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

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.

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

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
>

Wow, Sean sounds like an involoving project! It's great you were able to do a before and after listen and note the differences.

From the description of the complexitiy I'm assuming this was no first order 6dB slope set up, but then again you do have 5 drivers, and therefore more components.

I recently bought a pair of speakers from Madisound (Odin model) for the rear channels of my system (where use of Maggies is just impossible). These speakers (a Kit) are offered with two crossovers, Standard, and Premium, with approporiately different price tags. I sprung for the "Premium" ones, and was so impressed that I modified my Maggies (but that is another story).

I wonder why other manufacturers do not offer two grades of crossover. It's a waste of money to pay for the standard crossover components, and then discard them when the crossover is upgraded. Also, with the manufacturer doing the design a tidy physical layout would be possible, rather than the "kluge" that is typical of most after market mods. With regard to pricing, if I were the manufacturer I would sell the premium crossover at cost, and derive my profits from increased volume of sales. If the usual markup were applied to audiophile grade crossover components, the price tag would be discouraging.