well, its finally happened. my old sony xec-1000 active x over has bitten the dust. nearly 12 years of duty cant be complained about so its time to look for a suitable replacement.

im aware that sony still make this x-over, according to a sony catalogue i got recently, but im unsure the availability. not really shopping yet untill ive decided which way i wanna go. i could buy any decent 3 way active x-over that can do the job i need.
but, where my question goes is should i stick with the active set up at all?

i was looking at the alpine splits, about 900 bucks for the 5.25 inch, forget the model number, anyway these come with a passive cross over thats bi wirable.
my system has two 4 channel amps, each channel runs one speaker (not counting centre speaker) so plugging my 25 watter to the tweets and my 40 watter to the mids sounds a breeze. my over concern is that my front speakers are old as well. i could pop for a new x-over, then loose a mid next week and be back to square one. i dont want to muck around with something that works so well, but i realise that time is against me. maybe its time to renew my speaks as well?

another thought was that when i first designed my system, amps with built in x-overs where limited to sub frequencies.
one of my newer amps is a mrv -f405 with built in band pass x-over. this could run my subs and mids. my rear fill is already x-overed via the 80 hertz high pass of amp number two, but the problem is my tweets wont be crossed, so id have to do something with them, either a active just for the tweets or a passive. sounds like a bad idea, but its possible to upgrade number 2 amp to one that will cross the tweets at the right freq.

so, im not sure which way to go. to summarize my questions;

1). alpine splits, the 900 buck 5.25 inch models. anybody know these? sound qual? any other speakers i should now about with bi wirable passives? should i consider going to passives from a fully active set up that works so well?

2). amps built in x-over. such like the alpine one. is the quality of these any good? do they compare to proper seperate actives? i could consider upgrading my smaller 4 channel amp to one that will cross over my tweets and therefore not need a seperate x over at all.

3). active x-overs. whats good atm? needs to be 3 way, sub = 120, mid 120-5000, tweet 3500, 12 db/oct, seperate sub input/rear. these things seem to be getting rare.

thanks for you help people! not often i ask for advise or help on car audio!

Your running so little power into your speakers, 25wrms to the tweeters are u serious?

Buy a set of Hertz HSK's And bridge the bigger 4 channel amp to 2 channels should give each split 100wrms and will sound absolutely awesome.

ah maz, this is 'audible' you are talking to. SQ king of the west.

i guess part of the Q is asking do you go with something new or stick with something you know...if it ain't broke, why fix it?

in terms of active xover quality, i'm not aware of any particular brands or models of outboard xovers that are superior in terms of SQ compared with inbuilt ones of amps (excepting perhaps digital xovers like new ones from audiocontrol or inbuilt within processors). so i'm sure the alpine amp inbuilt active xovers are suitably high SQ to match the overall quality of the amp (and not be a weak link).

if you upgrade the 4-channel to a later model like the F405/7, then doing away with an outboard xover may have some benefits:
*less wiring/RCAs
*less signal degradation by avoiding an extra component

it would be worth considering.

on the flipside, i auditioned the alpine F#1 status SPX splits in a couple cars last weekend at GLO show, sydney, as part of the [CAASQ] comp. one car was nothing special, but the pro class car featured the 2-way 6.5" SPX-177A RRP$999 (5.25" model is SPX-137A RRP$899) and these are as nice as i've ever heard for a front stage setup. it was running bi-wired off an alpine MRV-F540, ultimately sourced from the F#1 HU and processor! regardless, the potential is definitely there for a great sound.

so from my experience, the SPX splits are very, very nice...excellent. other bi-wirable options include the 2-way (3-way are not tri-wirable) focal utopia splits, in either 5.25" (136W) or 6.5" (165W). would be very nice too.

good luck

[ March 21, 2003, 20:07: Message edited by: shiny_car ]

Unless you are using an outboard xover for a specific purpose that the amp itself can't do, there really isn't any point to it. Unless you are using it as an EQ as well (Orion DEQ-30 - full digital processing, etc), Stick with the ones in teh amps, you will find that it is nice enough. Only problem i've ever found with inbuilt xovers is the "accuracy" of them. They might say "70hz" on the xover, but chances are, it'll be no where near it, so lots of fiddling has to go on, whereas with a proper external xover/processor, normally these are more accurate, but still can never make up for sitting down and listening! I'm sure you know what i mean!
Aaron

From my experience it does't realy matter what you choose (except i would avoid internal amp xovers).

I'll throw some ideas around.

1. Try an find a nakamichi EC302 electronic crossiver. I have the EC204 and find it brilliant, and very precise in regards to what frequency you are set at. Additionally the EC302 has seperate gain contols for each channel, 18db xover slopes are rather nice, and it doesn't introduce any noise.

http://www.nakamichi.com/auto/e_crossovers...c_302_specs.htm

and

http://www.nakamichi.com/auto/e_crossovers/ec_302.htm

2. Go all passive. Which is currently what I'm doing as it allows me to compete in the sub 300watt class in the OACICE competetion. My proposed amp/speaker setup is as follows:

MTX Thunder 2300 2 channel amp.

Phoneix Gold XVR 14.

Both speaker channels of the XVR are wired in serries/parellel (not 100% sure on which method yet, as it will alter the hp filter) to an Alpine high power fader, and to a pair of Digital Designs DDW6.5 woofers. The alpine fader is then split into 4 channels, two go to a pair of audiophile tweeters, and the other two channels to a pair of RF audiophile 4inch drivers (each tweeter, and woffer has custom made hp/lp filters).

The sub channel on the XVR goes directly to a Digital Designs 2012a sub.

It should work fine, but it's a lot of stuffing round to get the crossover frequencies set right. Hopefully it will provide me the same sq as if I went all active, but will mean i'm in a lower watt class.

[ March 22, 2003, 08:51: Message edited by: gooki ]

I'd recomend going active, and go with the idea of the replacement active crossover, having come from both full passive and semi-passive, I'd never go back.

Rich.

I like option 1 for simplicity sakes. Splits at that price range are nearly guaranteed to have a quality crossover, and the bire-wireable aspect means it will slot straight into your exisitng system.

It's the least "traumatic" option!

What is your centre channel? I'm a fan of brand matching for a tonally balanced setup with my home theatre, where it really can be obvious, and I imagine it might have an impact in an in-car situation..........

of course im serious. didnt you notice that im running my subs with 40 watts rms each?

shiny_car.

thanks for the personal review of the alpine spx speakers. i havent heard them myself yet, but after your opinion of them i think ill bother my favorite shop for a quick install in my car and demo.sounds like they will probably stay there. im really not too sure about introducing passive x-overs into my system, despite the obvious quality of the alpines ones, what i find appealing is that i can also run the spx speakers with a active x-over as well as the passives so i could try the speakers both ways and go with the best sounding one. i can have my cake and eat it too!

on the weekend i had to patch my system back together best i could. i dug up the old in line passives i got with the tweets and set the front mids up on the mrv-f405 in built x-over.
what became obvious that the mix of passive tweets and active mids is a horrible mix. yuck. despite my best efforts i couldnt set the system up anywhere near as good as it was with the sony x-over which proves that i have to get this right.
think i might listen to the exhaust note instead this week!

ubugger.

yeah. i noticed. while playing with the points on the mrv-f405 while trying to set up a temp solution, i did notice how imprecise and fiddly the amps built in x-over was. i used my ear to set the points up with a test tone disc (ok, i used a hand held db meter as well). i didnt like it at all so i dont think i want to go this way.

gooki.

hmmm. thanks for the link. very nice looking x-over. my only concern is the slopes. my old sony was a buttersworth 12db per oct, whereas the naka looks like a lintz-riley (think thats how its spelt) being a 18db/oct. im fairly sure this small difference may affect my curve or sq in some manner and i dont think i want to risk it, unless i can find somebody local who will allow me a in car demo first. ill definetely look the naka up though, ive always loved the naka stuff!

dr dj choss.

yeah, i think i agree. my system is a fully active setup that works well. guess id be a fool to throw that away so easily. as i said before though, nothing stopping me buying the spx speakers,and running them actively.

dasher halo.

my centre channel speaker is a jaycar 4 inch two way. i forget the model, but its the bi wirable one with the titanium dome tweet swivel mount. ive got this bi wired and bridged over my front and mid amp with a in line pot on each so i can adjust both tweet and mid level exactly.
my front end is a real mix of brands, mb quart tweets, pioneer mids, jaycar centre. in theory it should suck, but it works. mind you, i changed all speakers 2 or 3 times each to find that blend that works. i dont need any eq in this car at all and has a near perfect rta curve save a near stone wall drop at 17 kay+ due to interior destrucive standing waves, which i cant fix.

home theatre? yeah, im a one man brand as well. currently buying mb 602 mk iii speakers for my theatre with the matching centre and rears soon after.