Currently our installer is getting us a $150 US made passive/active crossover for our Tube Driver, as we dont' have one besides the Dynaudio one at the moment. Supposively it is good as it brings out the warmth of the TD (Tube Driver).

I own an AudioControl 3XS crossover. I've only used it for like 6 months a few years back, and it cost me over $500 back then. I dont' know much about crossovers, and the big deal between them all but from looking at the specs of it well it looks pretty darn good.
Our installer told me the 3XS isn't a good crossover, and would make the sound even worse. I've asked some car audio friends regarding this, and they all reckon the installer is just milking us for more money.
What gets to me is that it is $150 which is peanuts nowadays. You can't find many things that cost under a few hundred dollars for car audio which come close to being good, and this $150 passive/active crossover is going to make the $2500 TD sound wicked??

I'm a photographer, and I've got a few lenses that cost me over $3k each. You pay $3k because the glass etc is all high quality and is able to be used really good. There are some dumb people out there who buy these lenses, and then go elcheapo by sticking $10 filters on it which supposively make it better. What a load of crap!! Now relate this to the TD and x-ova, get what I'm trying to say?

So my questions here are:
1. To the TD owners out there, what crossovers are you using?
2. Is the 3XS crossover a lot of crap?
3. Is our installer milking us?
4. Is there such a thing as a passive/active x-ova, or is it one or the other?
5. Forgetting anything I said here and any equipment we are using, what is the best crossover in the world (if there is such a thing)

I have emailed Butler Audio regarding this, but I don't expect a reply all that quick.

1. I don't have a tube. Remember, its not a dedicated tube amplifier. Up until a few years back if you pulled a tube, it still played music...plus on an O-scope its got an "instant" turn on, not the gradual slope like tubes should have, as they have to heat up.
2. It's crap does stink, but I'm going to run a Tru Technology F1 or F2. Personally, I think these are the duck's nuts. Like you said with lenses, part for part these are better.
3. Is this Audioart? I thought Yanddy made them inhouse.
4. The one which you think sounds the best and suits your needs

BK Butler plays guitars, I doubt he'd know much about designing amps.

It is A&T, but its not one of his custom x-ovas as basically I can't afford it atm (well I can, but don't want to spend money on that yet). He told us anyway that if we wanted custom x-ova, we still needed this other crossover.
Got nothing against A&T as they've done heaps for us, but from what everyone is telling me regarding this deal with the x-ova it seems rather odd.

as i said, audiocontrol make some of the best active crossovers u can get

I cannot see that this 'no named' crossover will sound any better than the audiocontrol, infact, aslong as its doing its been designed properly it'll probably sound no worse either.

The question you should be asking yourself is:

Will the audiocontrol you have currently high pass your dyns at a suitable slope and frequency? if the answer is yes, then i see no reason to spend more money.

so imo, yes, they are trying to milk you.

to my opinion, if you really want to go with custom passive crossover. You shouldnt waste your money on the 150 that they told you to buy. Should save up and get the custom ones Yanddy makes... it starts from around 700 and even with that you get a really nice custom passive crossover. Ive seen some of Yanddy's work and i gotta tell you man.. its really nice and neat. But for the 150 crossover... i think its a waste...

I did actually suggest we go the passive x-ova (custom) but he said we HAD TO have this $150 also, which did sound weird to me as I thought his x-ovas would be final.

his xover will work between controlling frequencies between the woofer and tweeter.

im no electronics guru but i believe its very difficult/cost inefficient to passivly high pass anything at 50-70hz (where they will be high passed directly from the amp)

on any system you run your amps crossover as a high pass, and then the splits own crososver for woofer/tweeter

an additional crossover is needed as your amplifier does not have an inbuilt xover like most amps do

given the relatively low cost and good will of AA&T, i would suggest you only buy it if it's as good as they promise.

that is, 'try before you buy'. and compare it with the audio control that you have.

they have their reputation to protect, and at $150 it's not a huge loss to either you (if indeed it comes up trumps) or them (if you say 'no i don't like it').

so i'd try the audio control setup for now. get used to the sound of that in the interim, then swap over to their passive one to compare.

by definition, 'active' means it relies on a (12V) power supply. it should also mean it's not subject to variation if such things as impedence are changed (eg: between a 4ohm and 8ohm driver, or around the resonant freq (where impedence increases), nor have phase problems.

Yeah, the 3XS is a good active xover, no risk, having trouble coming to terms with what they are saying.

Yanddy gets respect, so dunno.....

But I'm with you ultim8DTM5, the Tru F1s are the shiznit, one is on my shopping list

do passive crossovers have phase problems?
ie. one side louder than others in some instances?

Yeah passive xovers all have some sort of phase issues which will reflect in imaging mostly.

This is a LOT less in active designs, but one side louder than the other is not the problem.

would one tweeter being on-axis and the other being off-axis be a problem?
i think so

Maybe Marc has some input on this subject as he used to run TB Blue amps with a custom A&T passive crossover...

Ok guys, this is what its boiling down to...
Phoenix Gold Titanium DEQ Comp & Audiocontrol DQX. The Orion one was put into the equation (DEQ 30), but at like $1800+ it left the equation as soon as it came in. I'm really leaning towards the Phoenix Gold one as this was highly recommended by Mr Butler. The specs on this are amazing.

Just tried the Harrison crossover (different to one posted, but not much: http://www.hlabs.com/technical/crossovers/page3.html ), and it was really disappointing. Signal drop was huge. Didn't listen to it myself (from front seat), but had gf in seat as I was plugging in and out this crossover and the volume decrease 50% at least!! Didn't really high pass that much also (weird?)

An option that Yanddy raised was that I could either go with the Audiocontrol or PG one, and if it still wasn't right he'd make some crossover to go on top of it which won't break the bank and should top it off nicely.

with the amazing control of the titanium EQ, why would you need Mr Yanddy to 'top it off'?

me confused. :?

so what happened to the $150 xover? is that ditched now? and you're gonna spend $1K instead?

hee,hee, and you were worried about 'wasting' $150.

good luck. should be good.

matty and i are spending hours discussing this each day, its definately the most major move hes made in his system

pretty much Yanddy maintains that he thinks EQ's make systems sound worse. Which is something i personally disagree whole heartedly with

Matty was going to go for a simple xover to high pass his splits. but instead of going a small move now, adn then next year getting an EQ, he may aswell get an EQ now which has xover capabilities

No point spending $300 on a decent xover to then have to spend $800 next year when he finds he still isnt competitive against the guys running H700s, P9s etc

If you cant beat them, join them i say

As James stated, we talk about this for hours! This morning he was helping me out with suggestions, such as the Alpine PXA-700 (something like that) & I was suggested the PG TX2 crossover by an eastern states shop. This problem has to be solved hopefully by Friday this week, giving time for delivery from eastern states and then I can have it installed later next week when I've hopefully done the boot install.

I got a price on the PG digital eq (supposively its not a x-ova, though in PDF it says it has x-ova) and that too has disappeared from the equation at a bit over $1800. Sounds really weird considering I've seen the price of it around mid high $600 US, and the max I've seen is $1100 US.

Telling me this is the biggest move. Everything that we have chosen has come with relative ease, and though this would seem to be a minor upgrade to people its probably one of the biggest for me / gf. Its the very reason why she has left the decision of the crossover & possible eq up to me :-(

I really don't want to spend much more than $1000 all up (crossover & eq), preferably less but yeah...throw some brand names and model numbers my way and I'll take them into consideration.

there are some who prefer to avoid lots of 'digital domain' equipment (with time alignment, xovers, EQs, etc). i believe these are purists who rely on good old analogue equipment to create their masterpieces. i also think it has merit.

however, for fancy features and easy tunability, digital stuff is the way to go!

i personally use alpine, and utilise a PXA-H510 processor teams with digital inputs from the 7998 HU and DVD/CD stackers. works for me. but i also haven't had the opportunity to compare it with something else i used to own that might be of worthy competition. that is, it's all well and good; but perhaps i could have spent the same money on alternatives and created a better result? maybe.

IMO, if you want convenience plus very high quality, go with one of the digital/electronic EQ/xovers as you plan. as much as i love alpine stuff, to me it doesn't seem 'right' to team it up with a nak HU. i'd prefer to see you use a PG or audio control for no particularly good reason other than 'hunch' that they'd be a better match.

alternatively, resort to a couple analogue setups, including separate active xover and dual 30/31-band EQ (eg: audio control EQTs).

hard to suggest what might be better, coz i'm sure the results would be subtly different.

either way, i'm sure it'll end up very competitive.

I would suggest that U hook your amp directly with your HU and then just the xover for the sub. it will sound alot more natural. eventhough I didn't use td but 7 out of 7 times a active XOVER or EQ make the system sound worse ( including DQT and the like). yes U will saw a flat response on the RTA but it won't sound that natural. the more gears+connection U use the more background noises in your music. So keep it simple as possible.

I understand a flat RTA won't sound the best, but that's why you have selectable EQ. One for RTA & one for playing SQ music.
I know exactly where you're coming from, and Yanddy's view is the same as both you and what shiny_car mentioned. However, it then brings me back to what I may have said before (possibly not).
We go to Audioart & Technologies, and we dont' come close to the guys who have spent $20k plus with Naka CD700s, McIntosh, Tubes, Xtant, $1500 cabling jobs & $2-$3k passive crossovers. Therefore really, we shouldn't be trying to match their game as basically they will be on the top and we will be on the bottom.
I understand we could be damaging the sound to the system by adding these gadgets. Not many people in Perth to my knowledge are running (PG or DQX) them, and maybe its because of a bad reason, or maybe they just haven't got the balls to try it.
I specifically told Yanddy that I wanted the car to stand out. I didn't want it to end up like a typical Audioart car, I didn't want it to resemble anything from a Techniks or Clint Bower Design's workshop (not saying they are bad) My care factor on the products he sells / wants to promote was ZEREO, and all I wanted was to make sure the car sounded dead hot whether it meant bringing in unique items from overseas. Like a few friends have told me, most people are limited to whatever the shop sells. As no one in Perth is hardly running PG, that's why I took it into great consideration.
I really do love the KISSSS (Keep it simple stupid sound system lol) approach, but then I personally believe it won't be enough (by hooking amp direct to hu, just using dyn x-ova). I really want to high pass the Dyns without losing much in return, and like I mentioned before the active electric crossover may add more noise, that Harrison I tried out just ate up the signal, and the passive will eat up your power. What would you sacrifise?

this is a good point. most people simply don't have the spare $$ to take a risk on a product no-one can condone with full marks. so it IS risky, and no-one likes to waste money.

if only we had the choice to try before we buy, and to try everything we wanted! :shock:

ah well. good luck with your quest.

oh, the other point being that for those who haven't tried stuff you are considering...they can only offer an 'opinion' based on what? not much really. just theory, hunches, and reputation. and i don't think any of us in this discussion can truly say they've tried the combo you're suggesting. so who know?

i say go for it.

Not sure if it's already been posted, but there's a Tube bassed 12volt xover on ebay.

As people have pointed out, passive high pass filters for midbass drivers (since they are at low frequencies) are generally a bad idea - due to impedance curves, the size of the coils required (therefore resistance and powerhandling problems) etc - I'm sure you heard the effects when you tried it. Active is by far the best compromise in this application.

I really do wonder why some people are against EQs in car audio - audio reproduction inside a car is already a HUGE compromise. An EQ isn't going to make things worse (unless you don't know how to use it). If you want "natural" or "pure", then obviously the only thing you can listen to is live acoustic instruments.

Of course you don't want to use it to get a flat response on an RTA, not because a flat response isn't ideal, but that the use of RTAs is totally flawed in this application.

I haven't read the whole thread so may have missed a few things.

I find Yanddy to be one of the "few" in retail to actually really understand, appreciate and generally promote high end sound quality. Unfortunately, as with most things it comes down to money nine times out of ten.

I have to admit, the best sounding system I have had in my experience with car audio, was a system pieced together by my own knowledge and the advice and asisstance of Yanddy.

It consisted of, Eclipse CD8061, Butler Tube Driver 2150, Butler Tube Driver 450, Custom 2/3 Way Passive Crossover (Built by Yanddy), Morel HCW8 8" Drivers, Dynaudio MD140/2 3.5" Mids, XTant 1" Tweeters, 15" Air Mille Subwoofer.

I also had installed an Alesis MEQ-30 dual 30 band equaliser, but in this particularly well balanced system, the EQ was simply not required. Yanddy also advised me I wouldn't require it, as he knew the balance of this system, and the X-Over was designed around those speakers. He knew it worked well and was spectrally balanced. He was right.

I had the 2150 bridged running the sub, and while I don't think they are the perfect sub amp, in my particular SQ setup the duty of this amplifier was very low. The 450 was running two channels for the 8" drivers using a Harrison Labs inline passive crossover to highpass them at 75Hz, and the sub lowpass at 75Hz. The 8" drivers were not low passed at all.

From memory, the passive crossover crossed the mid and tweets around 1.5-2.5K (Can't remember exactly now).

The other two 450 channels were running the Mid and Tweeter off the custom 2/3 way crossover.

This was undoubtedley the nicest system I have owned in terms of quality audio reproduction, and my guide for my new system currently in production.

I guess my point is, take Yanddy's advice, he knows what he's on about. If you clearly stated your objectives of the system, and gave him a maximum budget, then I am positive the advice and suggestions he is giving you are right. If you told him you want the best and money isn't a problem (like so many customers like to give that impression when in the real world they are actually on quite a tight budget), then expect him to use you as a guniea pig and try something out of the ordinary. It will no doubt cost you more.

Incidentally, for those wondering what my new system is Clarion HX-D1, Diamond Audio Hex 3 Way (6", 4", 1"), 2 x Diamond Audio TDX 12", Amplifiers still undecided. Custom Audioart Designed 3 Way Passive Crossover. With just a small bit of multimedia thrown in

The subject of 'going active' has come to me, and basically I think is the way to go with the system. Would any of the crossovers mentioned above would be suitable / more suitable than another, or something else?

any progress with the passive setup?

there's plenty of good active xovers available. as long as it's from a reputable brand and has the xovers that suit (HP/BP/LP whatever), then should be fine.

audiocontrol, PG, nakamichi spring to mind. but no probs with older alpine, coustic, etc either.

I have been speaking to mattyeos lately about his system as he tries to find out the best way to set up his system.
I was the one to suggest to run his system fully active ,the reason being that the way his system has been set up in my opinion is just plain wrong,I will explain ,
his system consists of nak deck to 4 channel tube amp bridged to run his dyns.boston gt24 running his sony sub and his factory rear speakers running as rear fill of his deck.
now first things first what the hell is any speakers doing running off the deck in a system of this caliber.he has spare amps he is not using so it isn't because he dosn't wanna buy another amp.secondally the tube amp is bridged to run the dyns through there passive crossovers,why would'nt you use one channel of the amp per driver and run it activally,he already has a crossover to do the job and the system would sound so much better this way.the amp for the sub is fine maybe the sub could do with a steeper crossover slope and a subsonic filter as it is in a ported enclosure.
Now as for the value of eq's in sound quality cars,I can't remember the last time I saw a sq car of any worth besides the ones fron audioart without an eq,the simple fact is no matter what you do as far as install is concerned some tweaking will be needed.eq's generally have defeat buttons on them so you can go back to the raw state at a push of a button to compaire how your tuning is going.
If you like I will ask tuneman if he will bring his dqt with him when he comes to perth in a couple of weeks time so we can try it in your car if you have it back together in time.he swappes between his eqt's and his dqt to see if one sounds better in his system,usd horns and mids ,rcf motors in horns,and if you set both eq's to the same settings then the systen dose sound different,not worse just different as you can get the system sounding great either way.
I think the simpler you can keep a system while having the most control then the better the system will be.

And my comments.

Less is more:
1) If your speakers come with perfectly good passive crossovers use them.
2) If your system provides the sound you like without an eq don't put one in.
3) If the rears are faded way back (so they become barely auidable) then why not run them of the headunit. Personally i wouldn't run any rears.

Adding more and more electrical components in the signal path provides more oportunities for interference to occure.

With that said I'm still moving to a fully active setup simply because I will be mixing and matching speakers from various manufacturers.

i agree with the suggestions been made. however, i figure if he already has a suitable active xover, then it's worth a try to see if the active setup is an improvement on the current. but the dyn passive xover is pretty good.

i also agree an EQ is usually needed to improve SQ. but a comprehensive 30-band may not be the way to go if there's only a small area that needs attenuation, which a simpler 11~15-band can manage. on that note, often a parametric EQ can be useful rather than a graphic; i prefer parametrics because i find i can tune them easier, but that's my personal preference.

the type of eq we reccomend will vary on what the results of an rta test are ,but we will try one anyhow just to se what diffrence it makes

I must say I tend to agree with Fatsimon on this one. The conclusion he's come up with is exactly what I would've done.

Also I've always wondered one thing about passive crossovers "ordered" from overseas. How can someone in another country build you the "perfect"crossover when he/she has no idea where you've mounted speakers, what type of equipment you are using and more importantly, what YOUR ears like. Good sound is a very personal thing, and like everyone says here, a flat response sounds terrible, therefore an active crossover/EQ will allow real time changes to vehicle interiors, music and personal tastes.

Well that's my thoughts on it anyway...

Darren

I never touched on my views on passive networks so here goes.I am not a fan due to there complexity of construction and lack of easy adjustibality.you have to be a very clued up installer and well trained to design a effective passive network due to phasing and impediance issues at the crossover point.there are alot of issues with passive networks and the amount of power they consume is another issue,if you have 300 wrms per side it isn't so bad but with realistic power levels that most people use then they are just too inefficent.another is cost ,a quality passive network with quality components that also is well displayed is going to cost not much less than a quality active unit.Having said all this a well setup passive network allowing for all these issues can give stunning results ,it is just so much harder to do.it is one of thoes things that if your system design dosn't allow enough amp channels to run active crossovers then a passive network is the only option.