecher » Aktive Frequenzweiche per Standard Software mit GUI
Sorry it is in German
You have
4 x 2 crossover
many parametic equalizer
limiter
....
much more
HDMI 8 Channel output
8 Channel analog output
For activating for example 2, 3 or 4 way loudspeaker
Regards
Loafmeat
maybe you interested in a free GPL software solution for a 4 way - crossover.
You can see my setup here:
diyAudio server HTTPS page
HIFI-FORUM » Do it yourself » Lautsprecher » Aktive Frequenzweiche per Standard Software mit GUI
Sorry it is in German
You have
4 x 2 crossover
many parametic equalizer
limiter
....
much more
HDMI 8 Channel output
8 Channel analog output
For activating for example 2, 3 or 4 way loudspeaker
Regards
Loafmeat
I'm curious as to how many board members use active crossovers?
At least a 2 way?
How about 3 way systems ?
With a full blown 4 way, being of course, the cat's meow
For the commercial end seems like a few manufactures are including plate amplifiers for the bottom end of there speakers and passive tops. This seems like a good compromise as others have pointed out. Unless it is fully kitted and plug and play, fully active is harder for the mass consumer to implement correctly without reasonable measurement equipment and some base knowledge.
I'm just a dabbler but.......
- Started out with 2 way passive which was a lot harder than I realized when I first started out
- 2 way passive with active xOver for 3 way. Found it too hard and expensive to do full blown 3 way passive.
- Anything above that all active digital. Tried analog active but required as much or more tweaking than the passive. Also hard to re-use for new drivers.
I found that if the crossovers are implemented decently for the topology, and same general frequency response, they all start sounding the more alike than different.
I'd like to see/hear a massive 4-way all active commercial speaker that is not priced for unobatainium. Are there any?
Had 5 way passive, then dabbed with 2 Behringers, then got WAF Najda - sorted.
My Najda is only 4 way, so I run the tweeter amp of the 4 th channel on a passive. 4th to 5th channel are physically time aligned the rest in dsp.
For me the benefits of active dsp provide an achievable level of performance that would not be possible with passives with my funds and available time...
SQ / transparency is excellent.
My Najda is only 4 way, so I run the tweeter amp of the 4 th channel on a passive. 4th to 5th channel are physically time aligned the rest in dsp.
For me the benefits of active dsp provide an achievable level of performance that would not be possible with passives with my funds and available time...
SQ / transparency is excellent.
4 way digital active for one year now and will never bother with anything other than digital active (nothing against those with passive systems and skills).
Still have significant work to do, but already hear enough good stuff to know these will equal or exceed anything I could have purchased with the same budget. I don't pick up any multi-way defects indicating lack of integration and/or cohesion. I do believe that any crossover point can be designed to sound transparent, but here is my rational for the current configuration of my Javelin speaker project:
Satori tweeter crossed at 1.6 kHz as I feel this point is low enough to bring out the best of the Satori and avoid the most critical range of 2-4 kHz where the human ear can be very sensitive but yet high enough as a crossover point with 48 dB slope to prevent any stress or strain.
Morel mid dome at 800 Hz to 1.6 kHz to protect it from any strain and because I think Geddes is onto something by being very careful to have constant directivity from this point upwards. The mid and tweeter dome have distortion and directivity properties that are easy to unify and I can not hear any lobing interference despite the C-T-C between mid and tweet.
Satori mid from 200-800 Hz so that vocal range and phase through this range is clean and easy, and a pair of Vifa 12 NE woofers on each channel to cover 20-200 Hz
On some source material, this is as good as any system I have ever heard, but more measurements and optimization is in the works.
Still have significant work to do, but already hear enough good stuff to know these will equal or exceed anything I could have purchased with the same budget. I don't pick up any multi-way defects indicating lack of integration and/or cohesion. I do believe that any crossover point can be designed to sound transparent, but here is my rational for the current configuration of my Javelin speaker project:
Satori tweeter crossed at 1.6 kHz as I feel this point is low enough to bring out the best of the Satori and avoid the most critical range of 2-4 kHz where the human ear can be very sensitive but yet high enough as a crossover point with 48 dB slope to prevent any stress or strain.
Morel mid dome at 800 Hz to 1.6 kHz to protect it from any strain and because I think Geddes is onto something by being very careful to have constant directivity from this point upwards. The mid and tweeter dome have distortion and directivity properties that are easy to unify and I can not hear any lobing interference despite the C-T-C between mid and tweet.
Satori mid from 200-800 Hz so that vocal range and phase through this range is clean and easy, and a pair of Vifa 12 NE woofers on each channel to cover 20-200 Hz
On some source material, this is as good as any system I have ever heard, but more measurements and optimization is in the works.
Attachments
48 everywhere ?
Seems like you had thought through your system very well. Are all your crossover slopes 48db/oct L/R ?
Seems like you had thought through your system very well. Are all your crossover slopes 48db/oct L/R ?
I have a set of 5 Sony SS-M3s + a pair of DIY sealed 12" subs that I converted over to full active a year or so ago. Pulled out the passive crossover boards, and am now using 2 miniDSP nanoAVR HD units running off an HDMI splitter fed from my HTPC. The nanoAVRs go HDMI into 2 Yamaha budget AV receivers. The front ends on these things are really not too shabby; it's of course the power amp sections that are disappointing. So I modded them for preamp outputs, going into 2 Outlaw Audio 7075 7-channel power amps. I do have some minor hassles with all this HDMI from time to time (usually when switching from movies to music), but it's not a huge deal.
A few notes on the tuning approach:
I went for smooth, flat quasi-anechoic measured response (on a tall stand, using Room EQ Wizard in a large room, 1/6th oct. smoothing) for the Sonys. This was achieved without excessive EQ, thanks to the reasonably good original Peerless drivers (just a few shallow, moderate-Q cuts here & there, plus baffle step comp).
I used 48 dB/oct L-R crossover slopes from mid to tweet at the original freq (2 KHz), again because luckily these tweeters have nicely controlled dispersion at their low end, reducing off-axis response step. (It's not completely gone, but with careful level balancing I don't notice it in the room.) I greatly prefer the sound of the 48 dB slopes; everything sounds more natural and organic to me. When I try going back to 24 dB slopes, even after re-optimization it just sounds blurry and speaker-like by comparison. I know there's a helluva phase response "twist" at 48, but I've experimented with software convolution to un-twist it; and although this does produce some pretty nice-looking square waves at the measurement microphone, it sounds exactly the same to me. I'm left to wonder why 48 dB gets such a bad rap, at least in this part of the spectrum...
For subwoofer xover I used 24 dB slopes, adding a 12 dB Butterworth HP to the matching natural rolloff of the sealed midbasses at 75 Hz. I then dialed in a Linkwitz transform to extend f3 down to around 15-16 Hz (I live in an apartment, so don't need huge SPL), then tuned out the larger room modes after messing with placement for awhile. Incidentally, I did try 48 dB slopes for a time here as well, but never could get a smooth transition. At 24, I can hear every note of nearly every bass line.
The icing on the cake has been finding a good room curve. After tweaking everything for reasonably flat measured octave-to-octave balance in the room, I then overlaid a curve constructed from three cascaded shelving EQs, all with identical Q (0.5) and gain settings, but evenly stepped frequencies. (I made a little spreadsheet to calc the individual freq, gain & Q settings based on the overall desired curve.) This creates a gentle, extended downward slope with negligible ripple, starting at 32 Hz and ending at 8 Khz. This was tweaked by ear over a period of several weeks or so. I can't remember the total drop I settled on; I think it's around 3-4 dB, maybe more?
At first I wasn't even sure I could make my speakers sound any better than they already did. And it turns out I had a lot to learn (still do of course). But I can characterize the results so far by saying that while the stock/passive Sonys sounded like pretty good speakers, the active versions sound like famous people hanging out in my living room. Going active for me has been a fascinating, educational process, and the results have exceeded all expectations by an order of magnitude.
One of the nicest aspects is that this rig sounds wonderful with any kind of music or movies. I no longer feel the urge to jump up and adjust something - I just sit back and enjoy. It's a very resonance-free sound; a bit like listening to a really good set of headphones, but with proper imaging - and real bass! The speakers now have a strong tendency to just disappear; the music seems to just materialize in the room. It's the damndest thing - sometimes even synthesizers have an indescribably real, palpable texture to their sound, and they're not even real instruments for god's sake!
Anyway - sorry for rattling on. I'm obviously a fan of active now, but also of DSP in general. The surgical precision it allows can be pretty mind-boggling.
-- Jim
A few notes on the tuning approach:
I went for smooth, flat quasi-anechoic measured response (on a tall stand, using Room EQ Wizard in a large room, 1/6th oct. smoothing) for the Sonys. This was achieved without excessive EQ, thanks to the reasonably good original Peerless drivers (just a few shallow, moderate-Q cuts here & there, plus baffle step comp).
I used 48 dB/oct L-R crossover slopes from mid to tweet at the original freq (2 KHz), again because luckily these tweeters have nicely controlled dispersion at their low end, reducing off-axis response step. (It's not completely gone, but with careful level balancing I don't notice it in the room.) I greatly prefer the sound of the 48 dB slopes; everything sounds more natural and organic to me. When I try going back to 24 dB slopes, even after re-optimization it just sounds blurry and speaker-like by comparison. I know there's a helluva phase response "twist" at 48, but I've experimented with software convolution to un-twist it; and although this does produce some pretty nice-looking square waves at the measurement microphone, it sounds exactly the same to me. I'm left to wonder why 48 dB gets such a bad rap, at least in this part of the spectrum...
For subwoofer xover I used 24 dB slopes, adding a 12 dB Butterworth HP to the matching natural rolloff of the sealed midbasses at 75 Hz. I then dialed in a Linkwitz transform to extend f3 down to around 15-16 Hz (I live in an apartment, so don't need huge SPL), then tuned out the larger room modes after messing with placement for awhile. Incidentally, I did try 48 dB slopes for a time here as well, but never could get a smooth transition. At 24, I can hear every note of nearly every bass line.
The icing on the cake has been finding a good room curve. After tweaking everything for reasonably flat measured octave-to-octave balance in the room, I then overlaid a curve constructed from three cascaded shelving EQs, all with identical Q (0.5) and gain settings, but evenly stepped frequencies. (I made a little spreadsheet to calc the individual freq, gain & Q settings based on the overall desired curve.) This creates a gentle, extended downward slope with negligible ripple, starting at 32 Hz and ending at 8 Khz. This was tweaked by ear over a period of several weeks or so. I can't remember the total drop I settled on; I think it's around 3-4 dB, maybe more?
At first I wasn't even sure I could make my speakers sound any better than they already did. And it turns out I had a lot to learn (still do of course). But I can characterize the results so far by saying that while the stock/passive Sonys sounded like pretty good speakers, the active versions sound like famous people hanging out in my living room. Going active for me has been a fascinating, educational process, and the results have exceeded all expectations by an order of magnitude.
One of the nicest aspects is that this rig sounds wonderful with any kind of music or movies. I no longer feel the urge to jump up and adjust something - I just sit back and enjoy. It's a very resonance-free sound; a bit like listening to a really good set of headphones, but with proper imaging - and real bass! The speakers now have a strong tendency to just disappear; the music seems to just materialize in the room. It's the damndest thing - sometimes even synthesizers have an indescribably real, palpable texture to their sound, and they're not even real instruments for god's sake!
Anyway - sorry for rattling on. I'm obviously a fan of active now,
but also of DSP in general. The surgical precision it allows can be pretty mind-boggling.-- Jim
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Yes, for now everything is 48db/oct via miniDSP 4x10 HD.
I keep waiting for a similar product with more DSP horsepower and FIR filter options while still being as nice of a turn key hardware/software/GUI product as the miniDSP but nothing yet.
I keep thinking I need more audiophile approved DAC sections, but no complaints when I just listen to the music and stop thinking about the "gear". The truth is that I could easily live with this digital active crossover solution for many years even though I would gladly pay 3 or 4 times as much money for the product I am waiting for, but I think the 4x10 HD is a fantastic product at a great price point, mad props to miniDSP.
I also recently upgraded my power to a decent used Adcom amp for the woofers and still using the Dayton MA1260 for the rest. Next upgrade will be better class D amps on mid dome and tweeter with Crown drivecore 2 on woofers and mid-bass.
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My journey into active has only started. For over 7 years I've been intrigued with going active, reading about the multiple benefits it entails, but realizing do so in the analog domain was not necessarily efficient budget-wise and would require a lot of work. Wasn't worth the effort in my book.
Two years ago an article from Mitch Barnett on Computeraudiophile.com about Advanced Acourate (software) inspired me to look into this again.
I am in the design phase of a 4-way active system. Right now I've turned my B&W 804S into semi-active: tweeter and midrange xo driven by a McIntosh MC275 from 350Hz, the woofers connected directly to a pair of Hypex UcD400 amps I built and playing 80-350Hz, and a pair of sealed DIY Rythmik subs playing below 80Hz. My front end is solely a very optimized headless computer and I use Acourate to generate the digital crossovers, feed JRiver, and thru USB into a Lynx Hilo DAC configured as 6-way card to directly drive the subs, Hypex monoblocks, and MC275. As my goal has initially been comparing the sound of the passive system vs active I've kept the same xo points and slopes B&W uses.
I cannot speak highly enough about this configuration, and about Acourate software. It is heart breaking to realize I will be doing without my beloved Lamm preamp...but makes sense.
As I move forward the plan is to use Acourate to linearize the drivers, time-align them, perform the digital crossovers, and perform the room correction.
I have settled on Beyma TPL-150H for tweeters, and on a pair of Beyma 10G40 per side as midbasses in sealed boxes. I'm keeping the Rythmik subs. And I need to decide which midrange to go with, likely a 6.5 or 8".
Estimated xo points: 80, 350, 2500Hz. Slopes are to be experimented with, but my starting point is going with very, very steep slopes.
I'm designing the midrange and tweeter with SET amps in mind. Would love to use a 2A3 or 45 amp with them. He idea is to have a pair of sereo SET amps sitting by the speakers, so one channel in each speaker drives the weeters and the other drives the midrange. Of course I need to buy the amps, which is going to get a good while
Eventually the Hypex amps will be housed inside the DIY speakers. It's our living room at the end of the day, so looks are important too.
Two years ago an article from Mitch Barnett on Computeraudiophile.com about Advanced Acourate (software) inspired me to look into this again.
I am in the design phase of a 4-way active system. Right now I've turned my B&W 804S into semi-active: tweeter and midrange xo driven by a McIntosh MC275 from 350Hz, the woofers connected directly to a pair of Hypex UcD400 amps I built and playing 80-350Hz, and a pair of sealed DIY Rythmik subs playing below 80Hz. My front end is solely a very optimized headless computer and I use Acourate to generate the digital crossovers, feed JRiver, and thru USB into a Lynx Hilo DAC configured as 6-way card to directly drive the subs, Hypex monoblocks, and MC275. As my goal has initially been comparing the sound of the passive system vs active I've kept the same xo points and slopes B&W uses.
I cannot speak highly enough about this configuration, and about Acourate software. It is heart breaking to realize I will be doing without my beloved Lamm preamp...but makes sense.
As I move forward the plan is to use Acourate to linearize the drivers, time-align them, perform the digital crossovers, and perform the room correction.
I have settled on Beyma TPL-150H for tweeters, and on a pair of Beyma 10G40 per side as midbasses in sealed boxes. I'm keeping the Rythmik subs. And I need to decide which midrange to go with, likely a 6.5 or 8".
Estimated xo points: 80, 350, 2500Hz. Slopes are to be experimented with, but my starting point is going with very, very steep slopes.
I'm designing the midrange and tweeter with SET amps in mind. Would love to use a 2A3 or 45 amp with them. He idea is to have a pair of sereo SET amps sitting by the speakers, so one channel in each speaker drives the weeters and the other drives the midrange. Of course I need to buy the amps, which is going to get a good while
Eventually the Hypex amps will be housed inside the DIY speakers. It's our living room at the end of the day, so looks are important too.
Just up and running with a one box (for now) stereo active. The case can handle 4 amplifiers so a two way.
Using Hypex DLCP - 2x UcD180 with HrX. All in a really nice case by MagicLX521.
Power in - speakers out. Digital and analogue in of loads of types. Front lcd. And controls with volume control in 1db increments. Power button. And inbuilt learning ir receiver.
Will upgrade to 4x NC500's when I can. And if needed a second box with two monoblocks.
Only just up and running, with full range drivers. Haven't had time to play with filters and waiting the new software update. But no noise and really flexible. And one box. The dream.
Using Hypex DLCP - 2x UcD180 with HrX. All in a really nice case by MagicLX521.
Power in - speakers out. Digital and analogue in of loads of types. Front lcd. And controls with volume control in 1db increments. Power button. And inbuilt learning ir receiver.
Will upgrade to 4x NC500's when I can. And if needed a second box with two monoblocks.
Only just up and running, with full range drivers. Haven't had time to play with filters and waiting the new software update. But no noise and really flexible. And one box. The dream.
Yes.
Passive is like a carburetor
and
Active is like computer controlled fuel injection
If you can go active, do it, there's no reason not to
Unless passive is where the magic happens
It's also way cheaper and easier for me
Let me know if something better tan kx drivers comes along for PC
I use kx drivers and it's fine for me
But I'm not much of an audiophile, I just know what I like
I like the sound of the speakers I build and I like the way I build them
Passive is like a carburetor
and
Active is like computer controlled fuel injection
If you can go active, do it, there's no reason not to
Unless passive is where the magic happens
It's also way cheaper and easier for me
Let me know if something better tan kx drivers comes along for PC
I use kx drivers and it's fine for me
But I'm not much of an audiophile, I just know what I like
I like the sound of the speakers I build and I like the way I build them
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ACTIVE main system:
DEQX
Magneplanar 3.6 speakers
ADCOM 555-II for bass panels
Forte 4a w/ Soderburg mods for midrange panels
N.E.W. 20 for tweeter ribbons
-AND-
Behringer DCX-2496 for 45 Hz xover to 4 10-inch sealed-box subs, driven by NAD 2600 amp (want to go to GR Research open baffle / Rhythmik Audo servo amp for subs at some point...)
--SECOND ACTIVE SETUP in bedroom-
Speakers: Satori 6" woofers in 0.7 cu ft vented boxes & OEM ribbon tweeters from SELAH audio
ELECTRONICS: Topping TP-60 for the woofers, TPA3116 amp for tweeters, MiniDSP doing crossover at 1800 Hz and EQ. Amps, MiniDSP, etc all built into custom chassis, controlled by small Windows tablet.
The ribbon from Selah is pretty amazing, VERY low THD and IM all the way down to 1 kHz!
Here's what this little setup looks like:
DEQX
Magneplanar 3.6 speakers
ADCOM 555-II for bass panels
Forte 4a w/ Soderburg mods for midrange panels
N.E.W. 20 for tweeter ribbons
-AND-
Behringer DCX-2496 for 45 Hz xover to 4 10-inch sealed-box subs, driven by NAD 2600 amp (want to go to GR Research open baffle / Rhythmik Audo servo amp for subs at some point...)
--SECOND ACTIVE SETUP in bedroom-
Speakers: Satori 6" woofers in 0.7 cu ft vented boxes & OEM ribbon tweeters from SELAH audio
ELECTRONICS: Topping TP-60 for the woofers, TPA3116 amp for tweeters, MiniDSP doing crossover at 1800 Hz and EQ. Amps, MiniDSP, etc all built into custom chassis, controlled by small Windows tablet.
The ribbon from Selah is pretty amazing, VERY low THD and IM all the way down to 1 kHz!
Here's what this little setup looks like:
Me, too. I run 48 dB/octave L-R crossovers all the way around. I've found that most people that complain are using passive crossovers that don't have all-pass phase compensation to correct the 90 degree-per-order phase shift from low to high frequency across the filter. (Danley has talked at length on this subject.) Those phase mismatches within the crossover pass bands are extremely audible if not corrected.
This is most likely the reason why the posted Audacity EQ files sounded dull on your setup - you've made them sound dull using an attenuating HF room curve. A 3-4 dB cut on the top end is a pretty big room curve for HF. I actually don't recommend using HF room curves but if you must, I'd put your 3-4 dB inverse EQ curve boost back into those re-EQing curves to regain HFs on the remastered Audacity edits.
I've opined that the reason why people use room curves is mostly to compensate for commercially bought music tracks that are typically mixed with too much HF pre-emphasis and too little low bass below 100 Hz among the much more severe issues that I've found along the way--on virtually all commercially distributed music. I've found it's much better instead to correct the source music tracks themselves, then you never have to deal with it again and you can play your music without worrying about "fixing the EQ" for each recording every time you play it...like some of my audio buddies resort to.
It would be interesting to see what more people would do if they heard a good setup that was properly EQed , crossovers done better (including matching phase in the crossover regions via DSP than typical passives), and all loudspeakers time-aligned by channel and channel-to-channel. It made a world of difference in my setup....the music seems to just materialize in the room...I'm obviously a fan of active now,
Chris
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This is a part of any good crossover.
There is discussion about room curves and HRTF on the flat/accurate thread.
Thanks for the heads-up on the flat/accurate thread. I've found that virtually no one talks about the music itself, assuming that it's "okay as-is". It isn't, IMHE.
I looked at the title to the thread and passed it over completely: I see a lot of, well, odd thread names and subjects on this forum (i.e., posted on diyAudio in general) that I don't open because the original premise is more than a bit cockeyed.
I'd bet that I'm not the only one that does this.
Chris
I looked at the title to the thread and passed it over completely: I see a lot of, well, odd thread names and subjects on this forum (i.e., posted on diyAudio in general) that I don't open because the original premise is more than a bit cockeyed.
I'd bet that I'm not the only one that does this.
Chris
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You're not. If the thread goes on for a bit I might be tempted to see why.
I don't think they assume that. Some say that measurements are all that is required but at some point they've said it is about the music. Some threads just don't need that repeated, I guess.
As an example, the goal of controlling directivity. Some will question its benefits, but it does IMO balance things so when EQed properly, making decisions on things like room curves is much easier as one can simply listen for what sounds natural.
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