Active Crossover

[PMAT 2,037]

Went active with Minidsp HD 4x2 and it was fun. Lots of adjustments available. A few months later hooked up the passives and it just sounds more “right” to me. 

[BarryG 2,853]

Working on rebuilding passives in my ALS hybrids!  Thinking about upgrading components!  Film caps and mills resistors!  Still forming a parts list.

[David H. 382]

I’ve been using the DBX-360 for a couple years now, and I love what it does to the music. I actually use 2 of them, one for tri amping of my Snell C-7’s, and the other to manage the two front R/L, TSI Emperior subwoofers  ( Incredible sounding Subwoofers, which I plan to follow up with a post on them. By far the best  and most natural sounding subs that improves the sound of the system from the highs to low’s that I’ve heard. ) and my the 2 back surround fill Energy V 1.8’s speakers. It does and manages everything, and then some. I’ve been told about all the above info on them and the negative factors, But each time I pull them out and try to go without them , it doesn’t last that long because it just doesn’t sound as clean, full and overall as great sounding when running my system without the DBX-360’s.  I am now is the process of building a replacement Crossover board to be able to unplug the passive crossovers Board in the speakers, and replace it with custom built crossover board without anything other than new speaker post and wire connections to connect them together so I don’t damage the originals in any way, and can switch them back and forth if needed. My concern was that While I was  using the DBX-360 crossovers to improve the sound, I was basically crossovering the passive crossovers within the speakers. Harmon/ DBX has a great technical support staff which have been incredibly helpful to me,  that and among other issues had told me how to by pass the DBX-360 crossover section and use the passive crossovers within the speakers. After listening to it, and doing some basic adjustments, I still prefer the sound of the music including the DBX- 360 crossover section being used. But I would still like to hear how it sound completely bypassing the passive crossovers in the Snell’s, With  these Snell C-7’s the better sound quality I throw at them, the improvements keep pushing the speakers to a higher level and have yet to hit there peak in performance. For me there was definitely a  one learning curve on how to utilize the DBX-360 to it fullest potential, but it keeps getting better and better. The first DBX-360 I paid apx. $700.00 and $400.00 for the second one, Both brand new on Ebay.

Just let me know if there’s any more specific that you may need to know, I give you my experience and knowledge on them and you can reach out to Harmon / DBX for more in technical details and abilities that it can perform.

[ZappaPatton 706]

On 8/11/2020 at 6:29 PM, kve777 said:

I actually have a Pioneer SF-850, a highly regarded Active Crossover. Just haven't played with it much. Maybe I should recap it and experiment.

 

Did you ever end up putting this in your system? 

 

I'm going to try quad-amp power steering a pair of Tekton DI SE with one. The speakers are wired for bi-amp, would I use y splitters on the 850's mid and high outputs?

 

Do you know of a legible free manual or should I buy one of the ebay reprints?

[Wilkic65 389]

Where to start if I wanted to build my own crossover 

[4krow 6,519]

I do not know if this will apply, but I am going to offer up the project that I am currently working on. Will Meyer sent the bare board to me, and I have been populating it as time goes by. There is not much left to do. Would you be interested? It is the DQ-LP1 low pass crossover.

[Will Meyer 2,374]

Definately read up on the Dahlquist DQ-LP1.

 

It uses a passive high-pass filter that you set by changing capacitors and resistors, setting to frequency you want. 

 

The Low-Pass filter is active but IIRC the upper threashold is 400hz and below.

 

The DQ-LP1 is intended to drive sub-woofers (up to 4 without adding splitters). @jeffs and I made a project out of taking the DQ-LP1 design and improving the power supply and using modern components. We had the multi-layer boards custom made. 

 

Other than the board, parts cost including the transformer is about $100 plus the cost of a housing that you'd have to design and build. @jeffs did a very clever case using cherry side pieces and two 1u faceplates.

 

I did a run of 10 boards. I have 2 left.  If the DQ-LP1 will meet your needs, I will send you one. Please be sure that you'll be able to use it; after these last 2 are gone there are no more.

 

Used DQ-LP1s regularly sell used for about $300, but the power supply is crude, the components are old.  However the case is a awesome and dials are high end. 

 

The boards we had built are not designed to fit in the LP1 case. Our board is a bit bigger. 

[Rob 5,942]

So I got the board from @Will Meyer and if there are no objections, I think I will use an M200t chassis that has many missing parts. It already has a power switch.  And @jeffs can you post a pic of your chassis?