Go Active Crossover or Upgrade existing XOs?

I had bi-amped my JBL 4333’s which were originally designed with a bi-amp crossover (though I had built my own crossover using Nelson Pass design for mid/hi and used a Rane active to separate the low frequencies for my woofer). I used vintage amps with solid-state MAC 1750 on bottom and Dynaco tube on top. I thought it sounded good until my tube top end went out and I thought it was cheaper to just finish the passive crossover for the woofer Than repair my Dynaco. Wow!  So much better with just the Mac powering everything. 
Granted, I was using less-than-state-of-the-art equipment and I bet it would have sounded great if I had the flexibility to try multiple amps top and bottom until I found the perfect combo. But that would be a lot of money and a lot of experimentation. 
If you’ve got the time and money, it can be fun to tweak, but for me, simplifying by getting rid of all the unnecessary hardware in the signal path gave me a much better sound. And Nelson Pass designs a pretty good passive crossover too. 🤓

My general answer to this would be: If it is a 1.st order filter, upgrade it, if it is 2.order or moore skip it and go active. 

gadios

Go Active Crossover or Upgrade existing XOs?

It was recently suggested to me that rather than doing a crossover upgrade

I look into an active crossover for my Tannoy FSMs.

I tried With my ML Monoliths+plasma’s to have active xover on the ESL/plasma and active xover on the bass.
Even with very expensive active xovers on the ESL/plasma it still didn’t sound as good as the well made passive it came with, just sounded sterile with a slight lack of body and warmth.
But the bass was better with the active, rather than passive.
So I had 18db high pass 180hz> passive for the ESL/plasma and 24db low pass discrete active 180hz< for the bass.

BTW: I even tried doing it all digitally and it was even more sterile on the ESL/plasma almost like missing harmonic structure, surgical would be a good call.

Cheers George

It's an interesting game.  But I'll bet most arguing about this do not live with fully active monitors or floor standers with a serious front end.

Well done fully active is plainly scary in its immediacy, impact and timbre.  I do run active with ATC 40A speakers and anybody who has sat down for a listen has walked away shaking their heads.

I did listen to the current KEF Blades run properly and was very impressed,  However, the price of entry retail for the set up was closing in on 100K.  I had heard the same pair improperly run with cheaper amplification and they were a disaster.  

The properly matched amplification, cabling and PCs for the amplifiers a terrific investment.  Nearly all of this is taken care of with actives which properly match the amplifiers and eliminate crossover problems.

I might add that my ATC 40 actives came by way of a shop I've worked with for years.  I agreed to leave the speakers in the shop set up for two months before taking possession so that they could expose clientele to them and possibly pick up the line.  

The report was that everyone was overwhelmingly impressed and yet the owner reported customers are not ready for active.  They cannot leave the customary source- preamp- amplifier- speakers template.

Each listener was knocked out, but could not go the active route.