Bi-amping CF-3's with electronic crossover

[avguytx]

Since obviously to upgrade passive crossovers can get a little pricey with good caps, resistors, coils, etc, what about just bypassing the internal passive crossover and going full electronic 2-way? I did that for years in car audio, pro audio and some home audio applications but is there any hold back on doing these CF-3's this way to alleviate power loss from the passive network? I've got a modified Carver M-1.0t (425+ wpc) and also a modified M-200t (about 150 wpc) that could run in bi-amp setup. Yeah, maybe a little overkill in power but it's always opened up the staging, depth, imaging, etc, in dividing things out electronically versus passive. Anyhing to hold a person back from going this route?

[alexg5775]

I am not expert in this topic but i can give my 2 cents.

I have read bipassing internal passive corssover and using a electronic crossover is the "better" way to go. This is the way you want to try and i say do more reading and reasearch on topic and go for it.

I on the other hand am using passive biamp, just using the speakers crossovers to split the signal between tweeter and woofers. I did send the crossovers to crites for full recap. Check his site for pricing but i think it was just over 100$. I am using a crest ca6 for the woofers which does 350 @ 8 ohms and currently using a marantz 2252b to power the tweeters. I just use the marantz preamp to send signal to ca6, works well for me. It sounds amazing!!! Much much better than using a single amp to power the tweeters and woofers. This way you are able to tame the tweeters just a touch for some material were the tweeters might just be to much for some. The 350 watts for woofers works well. These speakers love power and the more the better, especially for the woofers. The 425watts you want for woofers i think is perfect.

As for tweeters i changed to EV DH1506's, as recomended by Moray James and huge improvement. If you like the turn the volume up and have lots of power for tweeters i highly suggest this upgrade for the obvious reasons.

I would PM Moray James with any questions, he is very knowledgable on these speakers and great help.

BTW, i have a marants 2330 getting recapped which i will be using for tweeters.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

Hope i helped,

Alex

[Daan]

When you have the time, go through this thread;

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/151224-my-new-deang-networks…/page-1

It shows how different people, most of them with huge experience, think about active versus passive.

Personally I would go for active; I'm a believer after leaving a high-quality set of crossovers and went for a active setup , it never sounded so realistic and the flexibility of a active setup is awesome for fine-tuning.

my 2cnts.

Nico

[MikeFord]

I've thought about using an active crossover and EQ combined with a passive Zoebel network to cancel out the reactive portion of the impedance for each driver section.

[cubdog]

I've bi-amped my CF3s using their internal crossovers. Honestly I don't feel it's worth the effort. Were I to do it again I'd use an active crossover.

cubdog

[Chris A]

Since obviously to upgrade passive crossovers can get a little pricey with good caps, resistors, coils, etc, what about just bypassing the internal passive crossover and going full electronic 2-way? I did that for years in car audio, pro audio and some home audio applications but is there any hold back on doing these CF-3's this way to alleviate power loss from the passive network?...Anything to hold a person back from going this route?

No. In fact, you'll get everything that you mentioned from your car audio experience, and probably more.

Passive bi-amping doesn't have the same benefits.

Chris

Edited August 12, 2014 by Chris A