Originally posted by Audiolib:
First post, so be gentle...
I hope you find that most of us are in the habit of not attacking one another, just sharing ideas and experiences, sometimes passionately, sometimes not reaching the same conclusions – but even Outlaws can show respect!
Certainly there would be little point to having both a fully functional active crossover ahead of the amplification
and passive filtering at the loudspeakers, but at least one or the other in almost every case.
While the active crossover method introduces a level of complexity and significantly increased expense for both an active crossover network and more channels of amplification, if the active crossover provides the frequency dividing, response shaping and time alignment needed by a particular arrangement of drivers, the direct connection of an amplifier output to each driver provides both better accuracy and power transfer than passive crossover components allow when they are between amplifier and driver.
Most of us are at the other end of the spectrum with a single channel of amplification per loudspeaker and two-way or three-way passive crossovers in our speaker enclosures. Our exposure to active crossover application is limited to the pre/pro or receiver that may separate and provide a mono or stereo signal for subwoofers.
My loudspeakers are three-way and have two sets of binding posts, one for lows and one for mids/highs. I have experimented with bi-wiring and split feed (no active crossover) bi-amplification and found no marked improvement over the usual common feed method. In my opinion finding little or no audible change was a testament to three, possibly four factors: the Outlaw amplification is of very high quality such that it drives a full range load just fine, splitting the frequency loads above the subwoofer frequencies was not an aid to amplifier performance; the speaker wire in use introduced no problems that were helped by carrying certain ranges of frequencies separately; the passive crossover components were still between the amplifier and drivers; the rest of the variables present, there are plenty from source material to listening environment, were such that they overshadowed any differences.
As mentioned elsewhere in this forum, “Your results may vary.” Let us know how things work out for you.