Why HiFi manufacturers don't make active crossovers anymore?

Actual speaker crossovers are complicated.


If you are going to replace a speaker's internal crossover with an external you are going to have replicate the entire transfer function, not just the crossover location and slopes. DSP makes this a lot easier to accomplish.


If on the other hand you are just adding a sub to the bottom end, an analog crossover can do what you need.

Amazed how this thread grows..

Guys, I was checking some speakers projects on the web, builders that share their systems, found a interesting website focused on that, check this out:

http://www.homebuilthifi.com/project/18754

When I look at this particular project, this makes me think, wouldn’t be much more straight solution, if that guy opted in go active?

I think go active isn’t all necessary a complicated solution, in fact, can be much more straight forward..

I think this system must sound very very nice, but I don’t think If I dig all the mess of all this amps going trough the DIY passive crossover that the guy designed for it...

What do you guys this?

An active solution wouldn’t be a much more elegant way to cross and tuning the frequencies response on this huge 5 way speakers?

I used to use GR Research OB 7 speakers which were ideal for 45 SET's which I rigged as active crossovers for the midrange and tweeter, capacitors and resistors between the 6SN7 mu-follower drivers of the 45's and an 833A driven by a 45 for the woofer. There were still peaks in frequency response which required filters in the speaker elements and these had to be passive. It all sounded very good, but just for the hell of it I tried running the speakers with all three drivers on the 833-A and it sounded much more coherent and full-bodied. Eventually I went to Mangepan 0.7's and they are a better match for SET if the triode is powerful enough for their low sensitivity. In theory active should sound better but for this it did not.
I learned another lesson. While transformer coupling is ideal for letting a 45 drive an 833-A, transformer coupling should sound better than RC coupling for the output of my preamp, but AB testing revealed to me RC coupling sounds far superior. Finally, I had a ladder step volume control which selected pairs of the finest metal film resistors and an Alps plastic volume control, which is cheaper and has less status, sounds far better.
You have to experiment and test for yourself. Fortunately, if you can afford to buy something someone else designed and tested you don't have to spend years experimenting till you are satisfied with what you choose.

Hey Cosmic,


You are right. That design stinks. He's using multiple amps, but lacks active crossovers.

He's missing a number of benefits going fully active:

- Limited voltage swing to each amp, increasing dynamic of the entire system

- Enhanced efficiency due to removal of any built in padding.

Adding 1 more stereo amp, and going to fully active DSP crossover would simplify things a great deal.