How to design a high end crossover…

I wind my own inductors. Easy peasy.

I have a capacitance board. Any value +/- 10 uF.  Same for non-inductive resistors.

I always use 2nd order. Not L-R.

Its painless.

@wolfie62

Specific to bass reproduction.

I just received 5lbs on 12 ga inductor wire yesterday, 14, 16 etc coming. I have two lathes and am building a setup for the small one to do this on. This will help out with costs when you make 4th order, specific, to eliminate the need for a notch filter.

I’m also interested in trying absolutely everything at a particular number, I’ve chosen 1.2 mh, that I can use to determine pluses and minuses, the only ones I don’t have yet are a 10ga foil wound and a 12 ga Litz wire, but am ordering the Litz tomorrow, Solen, with my regular order from that supplier.

In a closed range measurement, 20-200 hz for extra precision, the foils are superior in my results. Not so much by manufacturer though, Dayton’s are not bad at less than ½ the price of some others.

All of this is not going to go to waste, after I scratch this itch, I’m using some existing good quality orphaned drivers for testing, as well as existing speakers I have, and will build some speakers out of the parts and sell them if I don’t replace my existing speakers with them.

This is where the DSP comes in handy, as great inductors for subs are ridiculously expensive, and I find them perfect for subs. I just wish more sub makers would consider that many people are buying dual subs now, and so make the upper range XO on the smaller ones at 200, so they can make an excellent combo with small bookshelf speakers, where the sub is used as part of the speaker stand.

I’d venture to say that someone that does this for a living on the high end easily has $20kmin stock parts that they know well to do this. Many good to better caps cost in excess of $300, and the quality of those is a total crap shoot when it comes to a final design.

It doesn't need to be that complicated. Every designer has a "house sound" as I've heard it labeled. The actual electrical values often play an even more important part in the overall voicing of a speaker, than the quality.

Matching drivers that play well together (pardon the pun) is the very first step, before you even slice up the signal, to get a well resolving cohesive and dependable voicing.

Anti-phase measurements between crossover points (slopes obviously) where the drivers are at their best sounding are a good key way to get them to seamlessly blend across the frequency range. The argument that one driver alone that can do it all, that argument has merit.

Even DSP, requires knowledge of where to cross the drivers, if a fully active approach is to be undertaken. To me, it's the driver interaction, before the crossover is even implemented to shape the signal the drivers are fed, is the key to high end.

You can use relatively cheap components throughout, even the drivers to some extent, but if they won't play well together, if one simply won't vanish into the overall sound and reveals itself with colouration - your crossover cannot possibly win. DSP, fully active, with a crossover or not, driver matching matters.

Is this guy joking?

This is why a speaker is good or not. IMO, the hardest thing to accomplish is High End Audio. It is v far from just selecting the best components. It takes an artist to integrate drivers, crossovers and enclosures. To make the final speaker sound like music is rare.
For an amateur to accomplish this and, even, professionals with years of development.

Add 1/5 of excellent bourbon, branch water, natch.

Is this guy joking? 

Anyone with a fifth (or even 1/5) of excellent bourbon under his belt, yeah, I think he is joking.