THE Crossover Thread

laatsch55

laatsch55

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Just as well have a dedicated space to yap about em.
Got the dbxDriverack Loudspeaker Management System in today. I opted for the Real Time Analyzer Mic also.
I have had the Ashly XR2001 running for a couple weeks now. Very nice analog unit. Just enough knobs and switches to keep it interesting. I found myself fuvking with them just enough to get things sounding like I thought they should. I've tried some other than normal settings, but really didnt mess with it to much didnt need to. Super quiet, didnt downgrade the system being in it. Matched up sonically really well. For 200 bucks what fuckin bargain. Years ago when I tried tri-amping the D-23 must have been screwed up, cause if it sounded this good back then I'd never gone back to passives.
Gotta hand it to AlKlappenberger, the man builds some SOTA crossovers, and pricey, the Extreme Slopes were 1600.00 for the pair
They were considerably better than the "Universals" we started with years ago. And the Universals were way better than the Speakerlab crosses.
BUT!!!, Itseemed as the passives got more hi powered hours on em they did not sound as good. I dont know what exactly I was doing to them other than pure torture but the sound quality was getting worse.
So....here we are passives to active analog, to active digital.
With actives I have been hearing things I have not heard before in a lot of program material. It's been that way with each upgrade. Did not think there was much room for that kind of improvement left...
. Oh....but there was. I've listened to more music this month than all of last year. A lot of it has been off theDarcy drive. With the actives it was not as screechy in the mids. About 80% of the stuff on that drive of 3.6 TB of music, listening fatigue set in pretty fast. Like in minutes on some stuff.
Not so when tri-amping. I dont know what exactly is happening to make it.more palatable to the ear, but God what relief. To be excited to get home and put on some tunes is a feeling I didn't know I would have again. The Darcy drive covers A LOT of years and different genres. A lot of stuff I've never heard. Then there's Amazon HD streaming, even good ol crunch rock sounds great...like Tools " Pneuma" DAYAM that's good at Mach 8....like you were in the 10th row, middle , in a venue where the sound man had her dialed in in 10 minutes and spent the next 20 tweaking this and that. Been to a couple of those , and the mancave is pretty damn close.
With the pure blessed resolution of the system now I find I'm not as eager to twist thatknob to the right as I was. Granted ,you cant have a conversation at that level still, but not as loud. Things seem less compressed, or washed over or whatever the fuck I mean.....but what a difference fellers...let's see how the digital know it all algorithms handle the signal processing for the.ol K's...which, by the way are inno way shape or form racist, prejudgemental, digiphobic, or processing snobbish. They just want clean,correct , inphase shit AND LOTS OF IT!
The Driverack, and AlK's extreme slopes. 96 d
 

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George S.

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Thanks Lee, I'm watching closely. I want the knobs of a analog active crossover, but deep down I'm thinking DSP is the way to go.
I think back to George (the retired sound man who's MIA) from Oz's remark about making the system sound great at low volume levels. He was a proponent of active crossovers.
 
mr_rye89

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I've also wondered about a digital crossover/DSP. I have that DBX analog active in use but I might need baffle step correction or a slight dip in the mids. I might do some foam around the horns a la Altec Model 19. If I do need EQ I'd rather go the DSP route rather that an analog EQ.

My impressions of the setup with the active crossovers is deeper bass with more control of the woofers (though the OE crossovers for the woofers were hot garbage) The mids/highs with the compression drivers (aside from the mids being a little hot) are......right. Soundstaging even deeper. Who needs sonic holography?
 
laatsch55

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George S. said:
Thanks Lee, I'm watching closely. I want the knobs of a analog active crossover, but deep down I'm thinking DSP is the way to go.
I think back to George (the retired sound man who's MIA) from Oz's remark about making the system sound great at low volume levels. He was a proponent of active crossovers.
Click to expand...

George, Oz George commented to me in a txt that the Ashly XR series was gooooood shit. He was right, I love it...
 
laatsch55

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mr_rye89 said:
I've also wondered about a digital crossover/DSP. I have that DBX analog active in use but I might need baffle step correction or a slight dip in the mids. I might do some foam around the horns a la Altec Model 19. If I do need EQ I'd rather go the DSP route rather that an analog EQ.

My impressions of the setup with the active crossovers is deeper bass with more control of the woofers (though the OE crossovers for the woofers were hot garbage) The mids/highs with the compression drivers (aside from the mids being a little hot) are......right. Soundstaging even deeper. Who needs sonic holography?
Click to expand...
That was pretty much my impression of going active.....although it was a much greater difference than I had anticipated....
 
Gibsonian

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Glad you've made some progress Lee on this. I've not had as much success on the digital end of this and have stuck with analog because of that. The driverack must have some pretty good DAC's in it. The XR2001 can be improved greatly if you want to tear into it, and you do have the skills for that. Bi or triamping is the way to go, one just has to find the right path.
 
Gibsonian

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mr_rye89 said:
My impressions of the setup with the active crossovers is deeper bass with more control of the woofers (though the OE crossovers for the woofers were hot garbage) The mids/highs with the compression drivers (aside from the mids being a little hot) are......right. Soundstaging even deeper. Who needs sonic holography?
Click to expand...
The speaks I am using now I originally outfitted with passive crossovers. When I switched them to biamping the difference in bass response was quite improved, deeper, stronger, louder. Was interesting in that I can go louder now without reaching the limits of Xmax on the woofers. The only thing that makes sense to me on this is the improvement in woofer control, i.e. increasing damping factor substantially. Louder, deeper with less cone movement - that is like magic.
 
Bob Boyer

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I'm going to call my contact at Vintage King and ask if a PA2 could work through the tape loop in my Exposure integrated since it can't officially be split into the preamp and amp. In my normal bi-amp configuration, there's line outputs to the second amp, which drives the mid-woofs in my LSAs while the Exposure's amp drives the tweeters. But it's not like having a preamp driving two amps setup (or more) where there's a natural point to insert it.

I've been curious for a long time just how "correct" my system sounds. While I like how it sounds, I'd also like to see what it sounds like after measurements and compensation. Been looking at the various computer-based DSP systems and none of them really cranked my tractor. And, as I've removed the computer from my system, it negates that idea anyway. A hardware based dsp system just makes more sense to me.
 
Skratch

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I have tri amp my system since 2000 with an Ashly active crossover. Once you get it set correctly you rarely change any settings, occasionally I will boost or reduce the mids a little depending on the volume.
 
laatsch55

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I find myself setting the mid and low level.depending on the quality of the recording.
The Driverack has storable settings groups that can be restored with the click of a button
. I can see having stored settings for certain bands depending on SQ and engineer...
 
Gibsonian

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laatsch55 said:
I find myself setting the mid and low level.depending on the quality of the recording.
The Driverack has storable settings groups that can be restored with the click of a button
. I can see having stored settings for certain bands depending on SQ and engineer...
Click to expand...

I had the Behringer DCX2496 and I did love the feature set that it had. Had control of everything: eq, crossover freq, slope, file saving, etc. Liked the time alignment feature it had and with mic at listening position each of 6 drivers in a 3 way setup would chirp over and over until time alignment was achieved. I assume it was the DAC's (6 of em) that I didn't take a fancy too as I preferred analog active crossover, and that was even before I stumbled upon Ashly units. Went back to analog and haven't left.
 
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