How good is the crossover in your loudspeakers?

@curiousjim You ask why you see so few active crossovers in home systems.  There are very good reasons having to do with sales and marketing.  A system with an active crossover means that you need more channels of amplification.  How easily do you think a hi-fi shop owner would do offering a loudspeaker with an active crossover and telling his customer that he needed to buy two power amps, not just one?  Most customers already have an amp and are now looking for a good loudspeaker to go with it, so theyʻre not going to want a loudspeaker that demands they buy at least one or two new power amps and thus having to sell off the old amp.

An active crossover doesnʻt mesh with someone running an integrated amp or vintage receiver either.

Those few loudspeakers which have been sold with an active crossover, also have come with power amps as a package.

Pro loudspeakers are now typically powered with built-in active crossovers and amp channels (most of which are Class D).

Just because it is a better technology doesnʻt mean you can sell it.  Active crossovers in home audio systems are mostly seen in DIY projects.  So many advantages, but not from the view of a hi-fi shop owner.

@invalid 

" I can't figure out why any crossover would need a capacitor of 1600uf."

Subsonic filter??

Lets talk cheap big film caps for the bass section.

A number of people I've trusted have reported positive experiences from switching caps from bipolar to film.  I believe Solen has an even cheaper brand named Axon which is useful here.

My one comment and concern is that in the bass section caps are usually in parallel with the woofer, and the ESR is a critical factor.  Reducing this willy nilly is bad and can negatively affect the minimum impedance of the speaker.   Keep an eye on it and adjust when needed.  Strongly recommend you use a Dayton DATS or similar if you don't already. 

Also in the bass, the DCR of a coil may be part of the baffle step compensation, so again, reducing it without a full analysis of the crossover + drivers electrical behavior is risky. 

The VH Audio V-Cap ODAM are an oil damped advanced metalized caps, reportedly very nice in crossovers, and everywhere else for that matter,  and relatively smaller physical size. Available up to 47uf. It is crazy to see the large value electrolytics used in some crossovers. If they only in for woofer use, I'd still replace mid and tweeter caps if possible.

Another nice mod I've found is the Duelund bypass caps, specifically made for use in speaker crossovers, I use the silver as a bypass on a Jupiter VT, balances out the warmth of VT with the openness of silver. You'll see the Duelund bypass caps raising ratings of most any cap by a couple numbers in the cap shootouts. 

And this brings me to another advantage of passive vs. active crossovers. Myself and others are intentionally manipulating voicing to get exactly the sound quality we seek. An active crossover may give me exactly the freq response I want, but doesn't offer flexible voicing, timbre important here, this not just about tonality. Also, a class D or A/B SS active crossover is the last thing I want to add to my SET tube system. I'd much rather use DSP software such as HQPlayer to tweak my sound, much less obtrusive on the voicing. 

@erik_squires Exactly.

Electrolytics are usually chosen for cost considerations, but sometimes they're there for a good reason.

When I rebuilt my crossovers I pulled out those big caps, which tested fine (predictably), so I mounted them right back.