Hi John!
Great to see a reply so soon after posting. Yes it is more complex, and costly, so it's not for everyone. But not really...if for example (and I know this isn't a good one) people are buying $100,000 speakers to be driven by a $50,000 monster power amp, it makes far more sense to not buy the crossover assembly within the cabinet (there's a lot of expense there), but to buy 2 or 3 smaller amplifiers and an electronic crossover, as long as the quality is on par with what you're giving up. And yes you need more cabling. But the sound will be NIGHT AND DAY better. Not having a bunch of coils, capacitors and resistors between the output of the amplifier and the driver itself, it HAS to be better.
I have the Esoteric stack, P-01/2x D-01/G-0Rb. It has a variable output and it drives the crossover directly, no preamp at all. Not all DACs can do that, and some people swear by a preamp. My philosophy is if the DAC has a proper drive stage to begin with, you don't need one, unless you need input switching or a volume control. If you do need a volume control and/or input switching, Goldpoint makes what I consider the best passive preamp available, and it's cheap($500)! I have the SA-1X balanced version, and it's so simple, yet sounds so transparent, it's like there's nothing there (not using it at the moment). And yes it's a stepped attenuator, just what you're looking for. They sell them direct, and the RCA version will be even less, like $300. OK, back to crossovers. I used an Audio Control Richter Scale for a while when I was just starting, and the Behringer is along similar lines. It will certainly get you into the world of active, and it's worth trying just to see what active does, but honestly, you won't be happy with it in the long run. It's cheap, so you won't lose much if you resell it, but it's pretty low-end. The question of course, is what do you buy that's better? Bryston has one, never tried it. There's just not much around. Accuphase makes one, but they're all digital now, and pretty expensive. My crossover runs in the analog domain, so there's no extra A/D and D/A conversion, but they haven't built them since 2001! There's just no demand. As far as time-aligning goes, I have quite a bit of experience with that. You are FAR better off to physically move the drivers so they're time aligned, than trying digital delay. It sounds WAY better if you can build the speakers time-aligned in the first place. I've found over the years, that digital anything - crossovers, delays, filters, equalisation...just doesn't sound nearly as good for some reason, as doing it in the analog domain. And thanks, I really wanted to start this thread as it's something that CAN be done, in the real world, with real budgets. The only people that I know of that have ever done anything like this in the consumer world is Linn. It's okay, it has quite the cult following, but it's not my cup of tea. Keep writing, as you make progress. Thanks John!
Great to see a reply so soon after posting. Yes it is more complex, and costly, so it's not for everyone. But not really...if for example (and I know this isn't a good one) people are buying $100,000 speakers to be driven by a $50,000 monster power amp, it makes far more sense to not buy the crossover assembly within the cabinet (there's a lot of expense there), but to buy 2 or 3 smaller amplifiers and an electronic crossover, as long as the quality is on par with what you're giving up. And yes you need more cabling. But the sound will be NIGHT AND DAY better. Not having a bunch of coils, capacitors and resistors between the output of the amplifier and the driver itself, it HAS to be better.
I have the Esoteric stack, P-01/2x D-01/G-0Rb. It has a variable output and it drives the crossover directly, no preamp at all. Not all DACs can do that, and some people swear by a preamp. My philosophy is if the DAC has a proper drive stage to begin with, you don't need one, unless you need input switching or a volume control. If you do need a volume control and/or input switching, Goldpoint makes what I consider the best passive preamp available, and it's cheap($500)! I have the SA-1X balanced version, and it's so simple, yet sounds so transparent, it's like there's nothing there (not using it at the moment). And yes it's a stepped attenuator, just what you're looking for. They sell them direct, and the RCA version will be even less, like $300. OK, back to crossovers. I used an Audio Control Richter Scale for a while when I was just starting, and the Behringer is along similar lines. It will certainly get you into the world of active, and it's worth trying just to see what active does, but honestly, you won't be happy with it in the long run. It's cheap, so you won't lose much if you resell it, but it's pretty low-end. The question of course, is what do you buy that's better? Bryston has one, never tried it. There's just not much around. Accuphase makes one, but they're all digital now, and pretty expensive. My crossover runs in the analog domain, so there's no extra A/D and D/A conversion, but they haven't built them since 2001! There's just no demand. As far as time-aligning goes, I have quite a bit of experience with that. You are FAR better off to physically move the drivers so they're time aligned, than trying digital delay. It sounds WAY better if you can build the speakers time-aligned in the first place. I've found over the years, that digital anything - crossovers, delays, filters, equalisation...just doesn't sound nearly as good for some reason, as doing it in the analog domain. And thanks, I really wanted to start this thread as it's something that CAN be done, in the real world, with real budgets. The only people that I know of that have ever done anything like this in the consumer world is Linn. It's okay, it has quite the cult following, but it's not my cup of tea. Keep writing, as you make progress. Thanks John!