Speaker Crossovers
This discussion was created from comments split from: My pimped up classics....
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
I fear I am now condemned to modifying all the speakers I will own for life ,as every time I hear a x-over mid/bass I miss the immediacy , coherency , detail and rhythm of a directly coupled bass driver .
A friend has EX6, they are full rage units with no crossover. I've heard them integrated in OB speakers and now in a Tracrix horn (both to extend bass response). The things you describe go right up through the mid-range into the HF as well. They are like nothing I've ever heard, certainly in the dynamic & down right rude way they portray saxophone.
I can imagine someone falling totally for such unique reproduction. It only gets better without speaker cabinets!! But, it come with a bunch of compromises. I hope you find a well integrated set to listen to one day.
I only got the jpw ap2's through the door cause the veneer matched the p.t and was sympathetic to the décor .
as you say , its all compromise .
And Pac , All my statements are limited to my own personal context , I make no universal pronouncements, I merely honestly recall my experience .
I promote this idea , cause it gets a lot of flack from people who generally haven't tried it and I found it a bloody revelation .
Dave brailsford attributes the success of British cycling to throwing away the rule book and cut and paste thinkers and employing first principle thinkers . There is a lot of cut and paste thinking and learning in all walks of life .
Keep enjoying what you're doing (or, run what you brung).
We should all bare in mind there is no universal truth in audio.
of the eight or so mid bass drivers I have tried this mod on i have preferred it and everything you say is negated by my personal experience . I am not threatened by your opposition to my pissing about with drivers designed for x-overs so i am curious as your verbose , passionate rebuttal to my posts and your slightly condescending "if its good enough for you fine ,but its just wrong" stance .
It may be you are replying to the fact that I am DQ and Gerald of other pastures and not what i have actually said on this forum , if this is the case then I understand .
You're feeling surprised that I can like a crossovered speaker to one without.
I preferred the Cubes to the Dynaudio Audience 82s that I had at the time. The Dynaudios were big 3 way floorstanders with crossovers. The "immediacy" that you mention with regard to speakers without crossovers was definitely one way in which the Cubes appealled to me.
I bought the Goodwoods cheap last year. The Goodwoods are big 3 way floorstanders with crossovers. When I bought them they were "fun" rather than "good" and did not threaten the Cubes in my system.
I did like their bass and scale though and was interested to see what Paul (PAC / RFC) could do with them, having been impressed by Paul and his huge Fidelo speakers.
The Goodwoods made 2 visits to Paul during which he made many changes (including new tweeters, new internal wiring, new binding posts. internal bracing, and completely redesigned crossovers).
After Paul's work, I certainly preferred the Goodwoods to the Cubes. To my ears Paul's work gave the Goodwoods immediacy, coherency, detail and rhythm, as well as a realistic smoothness and dynamism.
I could not tell you what aspects of the sound from the Goodmans are attributable to which aspects of Paul's modifications as I did not listen to the speakers in between each and every individual modification. I can only guess that the crossover redesign played a significant part in making the Goodwoods more listenable to me. I know Paul put a lot of work into designing the crossovers.
I'm not sure what tentaive general hypotheses regarding crossovers that I can make from this. Pehaps:
1. That designing a good crossover is very difficult;
2. Some speaker designs have crossovers that are not well designed;
3. That a speaker with no cross over can sound better than a speaker with a (bad(?)) crossover and;
4. That Paul designs very good crossovers (he designs very good sounding speakers full stop).
As a foot note, my recent fitting of some replacement and recently reconed Goodwood bass drivers has changed the sound to such an extent that some crossover tweaking / redesign is required. I am hopeful that the new drivers can be "better" than the older ones, but at present are not optimally integrated into the overal speaker, as the RFC crossovers were designed around the old drivers. I have no hesitation in wheeling out my cheque book again as I have complete confidence in Paul's electronics knowledge and engineering expertise.
Just for a while. I don't want my thread locked for good!
Perhaps we'll split this later into a separate thread on crossovers. :-)
EDIT: I've now done that. I'll reopen this in the morning.
Clearly things were getting a bit heated. Nothing too terrible so far, and I haven't modded anything. At the same time, I feel it is opportune to say that while disagreements of opinion are fine, please remember to take the care and time to voice them in such a way as to minimise the chances of things taking a turn for the worse.
the musical signal is contained in the electrical signal that goes from source to amp to speakers .
My findings are that capacitors , inductors and resistors on a bass driver noticeably diminish the signal , they filter it , take something away . That something is important to the realistic and enjoyable portrayal of music for me . The signal does not escape intact from a cross-over .
This may cause audible problems vis-a-vis presenting a driver with a full frequency signal , but such problems do not outweigh the problems caused by x-over and they can be overcome by doping and our room arrangements .
So for me x-overs take away more than they give . There is a long and respected history of x-overless bass drivers , from NVA to royd to epos .
I tried the idea and liked it a lot and simply urge others to try . That what hifi is for, its a lot of fun .
The same will be done to future posts and/or members will be removed.
I do believe that crossovers add something detrimental to the music you hear and as such I would prefer that a simple crossover, or no crossover at all is used.
To get to this you need to start with properly designed drivers, not some off the shelf design that you try to fix. Of course this takes time in r and d and money on the part of the manufacturer and so it's far easier to take a relatively inexpensive driver design and get it sorted afterwards with whatever method you think works best for your ears...or budget.
Personally I think folk are looking at this from the wrong perspective and should get back to basics and use properly designed drivers that do away with the need for complex crossovers.
All that said I find i can enjoy my tunes with speakers that use no crossovers (like the ones i'm listening to at the mo') or ones using more complex crossovers....
Do you have any specific cross over designs / speakers that exemplify the level of simplicity in crossovers that you consider optimal?
From a crossover design perspective my knowledge on electronics etc is precisely bugger all!! All i can say is my ears say that less is more.
I'm just about to put a down payment on a pair of speakers without crossovers if that helps at all and may explain my own preference.
I've visited a few manufacturers recently and all of them seem to start with the driver and the work up a design once that is sorted. They however, are brands that make their own drivers for their speakers.
I've heard good and bad feom both camps and currently on to pairs of completely different speakers, one being of the single driver type and one with multiple drivers, both have great attributes and signatures to the sound but neither outright outperforms the other.
The way I see it is if the crossover is carefully thought out and as minimalist as possible the speaker can deliver things single drivers just can't and if the enclosure/cabinet design is correct a single driver can delivers attributes a multiway just can't.
Then there's the active crossover route....
Crossovers are audible and that's a fact as far as my ears are concerned. some are done well (however they measure) and some aren't.
I've got a set of speakers here for review at the mo that the world and its wife say measure brilliantly and sound great....not to my ears and they've been sent back...now I may well be deaf but i can hear the (presumably) flat crossover playing havoc with the overall sound... They use well known drivers, great components.......
Flat frequency response is indeed an ideal, but it is not the be all and end all. In a near or mid-field monitor, in a studio environment then flat frequency response is essential...but I don't listen to speakers in a studio environment any more.
If a flat frequency response was the panacea it's claimed to be then every Tom, Dick and Harry would be able to knock out speakers based on them measuring accurately.
Accurate measurements are only a part of the story in my opinion and those speakers that measure "best" are not necessarily those that I prefer to listen to.
Stu are you saying that a flat frequency response is necessary but not sufficient, or that it is not necessary, or that it is not desirable?
My main point though is that crossovers are a necessary evil and that a crossover's negative impact can be minimised if the drivers used are right from the off ie not as much fixing it in the mix needs to done.
In my own experience of hearing and owning lots of speakers, I think there is a balance to be had, and that balance will depend on each person's own priorities and preferences.
The pursuit of a flat freq response uber alles, as it were, led to the "BBC Era" designs of Spendor etc, which to my ears are often the aural equivalent of watching paint dry.
The other extreme are single driver speakers, using Lowther drivers etc - to me these throw the musical baby out with the bathwater, with clarity and transient speed achieved at the cost of unacceptable levels of bandwidth restriction, resonances and colouration.
Personally, I've ended up (over 4 years now!) with a speaker with complex crossovers and 6 drivers apiece!
I don't think I have lost anything by doing so.
Perhaps it just takes good design to use complex xovers properly?
Just my opinion - feel free to differ!
This thread needs some thoroughly irreverent trolling, it's far too pompous imo. :-q
How's that Mrs. Brown... ;-)