My speakers are Infinity Kappa 8.2. I looked at the current XO, and they use Solen caps. They look "ok" from the outside, but they're 23 years old. I can' t quad amp them because the 4 amps are not all of equal value. If I go thru w/ the plan, I will use a set of DBX 234 for the 4 way active XO. Tweeters will be powered by a 45w Parasound Zamp, upper mid by a Parasound 125, upper bass by a 125w Parasound, and the bass by a Crown 375w.
Sounds like your tweeter amp will run out of voltage swing and clip your tweeter. Even though the tweeter average power is very low, you will normally need around the same peak power. That is unless your tweeter has a series pad resistor which you can then remove and consequently lower the required volt swing from its amp.
The first and possibly the easiest change is to go active for the low bass speaker.
This takes out the big inductors and big capacitors from the passive.
A Low Pass filter for the low bass, driven direct with no passive crossover.
A Hi Pass filter for all the others, remove the lowest of the high pass filters, keeping the rest of the passive crossover.
You will probably have to experiment with 2pole, 3pole and maybe 4pole filters for the two filters to get the best from this partial active.
When you have one channel working compare the passive to active and decide if you have changed it for the better or made it worse.
Then make a decision on whether to convert the second channel.
The big decision after that is whether the active upper bass becomes the second project.
This takes out the big inductors and big capacitors from the passive.
A Low Pass filter for the low bass, driven direct with no passive crossover.
A Hi Pass filter for all the others, remove the lowest of the high pass filters, keeping the rest of the passive crossover.
You will probably have to experiment with 2pole, 3pole and maybe 4pole filters for the two filters to get the best from this partial active.
When you have one channel working compare the passive to active and decide if you have changed it for the better or made it worse.
Then make a decision on whether to convert the second channel.
The big decision after that is whether the active upper bass becomes the second project.
If there is any room to improve the sound quality, it can be done both ways. The key to a succesful design is understanding the principles of good practice. People mostly want to be comfortable in changing the design parameters, so they prefer the active and digital way, even if it increases the costs and complexity. So the answer to your question would be, it depends on you.
First you'd have to analyse the original passive xover to see if it provides some eq anywhere besides possible level matching.
If it does you may well have to replicate that electronically or in DSP.
Or you could go partially active as AndrewT suggested if you find any eq in the upper mid or tweeter sections.
If it does you may well have to replicate that electronically or in DSP.
Or you could go partially active as AndrewT suggested if you find any eq in the upper mid or tweeter sections.
Sir did you pull it of?
I'm also in to Kappa 8.2 and fully active. Now you can get get really interresting results with Opendrc da8 xover fairly sheap.
I have tried this with a few different speakers, and always heard an improvement. More with some than others. However, you need to be able to measure the driver responses, and correct each drivers response and offset. I believe being able to do this 'correctly' is where the improvement comes from.
Most speakers don't have time-aligned drivers, and some small notches etc are often left out from the passive filters due to cost. In general, bracing and damping the cabinets will improve most speakers too.
If you have the measurement gear and want to spend a lot of time measuring and tweaking, go for it!
I use RePhase & EQ APO with PC as source.
Most speakers don't have time-aligned drivers, and some small notches etc are often left out from the passive filters due to cost. In general, bracing and damping the cabinets will improve most speakers too.
If you have the measurement gear and want to spend a lot of time measuring and tweaking, go for it!
I use RePhase & EQ APO with PC as source.
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