efzauner Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 wouldn't a simpler way be to put an analog HP filter in the mid/high amp signal input path and bi-amping the speakers thru the existing cross overs? Given that one of the main functions of going active is to prevent the heavy bass power needs from distorting the mids/hf. I know it does not remove the inductor in series with the woofer, thus may not do anything to improve damping. But the delicate phase and frequency response engineering that went into the crossover design would still be functional. Plus no chance of blowing the mid/tweets due to overload in case something sends full range to them. Has anyone gone this route? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paducah Home Theater Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 My question about going active is mismatched sensitivity specs. Let's say I have some K-510 horns and want to put some B&C DE-750's in them. The things are like 108.5 db at 1 watt / 1 meter. I'm not going to find a woofer anywhere near that. So if my woofer is 10 db less, and I go active and set the levels on both to be the same at a given SPL, would they continue to be linear with both higher and lower volume? Is this an issue when going active? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 ...would they continue to be linear with both higher and lower volume? Is this an issue when going active? No issues for active. Using passive crossovers might be an issue due to heating of components. Chris 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efzauner Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) ...would they continue to be linear with both higher and lower volume? Is this an issue when going active? No issues for active. Using passive crossovers might be an issue due to heating of components. Chris I agree on the active part... use an SPL meter to adjust sensitivities. But on the passive part, I suspect that speaker voicecoils would heat up far more than cross over coils causing dynamic compression if not x over point shifts. Going Active would not fix this completely, since you still have voice coil heating. Same voltage, higher resistance= less current and wattage. This is well documented for high power subs, but less so for mids and tweeters . Edited February 26, 2016 by efzauner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arash Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 buy Hypex DLCP and 6 x UcD or NCore amps and enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) But on the passive part, I suspect that speaker voice coils would heat up far more than cross over coils causing dynamic compression if not xover point shifts. What's not typically acknowledged is that passive crossover elements usually attenuate their midrange and tweeter channels under the full load of the power amplifier instead of reducing the input signal level to the amplifier (i.e., they're not bi-amping or tri-amping). The passive components heat up either through direct ohmic heating (i.e., resistors) or through hysteresis losses in the reactive components that present an additional reactive load across the output terminals of the amplifier--in addition to driver voice coils, making the combined performance much more complex and less desirable. Neither of these techniques are preferable to instead using active crossovers upstream of the power amplifiers to eliminate those kind of additional losses. Once you eliminate those losses, you will likely discover that your low-power amplifiers (such as tubes and chip amps) have 2-4x their effective power--direct coupled to the drivers without those passive components to eat power in between. Everything runs cooler and crossover frequency shifts due to part aging and changing dynamic loads become a thing of the past. Chris Edited February 26, 2016 by Chris A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paducah Home Theater Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 The other thing about active is back to the amp thing, technically you probably only need a tiny class D on the tweeters, but those things would have the most noise. I don't have a good handle on what a good amp setup would be without being stupid wasteful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBPK402 Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 wouldn't a simpler way be to put an analog HP filter in the mid/high amp signal input path and bi-amping the speakers thru the existing cross overs? Given that one of the main functions of going active is to prevent the heavy bass power needs from distorting the mids/hf. I know it does not remove the inductor in series with the woofer, thus may not do anything to improve damping. But the delicate phase and frequency response engineering that went into the crossover design would still be functional. Plus no chance of blowing the mid/tweets due to overload in case something sends full range to them. Has anyone gone this route? Usually AFAIK...The power amps go after the crossover for bi-amping. I don't know how you could do anything but bi-wire before the crossovers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Forum member Claude came through for me (again) and offered me a used Protea unit at a nice price. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to play with it but I a looking forward to hearing how this works out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete H Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Forum member Claude came through for me (again) and offered me a used Protea unit at a nice price. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to play with it but I a looking forward to hearing how this works out. That's great! Which unit did you get? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Forum member Claude came through for me (again) and offered me a used Protea unit at a nice price. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to play with it but I a looking forward to hearing how this works out.That's great! Which unit did you get? It is a 3.6SP. It will be able to control the front LR speakers. I will need to pick up an additional unit for center and subs at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted March 5, 2016 Share Posted March 5, 2016 Forum member Claude came through for me (again) and offered me a used Protea unit at a nice price. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to play with it but I a looking forward to hearing how this works out.That's great! Which unit did you get? It is a 3.6SP. It will be able to control the front LR speakers. I will need to pick up an additional unit for center and subs at some point. Is that 3 in 6 out? I take it your LR are 3 ways? If they were two ways would you be able to use if for L/C/R? 3 inputs 6 outputs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted March 5, 2016 Author Share Posted March 5, 2016 It is actually a 3.24 cl, not a 3.6. But, yes it is 3 in 6 out. i started a new thread about how to get it to work. https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/162444-active-crossovers-implementation/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 The miniDSPs all seem to have signal-to-noise issues. I recently found out on the diyAudio forum that the miniDSP issues are related to noisy USB power supply issues. If you're willing to provide external battery power to your miniDSPs, apparently its noise issues will be effectively solved. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Forum member Claude came through for me (again) and offered me a used Protea unit at a nice price. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to play with it but I a looking forward to hearing how this works out. The Protea should be an excellent unit for you. I still use the Ashly Protea 4.8SP for my Oris horns and center channel. I found the inexpensive DCX-2496 to be a great value for use with LF units. In my case, it runs my subs and LFE channel. The Behringer is very easy to use if you download and use the Behringer pc software to set up the crossover. Same goes for the Ashly. I have never used the face plate controls on either crossover. The pc graphic interface makes setting the crossover in real time an easy chore. I know folks like to bash Behringer, but my experience with their amps and crossover has been good for my application. Certainly the higher end crossovers are better fidelity, but for my LF application, the Behringer provides the necessary functions. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 The miniDSPs all seem to have signal-to-noise issues. I recently found out on the diyAudio forum that the miniDSP issues are related to noisy USB power supply issues. If you're willing to provide external battery power to your miniDSPs, apparently its noise issues will be effectively solved. Chris I have alot of noise issues with mine, sometimes they're there sometimes they are not. I have plugged into a usb cable to a usb power plug. This seems to help, but hasnt resolved the issue. I am currently saving for one of the Ashly units.Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 It is actually a 3.24 cl, not a 3.6. But, yes it is 3 in 6 out. i started a new thread about how to get it to work. https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/162444-active-crossovers-implementation/ I will head over there and check it out.Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dude Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Forum member Claude came through for me (again) and offered me a used Protea unit at a nice price. It will be a couple of weeks before I get to play with it but I a looking forward to hearing how this works out. The Protea should be an excellent unit for you. I still use the Ashly Protea 4.8SP for my Oris horns and center channel. I found the inexpensive DCX-2496 to be a great value for use with LF units. In my case, it runs my subs and LFE channel. The Behringer is very easy to use if you download and use the Behringer pc software to set up the crossover. Same goes for the Ashly. I have never used the face plate controls on either crossover. The pc graphic interface makes setting the crossover in real time an easy chore. I know folks like to bash Behringer, but my experience with their amps and crossover has been good for my application. Certainly the higher end crossovers are better fidelity, but for my LF application, the Behringer provides the necessary functions. I would like something that will work for my l/c/r. There was even some mods for the Behringer. I figured if i took the risk with the Behringer and had to do the mods i would be at the cost of one of the Ashly models.Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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