Active crossover - Voodoo magic?

[ShinOBIWAN]

Hello all,

I'm really wanting to build an active crossover for a design that I'm working on atm.

However I have absolutely no real idea how to go about this and what I'm asking is are there any useful websites which detail the possible processes needed to build one?

Is it difficult to convert my 2-way passive crossover schematic into an active version?

Any information on the subject is very welcome.

Thanks,
Ant

 

[RHosch]

www.sound.westhost.com

Lot's of great articles about the benefits of active crossovers, theory behind them, and schematics of some designs.

 

[audio-kraut]

Active crossover - Voodoo magic?

No, just the better technology

 

[ShinOBIWAN]

Big thanks RHosch.

Really want to digest as much of this stuff as possible so keep it coming everyone.

 

[ShinOBIWAN]

No, just the better technology

Oh I agree, I've got 5 x Mackie HR626 active studio monitors in my HT system and the sound is superb.

When mentioning Voodoo, I mearly meant that compared to the passive counterpart there's a degree of extra mysticism surround active x-over's that is not easily surmounted by the layman. I wasn't implying that they are hyped in anyway.

 

[Mr Evil]

But active crossovers are easier than passive crossovers! Not needing to worry about that pesky variable impedance simplifies things greatly. However it does make it awkward to convert an existing passive design to active, as you need to work out what the actual response of the network is in conjunction with the speaker and duplicate that.