Active Subwoofer Crossover

"one feature in particular that i found has made a significant difference is the ability to time delay the mains. once the crossover and delays are dialed in, the integration between the sub and mains is absolutely seamless".

"I’ve changed the crossover to 45 hertz and like the overall sound better".

+1 to both.

Also, a 45 Hz crossover means that bass can be separately adjusted if needed, say, for a particular recording, without unduly affecting the chestiness of male vocals or other lower-midrange sounds.

I've found more flexibility, with subwoofer crossovers in particular, to be key. Pretty difficult to overrate in an ideal setup, let alone in anything like a problem room or with unusual gear. 
Cheers.

Keep in mind, the only way your amps can ever communicate directly with your speakers is with an external crossover.  With an internal crosover, your amps communicate with the crossover.  With an external crossover, there is nothing between the amps and speakers except speaker wire.   

I thought setting the crossover to 80 hertz was considered optimal? How do you establish the correct phase?

ricred1,

I've been considering buying a cr-1 for my ayre/wilson sophia 2 system.   Are you pleases with your purchase?  Do you find it to be worth the money?
thanks

This also raises another possibility - Audyssey.  I've gotten great results integrating my subs with Ohm 100s using Audyssey in my main system,  but - as a practical matter - it means replacing the preamp with a pre-pro.  That's not going to win over too many 'philes, but I think it's easily worth it.  Crossing in the digital domain and EQing the FR makes the "hand-off" from subwoofer  to speaker impressively hard to detect.

However, if you use analog sources (I don't very often), it means either taking the subs off-line (direct mode) or subjecting your analog sources to ADC and DAC.  I'm okay with that, but YMMV.