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Do most manu. buy or build their x-overs?

There is quite a bit of discussion concerning speaker driver manufacturers (scanspeak, vifa, morel, etc.) and who uses what. But in general I would say that drivers account for less than half of the overall performance of the speaker. The crossover is a HUGE factor, in many cases perhaps more important than the drivers themselves.
So, generally, do most manufacturers of high end speakers purchase their crossovers in the same manner? Or do they build them to suit the selected drivers?
If they are purchasing them, who are the big names? While I can name off a dozen driver manu. I can't think of one x-over manu., only a few designs named for their inventors (presumably).
jb3
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Interesting question.

I'd think the crossover design is so critical that it would need to be designed specifically for the cabinet design and drivers being used, so that the speaker manufacturers would pick the parts and build them to their own needs.

This is what I did albeit on a much cruder level when I was in my car stereo phase years ago.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
As far as I know, most high end crossovers are designed and tweaked by the speaker designer. That's the secret. There wouldn't be an art to it if it was just making boxes and plugging in drivers. I've heard that many speaker designers spend many hours listening just to pick a better capacitor or inductor for their crossover board. Franco Serblin of Sonus Faber is just one of the pickier designers. Tweaking the crossover is what they also call 'voicing' a speaker. Just like tube rolling in a tube amp/preamp. Selecting different components can change the sound dramatically.

Regards,
John
sean
6,231 posts
 
I would agree with the above responses.

As a side note, i just got done putting a 5 driver 4 way speaker system back together. That's why i haven't been around as much. These speakers had 61 connections per crossover board. After we were done laying the crossover components out in a more orderly fashion, we was able to delete tons of small gauge "jumpers" and bring the number down to 23 connections per crossover. Needless to say, going from 122 connections on the crossovers down to 46 connections made quite a bit of a difference in transparency. All of this without changing the actual circuitry one iota.

Yes, crossovers are important, but obviously, some manufacturers haven't found this out yet. Sean
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