Why HiFi manufacturers don't make active crossovers anymore?


Hello to all,

On the recent days, I noticed that a lot of manufacturers of Hifi 2 channel systems, had plenty of options in a not so long past, of active crossovers, like Luxman, Accuphase, higher end Sony stuff, and many more, why do you think HiFi manufacturers abandoned the inclusion of active cross overs, channel dividers, in their lineup?

Accuphase still makes a digital one.

Appears that this devices are only still relevant in the Pro Audio world, why Home HifI abandoned the active cross over route? It's correct to assume that?

I think that can be very interesting tri-amp a three way loudspeakers with active cross overs, would like to know more about it too...

Share your thoughts about the subject, experiences in bi-amp and tri-amp with active crossovers and etc....

Thanks!
128x128cosmicjazz
Hey phusis that is a nice looking setup and I have heard good things about the lilmikes.

Thanks, mahlman. Lilmike has made some great subs. Initially I considered a pair of the Cinema F20 FLH’s, but wound up being invested in the characteristics of tapped horns instead, also thinking about building the LilWrecker TH’s which are tuned some 5Hz lower than my MicroWrecker’s. There’s no free lunch, though, as they say; a 5Hz lower tune in this case eats up about 5dB’s of sensitivity, further limits the usable upper bandwidth, and turns them into 30 cubic feet or 850 liter monsters (the MW’s are 20 cubic feet per cab - not small by any stretch of the imagination). I also considered Josh Ricci’s Gjallarhorn tapped horns fitted with an 18" driver, but they’re huge, and the driver they’re build around, the TC Sounds LMS Ultra 5400 (weighing in at a ludicrous 80lbs) can no longer be had. Lastly I very strongly considered Ricci’s Othorn, fitted with a B&C 21" driver (the 21SW152 - a beast) and indeed the runners-up to my MW’s, but budgetary constraints mainly had me favor the MW’s.

What drivers are you using on the top section? I have a rebuild LSI bass bin I am thinking of making into a two way with a 2" compression driver for 500hz to 18khz . Are those Fastrac horns and were they made from stacked Baltic Birch? I have a CNC mill and I an thinking of making some mid horns too.

Midrange compression driver in the Uccello’s is the B&C DCM50, and the tweeter is the DE10 - also from B&C. The midrange horn is a "variation" of or slightly modified version of the Eliptrac 400 (the modification, to my knowledge, seems to entail the edge of the mouth of the horn, and how it meets the baffle here) and yes, it’s made of CNC’d, stacked birch plywood.

What’s the details of the bass horn you’re using with the 402 mids horn - does it sport a 15" driver, and how low is it tuned? Any thoughts on the 2" (exit) driver to use?

I am a Crown guy too. Went the consumer route for a while and tried all that "painless one touch" room correction junk and never was satisfied. You just can’t beat the price and clean output of pro amps with consumer gear.

Crown has made some extremely capable amps. Once considered buying a used Crown Studio Reference II - a lovely, very underappreciated amp that I could see go favorably up against a range of much more expensive commercial amps - and within the next month will replace my old Macro-Tech 1200 with a K2 for subs duties. What Crown are you using?
"Midrange compression driver in the Uccello’s is the B&C DCM50, and the tweeter is the DE10 - also from B&C. The midrange horn is a "variation" of or slightly modified version of the Eliptrac 400 (the modification, to my knowledge, seems to entail the edge of the mouth of the horn, and how it meets the baffle here) and yes, it’s made of CNC’d, stacked birch plywood.

What’s the details of the bass horn you’re using with the 402 mids horn - does it sport a 15" driver, and how low is it tuned? Any thoughts on the 2" (exit) driver to use?"
  That DE10 is a super driver and the one I use on the MAHL tweeters I make. The bass horn uses the Klipsch K-43 woofer and is -10DB at 27hz and near full output as low as 31 DB.
  The 2" driver on the 402 is a Klipsch 1132. I am going to experiment with some 2" throat horns soon and thinking of B&C for those to since I am an OEM with them.
  The Crowns are nothing fancy and are xli800's.    A Xilica xp3060 is the brain behind it all.
miniDSP has some nice active crossovers for different price ranges, just found them in the last week. 

I also have good experience with custom made Linkwith crossovers via aliexpress. You can choose the frequency and upgrade the operating amps. I took Muse8900 this time, but before even the Muse02 from italy. Quality was really good to be honest! I have put it before two Nap200 going to B&W PM2. For this speakers clarity increased and I could play louder in biamping. 

For my Elac507 Biamping didnt work! I think the reason is that the impedance of Low and High is different themself. In Biamping mode i had far too much bass. First i didnt like the speaker. When stopped biamping te sound became a dream. So i am out of biamping :) just got a Primare A32 with 2x400 Watts at 4Ohm and all is perfect. The only thing I will do is to go on wi-wire for the High-channel. I tried that once with Kimber 4TC and the effect was nice for the mid and high range, but it was not my cable. 
I purchsed an ART 355 EQ whicj has high ratings. I have read people ising this on systems much more expensive than mine.  I was totally dissatisfied with what it did on my system.
1  compressed the sound no matter how it was adjusted
2. Soundstage disappeared.
It was not good.  
The only one I ever owned that did it all righr was an audio control c101.  
The two most important considerations for a stereo are your speakers and the room that they are in. Passive set ups don’t allow you to dial in the speaker room interaction like active crossovers do. That’s the real advantage in my opinion. I use REW with a high end microphone to analyze the room. I’m able to add 12 biquad filters to each channel with my mini DSP. The distortion tamed by this process is unbelievable and the sound improvements truly amazing. Most consumers don’t want to mess with the process but it only requires probably a day of messing around and then it’s set which people argue is a Sisyphean task and never ending. You need to add multiple amps as people have noted and have multiple subs to really make an active set up effective as most distortion and negative room interactions happen at lower octaves.