Behringer Crossover for Maggies vs Bryston

Just to share the info - some have told me directly that the crossover is more important than the quality of the amps if you change from passive to active crossover - it changes the whole thing about what is going on so significantly that the amps become less important. Interesting...

I have MG3A speakers; I am using 2 Bryston 10B sub crossovers and VMPS larger subwoofers (triamplified system). Biamping the MG3A speakers is the single biggest improvement I have made in more than 15 years of owning the Magnepans. The Bryston crossovers sound very good, quite transparent. I have only used the factory-recommended Magnepan crossover settings from the MG3A manual. Some advantages I could see with a digital crossover are adding delays for speaker phasing and parametric equalization for the subwoofer. If you just want to biamp your Magnepans, a single Bryston will do the job. Make sure you understand the different frequencies available on the 10B vs 10B sub models. Having an amp for the bass panels frees up the power they need and keeps the high-frequency clipping products out of the tweeters where you could hear them. Highly recommended - you can't go wrong with the Bryston! I have used a bunch of power amps over the years and could still hear differences, but they are after the Brystons in the signal chain so that does not surprise me. The midrange/tweeter amp is the more critical; the bass amps matter less when biamping.

I was just surfing through Behringer-related posts on Audiogon this A.M. and noticed your Aug. '09 post regarding Behringer crossovers. I have Maggies too, but use the Behringer DCX-2496 x-over. I am very satisfied with this crossover and find it to be extremely flexible: it offers Linkwitz-Wiley, Butterworth, and Bessel crossovers @ 6, 12, 18, 24, and 48 dB/octave, sampling rates from 32 to 96 kHz, and a sampling depth of 24 bits. I hve had absolutely no problems with this crossover and highly reccomend it. While I suspect that the x-overs used by Magnepan are a better audiophile choice, the Behringer offers the audiophile an excellent learning experience, especially since it offers (with it's extra calibrated mic) the opportunity to phase-correct your planars. The improvement in imaging is exceptional, and measurement of phase-coherency is something that analogue equipment cannot offer.
I was wondering what equipment conclusions you had come to to date...

Yes I get the Behringer flexibility & I agree with Listener it's likley a good way to play. Some folks are not fond of the sound quality depending on their system.

XO quality is less critical for subs so you could use either and move them later.

Even if it's (partially) correctible with DSP, watch heavy equilization & steep slopes.

You will like the XVR-1 I can assure you & it has tons of flexibilty. The manual on the Pass Labs site is a great read for anyone regardless of what XO they're using. I highly recommend it.

I am thinking of going lower-spec on the amp and getting the XVR-1... And after trying to set it up myself, paying someone locally who really knows they are doing to finish it off and continue to work on setting it up for a day.

For the low end, I really think high-power low-cost D is the way to go (i.e., Rotel) and then go crazy high-end on the top side. Our family had some other big purchases recently so the project is on hold for at least 3 - 4 months, but I recently put a kilowatt amp on my 3.6s and now am very excited to get some more power through it somehow!

People talk about amp-matching on active crossover setups, I have to do more listening and testing to see if a low-cost D will match well with a very high-quality 2nd amp.

Another way to look at all of this - from a $ perspective (not from a time perspective) get the Behringer now - figure it all out, tweak it, get the extra amps, etc., but then upgrade the crossover a few years later.

In that sense - how the Behringer gets you started at such a low cost - it is awesome. Remember, though, Marchand has some decently priced modules, albeit with far far far less tweakability.