As someone new here i’d just like to add my two cents.
I’m not new to audio.....it’s been a interest/obsession of mine since childhood (54 now)
Everything I’ve ever done has been tuned by ear and people have always commented on how well things sound when I’m done.....not just ‘oh yah that sounds good’ but more like ‘wow that sounds amazing! ‘
I’ve always had a knack for making junk sound good......Never could really afford anything other than upper level consumer grade stuff, and now I’ve actually come to a time in my life where I can step up to upper ‘mid-fi’ and am assembling a new 2.1 system.
In the process of ‘bettering’ my self taught knowledge, so as to take best advantage of my new ‘mid-fi’ gear; I’m coming across alot of negativity to the way I’ve always done things.
So am I to just believe that 40+ yrs of experience and training is irrelevant or imaginary because I have no sim plots or ABX results?
My audio journey has brought me to the point where I might need some measuring tools (and I have in fact last yr bought and calibrated a Omni mic that works with a app)
But....to sit there and tell me everything I’ve done up till now is irrelevant is just plain wrong.
I invite anyone to come and give my setup a listen (pm me and we’ll set it up) and tell me what they think about my xo tuning abilities....good,bad,or indifferent! You can even bring your measuring gear to try and figure out how something that measures so bad can sound so good.
And the ones who go on and on about how people’s brains only hear what they want to hear, need to get in better touch with their ears.
Maybe I’m in a minority percentile but I certainly cannot be the only one who can hear differences in sound objectively.
And this whole thing about how bad human sound memory is just wrong also.....how do you explain hearing something and knowing what it is only by the sound?
I can identify dozens of different birds just from their calls......I ‘know’ who’s calling me on the phone if I’ve talked to them before.....even if just once before.
I can tell the difference between a squirrel in the leaves or a deer coming while hunting(believe me that’s a tricky one), oh, and that old tv show ‘name that tune’...some would know the song from hearing only a note or two!
Just as I Know what my sound system actually sounds like....and any changes to it.
Tony, thank you for compiling and posting all that information, I will certainly be reading it.
Bob
I’m not new to audio.....it’s been a interest/obsession of mine since childhood (54 now)
Everything I’ve ever done has been tuned by ear and people have always commented on how well things sound when I’m done.....not just ‘oh yah that sounds good’ but more like ‘wow that sounds amazing! ‘
I’ve always had a knack for making junk sound good......Never could really afford anything other than upper level consumer grade stuff, and now I’ve actually come to a time in my life where I can step up to upper ‘mid-fi’ and am assembling a new 2.1 system.
In the process of ‘bettering’ my self taught knowledge, so as to take best advantage of my new ‘mid-fi’ gear; I’m coming across alot of negativity to the way I’ve always done things.
So am I to just believe that 40+ yrs of experience and training is irrelevant or imaginary because I have no sim plots or ABX results?
My audio journey has brought me to the point where I might need some measuring tools (and I have in fact last yr bought and calibrated a Omni mic that works with a app)
But....to sit there and tell me everything I’ve done up till now is irrelevant is just plain wrong.
I invite anyone to come and give my setup a listen (pm me and we’ll set it up) and tell me what they think about my xo tuning abilities....good,bad,or indifferent! You can even bring your measuring gear to try and figure out how something that measures so bad can sound so good.
And the ones who go on and on about how people’s brains only hear what they want to hear, need to get in better touch with their ears.
Maybe I’m in a minority percentile but I certainly cannot be the only one who can hear differences in sound objectively.
And this whole thing about how bad human sound memory is just wrong also.....how do you explain hearing something and knowing what it is only by the sound?
I can identify dozens of different birds just from their calls......I ‘know’ who’s calling me on the phone if I’ve talked to them before.....even if just once before.
I can tell the difference between a squirrel in the leaves or a deer coming while hunting(believe me that’s a tricky one), oh, and that old tv show ‘name that tune’...some would know the song from hearing only a note or two!
Just as I Know what my sound system actually sounds like....and any changes to it.
Tony, thank you for compiling and posting all that information, I will certainly be reading it.
Bob
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I’m gonna roll with ‘trained ears’......most everyone that can hear normally, has the ability;maybe?
Bob - you are not just in the minority, you are unique. How can a human's hearing be "objective".
And you are very lucky to have such good friends to compliment your accomplishments.
B.
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I apologise up front if this will be thread drift, but after reading all this and many other similar threads I always come up with the same question. If off the shelf crossovers are so useless why are they even on the market? I suppose it could be added to the list of newbie questions posted a few pages ago that were never answered. 
I apologise up front if this will be thread drift, but after reading all this and many other similar threads I always come up with the same question. If off the shelf crossovers are so useless why are they even on the market? I suppose it could be added to the list of newbie questions posted a few pages ago that were never answered.
Same reason McDonalds sells a lot of bad burgers. People don't know any better or don't care to put any more effort in and accept the low quality. Remember, most people are a mix of painfully stupid and/or ignorant and/or lazy.
In SOME use cases they might be acceptable, like for a kid building his first project or something, where cheap drivers and a poorly built cabinet are somewhat assumed, and the result is something that "makes sound" rather than "makes good sound".
I apologise up front if this will be thread drift, but after reading all this and many other similar threads I always come up with the same question. If off the shelf crossovers are so useless why are they even on the market? I suppose it could be added to the list of newbie questions posted a few pages ago that were never answered.
Well, would it be the only example you can think of for blarney products?
People want to buy turn-key boxes. They don't want to go to a lot of fuss and maybe can live with so-so sound quality. That's OK. But that's not true for our DIY world where any one of us with $40 for a mic* can use REW.
As the earlier poster suggested, stuff always sound great to you (and your buddies) when you make it yourself, when you live with it for a while ("adaptation level"), and when you can massage it for your room (which of course is not possible with passive crossovers).
A passive XO makes no sense in theory (except when you can buy theoretical drivers to be installed in anechoic rooms) or, today, in practice. Amps are cheap and there are lots of tweaks we now want to use that can be easily performed by cheap DSPs.
B.
* or your laptop mic
Mic versus mic: too bad for casual builders - diyAudio
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Because having one is better than having the non-technical blow up their tweeters!
However, you surely know by now that crossovers should be designed to match the parameters of the specific drivers being used - we've certainly discussed it enough!
YouTube
Believe me it’s not a compliment all the time......I subject them to quite a bit of testing.
B. Usually the one that is more pleasing to listen to is usually the one with more sales.
Our "culture" is always searching for The One. Fact is, all generalizations are false, including this one...thanks for posting, mbob. The objectivists will not cease shouting you down with their One True Opinion, which you already know well. Do It Your way: that's DIY, dammit.
This is not about sales.
This is not about sales.
Do you have any evidence you can actually hear a .5dB difference on a piece of music A/B?
If this thread has many more golden-ears posting they'll run out of pages in the Guiness Book of World Records.
B.
More often, the one with the better marketing dept is the one with more sales.
phivates wrote:
"Do It Your way: that's DIY, dammit"
That should be our motto.Or your sig line.
Bad me, I should have said "theoretical drivers using cryogenic super-conducting voice coils" because as soon as your voice coil heats up a bit and the resistance rises, the usefulness of your precise passive crossover that you modelled so carefully (using imaginative specs from the manufacturer) and built with 1% resistors and 5% caps and 10% coils goes straight into the garbage.
However, passive crossovers can work OK, until you turn on your amp.
Voice coil heating is a non-issue when bi-amped.
B.
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More often, the one with the better marketing dept is the one with more sales.
phivates wrote:
"Do It Your way: that's DIY, dammit"
Or your sig line.
True, but we were discussing A. speaker measure vs. B. speaker pleasure.
Then BenB said the one with the most sales.
Usually the one with the most sales given everything else is equal like advertising marketing etc the one that is more pleasurable to listen to will sell more as it all comes down to how a speaker sounds.
I’m all about learning proper use of active crossovers, a DBX DriveRack is on the shortlist.
Can’t tell if it uses Fir, which supposedly doesn’t have any effect on phase?