2-Way Active + HT Set up

[rplace]

I'm looking for some advice prior to purchasing some equipment. Specifically and active crossover but also on cables, any other input from you all greatly appreciated.

 

My current system consists of a 7.1 home theater and 2-channel vinyl. Both the 2-channel and HT use my Khorns. HT is all solid state amplification (4 X 2-channel amps). My vinyl set up is either VRDs or Wright 3.5 SET depending on my mood. While I do have all my CDs digitized to FLAC and on a NAS I have zero interest (for the time being) in listening to digital music in my room. I watch movies via a projector/screen and the solid state gear mentioned. I listen to vinyl only with the tubes I don't have a DAC or any other inputs to my tube preamp, turn table only. Should be noted all the solid state gear is consumer grade so no balanced connectons.

 

I've long thought about 2-way Jubes. But just yesterday I heard and bought a set of Oris 150 full range horns. So my plan is to try out both the Khorn bass bins with the Oris as well as Onken style bass cabinets with the Oris horns.

 

I have zero experience with active crossovers beyond what I have read hear and other places. @Chris A 's sticky post has been a great read. Thanks!

 

I'm trying to wrap my head around how/if I can hook up the front of my HT's Left/Center/Right for HT and my tube gear for music all with an active XO that is 8 in 8 out like the Xilica XD-8080 or a minidsp DDRC-88A https://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series/ddrc-88a 

 

Or if it might make more sense to figure out a way to keep the HT all as is (passive) and concentrate on the active set up for my music/vinyl. Honestly my interest in HT has died off quite a bit. I'm much more into music only. Still having a dedicated room that is totally light controlled makes for a great home based retreat several times a month. Bottom line I really have no desire to change the HT part of my room beyond what it is. I'm very happy with it. I'd just like to find a way to use the Left and Right main speaker for both which I currently do just fine with passive XOs. From what I understand, and the direction I intend to take is to go active 2-way with the Oris, bass bins to be determined. No plans to get rid of anything so I can always go back to 3-way khorns if the Oris is not right for me.

 

Guessing  @Rudy81 @Chris A @Coytee @Khornukopia and maybe @MetropolisLakeOutfitters could all help out. Sorry for the long post. Input from ANYONE else more than welcome. Thanks!

[joessportster]

8 in 8 out that sounds difficult.  Personally I keep my ht and music separate. I care a lot more about music and having the signal as clean and short as possible. Congrats on the horns once integrated I am sure you will like them alot.

[Chris A]

You might start by drawing out your circuit diagram and labeling the cable connectors--RCA or XLR--and how you will go out from your preamp or receiver, then into your crossover then out to the power amplifiers.  Here is a good place to start thinking about that:  

 

 

In general, miniDSP uses RCA connectors (there are exceptions), and the other DSP crossovers use XLR connectors, i.e., "microphone cables".  These can be had for a very low price, and have the advantage of significantly greater isolation from common mode noise: blocking line noise at 60/120 Hz, etc. from electrical power connections. RCA-to-XLR and XLR-to-RCA cables can also be found easily.  Just note that XLR is directional (there is a male XLR and female XLR connector), and the pins in the XLR tell which way the signal flows. 

 

I find that the connections are actually very straightforward.

 

Chris

[Chris A]

6 hours ago, joessportster said:

8 in 8 out that sounds difficult.

It isn't any more difficult than hooking up a stereo with more than one or two sources.  It's far less complicated than setting up a fussy phonograph turntable and separate phono preamp, etc.

 

6 hours ago, joessportster said:

Personally I keep my ht and music separate.

To me, that kind of thinking results in a waste of money and space in the home.  It usually results in far less involving HT experiences, too.  I find that a lot of people treat multichannel setups as "lo-fi". This is a mistake in my experience.  The best music recordings that I own are all multichannel--by far. I recommend them highly.

 

6 hours ago, joessportster said:

 I care a lot more about music and having the signal as clean and short as possible.

I do, too.  That's why I use DSP crossovers to enable direct connections to the loudspeaker drivers--instead of passive networks which create their own issues of loss of coupling to the amplifiers and problems with woofer EMF noise getting into the higher frequency driver channels.  You can hear the difference when bi-amping/tri-amping.  It's not subtle.

 

Chris

[rplace]

3 hours ago, Chris A said:

You might start by drawing out your circuit diagram and labeling the cable connectors--RCA or XLR--and how you will go out from your preamp or receiver, then into your crossover then out to the power amplifiers.  Here is a good place to start thinking about that:  

 

 

Here is a start. While not as clean as yours I think you get the idea of what I'm after. I was thinking that if I could get the C/L/R for HT and L/R for Vinyl all figured out I could just keep passive for Surround Left, Surround Right, Back Left and Back Right. At least for the time being.

 

Not 100% sure but I think what I have so far would be 5 in and 6 out for the Carver TFMs. Where I'm stumbling is the outs for the tube gear (VRD and Wrights). That has to be 4, no? And how to move between VRDs and Wrights. My understanding is that the active crossover would let me store different settings. My thoughts being that if I had a room config for the VRDs and a room config for Wrights and a config for HT. I would load those up as needed. I'm less clear on the physical swapping of cables which I would like to avoid or how to accomplish that with some sort of speaker/amp selector. Currently I have a 12v trigger on my HT gear that defaults the Khorn input from VRDs/Wrights when HT gear is turned one the trigger sends HT signal to the Khorns. When HT gear is off and back to 2-channel I have a manual niles switch to select VRDs or Wrights. Am I bighting off too much first time around?

 

[rplace]

Guess it would not hurt to add that longer term my plan would be to make the center channel 2-way as well with the same driver as the Left and Right

[rplace]

Thinking about this a little more perhaps I scrap the wrights for now they can always replace the VRDs in the exact same way down the road. This looks to me like 5 in and 7 out. I'm assuming, please correct me if I am wrong, that there is a way to tell the cross over to use 3-inputs at one time and appropriate outputs for HF sections of HT or to use 2-inputs, but those 2-input from the tube pre now feel the same outputs (Uses VRDS for HF of Left Right no matter music or HT). Is that clear?

 

[Chris A]

The XLR cables going to the inputs on the crossover will be RCA-->male XLR.  The ones from the crossover outputs to the amplifiers are female XLR-->RCA.  This assumes that all of your current connections are RCA. 

 

All the configuring of channel inputs to channel outputs, crossover filters,, EQ, and channel gains/limiters are done in firmware/software in the DSP crossover. 

 

DSP crossovers are general purpose devices that can be reused over and over again for any audio application, even if you're only using them to perform EQ, limiting, and/or channel gain while mono-amping, without crossover filters being required.

 

Chris

[rplace]

14 minutes ago, Chris A said:

The XLR cables going to the inputs on the crossover will be RCA-->male XLR.  The ones from the crossover outputs to the amplifiers are female XLR-->RCA.  This assumes that all of your current connections are RCA. 

 

Yes all my Carver and VRD connections are RCA. The Sunfire has both RCA and XLR out. Lets assume the future crossover is XLR only both in and out. I believe the best configuration would be:

• Sunfire to Crossover XLR to XLR
• Tube Preamp RCA-->male XLR
• All the connections form crossover to various amps would be female XLR-->RCA

21 minutes ago, Chris A said:

All the configuring of channel inputs to channel outputs, crossover filters,, EQ, and channel gains/limiters are done in firmware/software in the DSP crossover. 

 

I'm not trying to be difficult just want to make sure my understanding is correct. Once I've used the firmware/software to make various setting I want (cross over points, gain, things I don't even understand yet) I can save them. Once saved I can load as needed. Meaning, in my drawing above I can easily use the front panel or connected computer to have input 1 and 2 (from the sunfire) map to the four outputs of the first carver and both VRDs. Later I can reload another saved configuration of settings and have the input form the Wright Pre map to the same 4 outputs. Or to put it a more generic way; any input can be mapped to any output. AND multiple configurations can be saved where different inputs are mapped to different outputs. Do I have that right?

 

Is my 2nd drawing above at least correct if not optimal?

[babadono]

28 minutes ago, rplace said:

Or to put it a more generic way; any input can be mapped to any output. AND multiple configurations can be saved where different inputs are mapped to different outputs. Do I have that right?

For sure on most digital crossovers/speaker management units this is possible. Certainly on the Xilicas. Once you're in the digital domain why not be able to store and recall multiple settings?

[Chris A]

3 hours ago, rplace said:

Once I've used the firmware/software to make various setting I want (cross over points, gain, things I don't even understand yet) I can save them. Once saved I can load as needed. Meaning, in my drawing above I can easily use the front panel or connected computer to have input 1 and 2 (from the sunfire) map to the four outputs of the first carver and both VRDs. Later I can reload another saved configuration of settings and have the input form the Wright Pre map to the same 4 outputs. Or to put it a more generic way; any input can be mapped to any output. AND multiple configurations can be saved where different inputs are mapped to different outputs. Do I have that right?

Yes, up to 30 different configurations of your choice on the Xilicas, and more if you're willing to store other configurations on a connected laptop or desktop computer. The 30 local configurations are selectable via the front panel or connected computer, and are user name-able for easy understanding and recall.  It's very easy to create variations of prior settings files via incremental changes in parameters, then saving them under a new configuration name. The unit automatically saves the most current settings, even if they haven't been saved under a configuration name, and is automatically recalled upon power-up after power down.  Works slick...

 

Chris

[babadono]

@rplace, 

 Others on the forum will dispute this but I recommend keeping any RCA output to XLR input cables as short as possible. And make sure they are wired properly. Monoprice cables are wired properly:https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=115&cp_id=11509&cs_id=1150902&p_id=4775&seq=1&format=2 

Sorry if these are the wrong sex, they sell both Male and Female on the XLR end.

And then one needs to be careful when connecting a XLR output to a RCA  input, the output circuit topology needs to be understood. 

[rplace]

Can anyone weigh in on mixing both active and passive crossovers in a system? For example my thoughts on having my surround and back speakers run like they currently are via Pre/Pro >>Amp>>Speaker. I gather part of the benefit of the active XO is the time alignment. But my understanding is that is for aligning drivers of a given speaker. Typical example tweeter to midrange in a LS/KH/Belle. If I was active for the front 3 and passive for the rest (All Heresy BTW) are there any pitfalls to note?

 

@babadono Beyond knowing that when XLR and RCA are mixed in either direction they are effectively not balanced and become like an RCA what else needs to be know about the circuits topology?

 

@joessportster In a different post you mentioned your 2 Crown amps that had DSP built in. Did I understand it correctly that for your 2-way set up you run full range to one drive and use the DSP from the Crown only to manage the bass? No physical active XO sitting between your source and speakers? I'm wondering if in the short term to actually hear the Oris 150 with the Khorn bass bins in my room if I could just go:

                                    Source>>Pre>>Crown with DSP>>Khorn Bass Bin

Reading about the Crown it looks like it has a way to pass through the signal from the pre to another amp. Thinking I could use my tube gear to the Oris 150 full signal and only give the khorn bass bins 200 and below. Does anyone see any issues with the approach short term for 2-cannel only? I'd really like to hear the Oris with both of my bass cabinet options, decide if this is right for me then build out the integration of HT and 2-channel into one system.

[joessportster]

Hey Rplace  Yes i use a single Crown as described and I dont see any reason you could not do the same My pre has 2 output 1 runs to my top end amp and the other to the crown amp, I thought the bass bins on the K-Horns were good up to 400 ?  I am not positive but think Bryan said he crosses around 400 and his set up sounds fine, the crown will allow you to play with that to get your desired sound. You will want some overlap

[Coytee]

Going to show more of my general ignorance....  my head is all twisted trying to "see" what you're doing....

 

I see snippets of things that I think I can comment on....  then get lost in some of the other stuff.

 

So, I'll just offer this to see if it is of any help.

 

On 7/2/2018 at 2:49 PM, rplace said:

But just yesterday I heard and bought a set of Oris 150 full range horns. So my plan is to try out both the Khorn bass bins with the Oris as well as Onken style bass cabinets with the Oris horns

 

I'm guessing you know this by now but, with an active, you can easily mix & match (presuming you have enough output channels)

 

You could run a line to the Khorn bass bin and then separate lines to the Oris and something else.  Then, you can have a profile that will energize various parts....and another profile that will energize different parts so, at the touch of a button, you can mix/match.

 

I did this with what you see in the picture.  If memory serves me, I had four output channels.  I had one to the K402, one to the LaScala K400 passive (which then ONLY went to the K400/77 as I had removed the wires to the K33)  Another line went to the LaSacla bass bin and the last went to the MWM bass bins.

 

So, at a punch of a button, I could have the MWM bass bins & K402 as a 2-way or, the MWM & K400/77 as a 3-way or the MWM bass bin, LaScala bass bin & K402... and so forth.

 

 

In my HT room, I've got some kind of Integra pre/pro (?)  It doesn't have any amps, just the head unit.  Anyway, it has XLR outputs so I have XLR lines going from it to the Xilica unit and then from there, I power the Jubilee's up front (4 channels total) with some Crown amps using XLR inputs, Danley (1-channel) and I have three channels left.  Two of the remaining channels are dedicated to the center JubeScala (which my wife still won't let into the room) and the last will be unused.

 

Back to the Integra, I then have my rear LaScalas powered by the XLR output which is connected via XLR/RCA line directly to a dbx BX3 amp (RCA inputs) and that amp then powers the passive LaScalas.

 

So I'm mixing both active and passive into the same system and it works absolutely fine.

 

(does that help at all??)

[rplace]

25 minutes ago, joessportster said:

Hey Rplace  Yes i use a single Crown as described and I dont see any reason you could not do the same My pre has 2 output 1 runs to my top end amp and the other to the crown amp, I thought the bass bins on the K-Horns were good up to 400 ?  I am not positive but think Bryan said he crosses around 400 and his set up sounds fine, the crown will allow you to play with that to get your desired sound. You will want some overlap

 

Thanks Joe, yea the crossover point is still a bit muddy to me. In the past I've just hooked speakers to wires and the passive designer took all the guess work out. @Rudy81 told me he played with all different crossover points for the Oris 150 IIRC he settled around 300 even though many cross the Oris lower like 200.

 

Am I correct by overlap you are saying you don't want driver X to do everything above a given range and driver Y everything below? At a given point, for example 400, you would want both drivers doing that 400 range? I also have 2 outputs on my pre. But I thought if I went directly to my amps then I would have on the Oris:

             Pre>>Tube Amp>>Full signal to Oris driver

 

But what I though the desired outcome was (pick any point for discussion again 400) Oris 401 up to 20K and Khorn 400 down to 20. Sorry if this seems like a stupid question but that is how I though a passive XO worked it divided up the signal ranges and passed them to the appropriate driver.

 

So I was thinking the Crown would function as the crossover giving everything above a certain point to the Oris's amp and everything below to the Khorn bass bin.

 

Another question for all those smarter than me. Just because a cabinet/driver combo can do a given range. Should it? Let's just say for the sake of argument the Oris horn/driver has the known sweet spot of 250-20K and the khorn can do 400 and below, but it has to work "less", if that is even a thing, if it gets only 300 and below. Do I use the DSP to restrict the Khorn to 300 and below and the overlap between Oris and Khorn is that 250-300?

[rplace]

1 hour ago, Coytee said:

Going to show more of my general ignorance....  my head is all twisted trying to "see" what you're doing....

 

I see snippets of things that I think I can comment on....  then get lost in some of the other stuff.

 

So, I'll just offer this to see if it is of any help.

 

 

I'm guessing you know this by now but, with an active, you can easily mix & match (presuming you have enough output channels)

 

You could run a line to the Khorn bass bin and then separate lines to the Oris and something else.  Then, you can have a profile that will energize various parts....and another profile that will energize different parts so, at the touch of a button, you can mix/match.

 

I did this with what you see in the picture.  If memory serves me, I had four output channels.  I had one to the K402, one to the LaScala K400 passive (which then ONLY went to the K400/77 as I had removed the wires to the K33)  Another line went to the LaSacla bass bin and the last went to the MWM bass bins.

 

So, at a punch of a button, I could have the MWM bass bins & K402 as a 2-way or, the MWM & K400/77 as a 3-way or the MWM bass bin, LaScala bass bin & K402... and so forth.

 

 

In my HT room, I've got some kind of Integra pre/pro (?)  It doesn't have any amps, just the head unit.  Anyway, it has XLR outputs so I have XLR lines going from it to the Xilica unit and then from there, I power the Jubilee's up front (4 channels total) with some Crown amps using XLR inputs, Danley (1-channel) and I have three channels left.  Two of the remaining channels are dedicated to the center JubeScala (which my wife still won't let into the room) and the last will be unused.

 

Back to the Integra, I then have my rear LaScalas powered by the XLR output which is connected via XLR/RCA line directly to a dbx BX3 amp (RCA inputs) and that amp then powers the passive LaScalas.

 

So I'm mixing both active and passive into the same system and it works absolutely fine.

 

(does that help at all??)

 

 

 

Yes that helps, becoming more clear to me as this thread goes on. Thanks! Initially I though the active XO had lot of knobs/dials/sliders to digitally play with but you were stuck with what you landed on.  Now I see various configs to swap out.

 

Now I've moved on to the why, not the how. Conceptually I understand that different speakers do different things better (highs vs mids vs lows) and no one thing does everything perfectly. My brain seems to be torn in two directions. I want to play with my new toys right now like a spoiled brat of a child. I also want to architect the ultimate, perfect, mind-blowing bit of audio perfection but I'm unclear how to get there....oh and by the way it has to do double duty and my equipment is separated by a row of seats. That is all my HT, solid state gear is in a rack/closet on the right wall of the room and all my tube/vinyl stuff is on the back wall.

[Coytee]

You might be experiencing this or perhaps, see it out on the horizon....  (or maybe it's not a concern??)

 

The downside to me in going active is plugs.  Plugs as in outlets at the wall.....having enough and, having them in the right location to make it work well for you.

 

When my stuff (2-channel) was upstairs, I had a plethora of items plugged into a single outlet.  As I recall....  I had (during various configurations) 

 

2  stereo amps, 1 for each speaker 

preamp

active crossover

CD

DVD

dbx 5bx

dbx subharmonic synth

tv

direct tv box

phone

 

These various things were daisy chained into several power strips and I absolutely detested it.  When the system moved downstairs I had open walls, no wiring and a clean slate.

 

I was able to take measurements and planned to build a shelf above the Jubilee's to set an amp....so, I have an outlet way up high for this purpose (it never happened and the wife hates seeing the high orange outlets).  I also realized I might have the amp elsewhere so I put the plug above the bass bin so the plug wouldn't get in the way like it did in the living room.

 

Then...  I have my closet....  you want an outlet?  I've got your outlet!!

 

Wife thought I was crazy and likely so....  but I swore to her that I'd never have those plugs jammed into a single outlet again.

 

Point being, I learned while upstairs that biamping adds a bit more....but also requires more plugs so I wanted to be 100% covered (and think I achieved that goal)

 

 

 

[rplace]

So far my shopping list consists of:

• Cables XLR/XLR and Male/Female XLR to RCA
• Microphone for taking room readings. REW seems to be the software I've read the most about. Recommendations on a Mic???
• Crossover. Surely seems like the more ins/outs the better. Lots of online pix of multiple XOs in a rack. I get how the Ins/Outs work now. But if you have multiple XOs will the computer need to be connected to each one? Or if you have multiples of the same brand can your hook them all together? Say you had 3 identical XOs that were 4 in 8 out could you see it on the software as 12 in 24 out? I see many with ethernet. Sees like a switch and all hooked up might allow the software to show you everything in one place, not 3 different devices.

@Coytee I've got a Furman Power Conditioner on a dedicated 20amp circuit with 8 outlets but with all my amps being separate 2-channels they quickly get consumed. Agree that having all the power strips is difficult on the eyes. Nice to start fresh as you did.

[babadono]

5 hours ago, rplace said:

@babadono Beyond knowing that when XLR and RCA are mixed in either direction they are effectively not balanced and become like an RCA what else needs to be know about the circuits topology?

@rplace When going from a balanced output to a un balanced input care must be taken to not ground one of the XLR pins IF IT HAS SIGNAL ON IT. Some balanced outputs are impedance balanced only and pin 3 has a ground signal on it, so of course it would be OK to ground that at the next input. In other equipment pins 2 and 3 both have a signal although 180 degrees out of phase. You do not want to ground this actively driven signal. There are exceptions to this of course. Like if the equipment has transformer coupled outputs. Either output from a transformer can be grounded(transformers is awesome) but also expensive for good ones and therefore most equipment does not have them. Also there are other special circuit designs that sense if an output has been grounded and doubles the signal on the other pin. I hope I have explained the concern satisfactorily.

Have you obtained a crossover or decided which one you will obtain? When I got my Xilica 4080 I got the schematic for the Analog I/O because I wanted to make sure I was hooking up everything correctly. So I have those schematics if you go with Xilica.