Active crossovers

Since the speakers already have their own integral crossover, you would be crossing over electrically BEFORE the amp and then again after the amp inside each speaker section. In effect, the passive crossover parts that divide the lows from the mids would just be "exra junk" in the way of the signal and redundant unless you took them out of the circuit path.

I and others are talking "theoretical best performance" here, so keep that in mind. I guess that we figured if you're going to go to that much trouble to buy the amps and crossover, you might as well get the best results possible. You could actively cross and leave the speakers alone internally. It would be a step up in amplifier efficiency and power handling for the speakers, but i don't think it would compare to the total benefits of "direct drive".

Keep in mind that even if you did actively bi-amp, you would still be relying on the passive crossover components between the mid and tweeter if you simply divided the speaker between highs and lows. As such, you REALLY do need to discuss this with Albert and see what he thinks is best. After all, he should know his product better than anyone else. At least one would hope so.. : ) Sean
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Sean, I see what you are saying.

I've seen your other post. You, my friend, aree the Poster Chilp for multi-amping. I was hoping you'd jump on this thread!
So in my case, I'd need to at least tri-amp for max results (that beign the total removal of all passive crossovers). question mark.

I'm waiting for Albert's reply.

KP

If at all possible, you would want to actively tri-amp. Take into account that this is a LOT of set-up to say the least with a pretty massive amount of cabling, amplifiers and rack space taken up. It can and will change the sound of your system, possibly to a very large extent. My experience is that doing something like this produces FAR more liquid and transparent sound IF you can get everything dialed in. This can be a VERY time consuming "if" and one must have both patience and some help to do this. If it sounds like i'm trying to talk you out of it, i almost am. You REALLY need to think about what is TOTALLY involved in doing something like this.

My one concern about your speakers is that they have an "extra" rear mounted tweater also. Do you know if it crosses over at the same frequency / slope as the front firing tweeter ? Sean
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PS... I am the poster child for "something", but i don't quite know what it is : )

Ah! good point, I'd have to ask Albert.
Now, let me ask:

Bass is actually 2 woofers, crossover differently.
quad-amp?

Alber says to get the most from his speakers you should bi-amp, tubes on top SS on the bottom.

So, if I were to say, biamp now, could I get real benfits and then if/when I tri-quad amp really go into the stratosphere with dynamic power? Hum, why doen't this sound farfetced to me anymore?? SET for the highs, ogues for the mids, 2 SS amps for the bass... ahhhh.... I hear the siren call... maybe this is "the direction" question mark.

And, yes, "Poster Child for Multi Amping", I'll stick to that! Oh, and certainly you'd be in the group photo for folk who make this hobby fun. But heck, that's just my opinion and I'm sure it's full of holes (also part of the fun, huh?)!

Taking a break from the music to keep up; tubes are nice and hot; breeze and cool outside!

Hiram

KP,

Think first about what active crossovers are all about. There are a couple of benifits; 1) crossing over before amplification means the amps (and speaker cables) don't have to see the whole audio spectrum and can put their power into a more limited frequency range hopefully with lower distortion, 2) active crossovers can be provide alternate filtering as compared to the built-in crossovers, but you need to be careful here the speaker designer most likly spent a great deal of time blending the sound from the different drivers to give a smooth transition between frequencies and 3) active crossovers can be used in conjunction with equalizers or as just a two band equalizer its self to provide room correction.

I went to the von S web site and read some about your speakers. It looks like what you suggested about an active crossover to split the signal into a piece for the base module and one for the mid/treble module will work. It won't give you all of the benifits of active crossovers that can drive each set of drivers for each frequency range but you will still get the advantage of making your amps and cables work over a more limited frequency range. The signals will still pass through the internal crossovers but I think that is also good in your case as von Schweikert went to a lot of trouble in the design of their crossover and I would think that your speakers would not sound as good without their internal crossovers.

So with the goal of offloading the amps and speaker cables I think that your idea would work and I think that this goal would also put a limit on the quality of the active crossover that you would require.

For what its worth this is how I see it.

Good Luck,

John