To crossover or not

Has anyone ever removed
The crossover within a loudspeaker
And run cables to drive units!
The article i read , suggested better bass and smoother treble after doing do. .
I recently rewired my Leak Sandwich
Speakers. It would be easy to do,

 

One would think that getting the crossover away from those vibrations would be beneficial. But all those well regarded active loudspeakers have their amps inside as well, and their owners seem happy enough.

I thought about doing the external crossover thing when I recapped my speakers last year. The thought of running three more pair of cables from the external crossover to the speaker didn't seem appealing to me though. I think it could be a worthwhile project/experiment, as long as you were able to return your speakers to their original state if you desired.

If you do this, I hope you'll keep us posted of your results!

 

I guess, depending on the natural frequency response roll off of the drivers, the breakup profiles of the drivers -- how they handle single at the upper and lower ranges of their output which the crossover might have been keeping away from them but which now they'll be asked to drive, and the way whatever you're driving the speakers will handles the differing impedances, it might be OK. But it seems to me that if you're going to do something like that you might as well just switch to active speakers and active crossovers, etc, or try a full range/crossoverless design speaker or simple crossover speaker vs. just trying to kludge a unit designed to function one way into a unit some other kind of functionality.

 

Not sure what you mean there??? No crossover at all, even an active one before amps, just run directly to amp? or something else??

 

That's hogwash. You can't do that without severe response and power handling consequences. That's why the bloody x-over is there to begin with. You don't seriously think that the mfr would have spent the money on all of the additional components if they were not necessary, do you? Only one extensive mod will work well here and that is an external, active x-over, and a separate amplifier channel for each individual driver in the cabinets. That gets real expensive, real quick. The only speaker which you can drive directly is a "full-range" speaker and those are far from being full range or even hi-fi for the most part.
-Bill

 

What he said.

 

Crossover components are coils and capacitor's which are immune to any kind of vibrations or magnetic fields.
Dont damage your loudspeaker enclosures for this kind of absolute absurd snake oil.

 

Thanks guys !
I read this in HI-F1 Anawers.
The speakers sound fine.
I think i will listen to some cd,s
Instead '

 

The full article Suggested. Using the crossover OUTSIDE near the amplifier
And running cables from crossover to relevant drive units,
The main benefit if i understood
Correctly was no vibration reaching
Crossover..

 

Well, I cross over the low to my subs.

 

Sure, external crossover between the preamp and amp stage, then separate amps for each driver -- an active crossover system -- can have advantages. Moving the passive crossover across the room to near the amp? Not so much. Vibration? Yeah, caps can be microphonic, so you know, if you're concerned about it, fix 'em to the xover board with some adhesive putty, mount the xover boards with some kind of decoupling material, etc., at least you're not adding more insertion points in the chain.

 

My gut feeling is to leave well alone.
As a few members wiser than me
Have said the manufacturers
Know what they are doing.
Active does have its merits.
But never appealed to me.
Thanks for the wise words .

 

I will clarify.
The crossover is retained as it is still needed.
It's positioned close to the amplifier,
The bass wires run to the bass driver, tweeter wires to tweeter and so on ,
More banana plugs or whatever you desire are mounted
On rear of cabinet
One. Can then connect up in a
Fashion similiar to BI- wiring .
Sockets for the hi frequency and
Sockets for bass
The person who wrote the article
Hinted that resistors inductors etc
Were microphonic and therefore beingcompromised by being mounted
Inside the cabinet,
So, by mounting in a seperate case
And placing near amplifier.
Would offer an upgrade.

 

Capacitors for the crossover are very tight and solid wound sheets of metal foil/insulator foil.
Vibration sensitive ??? baloony!!! Tap with a screwdriver on them , listen and wake up from your nightmare.

Internet, magazines, salesmen full of nonsense. Even very basic high school physics will prevent you from being conned by all self proclaimed guru's, quack's, scammers, reviewers and pickpocket accessoire manufacturers. Even serious manufacturers write fancy uncomprehensible semi or nonsense publicity leaflet's. Re-read your third year high school physics again if you want to think about the simple electronics that constitute high fidelity e.g. loudspeaker crossovers.

 

Have my doubts on this one but for us diyers it's nice to have it outside the box for easy changes and keeping the box a speaker box only. Crossovers done pretty look cool too.

 

https://goo.gl/photos/egZsnw2H1GKSxeXT9

Garage speaks with not so pretty but still cool T-filter for BMS4552's and Altec 811's.

 

The person who wrote the article was on crack, or maybe just stoned or something. He was making stuff up in order to write an article. He suggested that frequencies bouncing around inside the speaker cabinet makes the electricity moving through the crossover vibrate? That's cockeyed B.S. It's utter nonsense. It's not physics.

It's true that capacitors can be microphonic in certain situations, but as Chervokas stated clearly a little putty and the usual manner in which good quality crossovers in good quality speakers are damped and mounted inside the cabinets is all that's needed.

 

I what circumstances are capacitor's microphonic and what is the effect ? Constrain yourself to audio. Very curious.
(I'm not talking about capacitor microphones or adjustable capacitor for HF appliances)

 

The trouble is , as i see it , is that the author probably knows
That no one will question his ideas.

 

Here's an example:

Stress-induced outbursts: Microphonics in ceramic capacitors (Part 1) - Precision Hub - Blogs - TI E2E Community

There are many, many other similar examples. The engineering society web sites and the component maker web sites are great sources for factual information. Nevetheless, a bit doping (with the correct type of putty), insulation and/or damping solves the issue. The thing is, it takes a lot of physical energy to cause the problem in the first place.

 

An interesting article on capacitor piezo-electric effects. This isn't micro-phonic response although the result is the same. The problem is sourced to flexation of the end plates. For this to occur, the cap is soldered directly to the PCB, and when flexed (or tapped to cause vibration of the board) the end plates also move.. causing the piezo-electric output.

On a crossover board, the caps are usually glued to the board, and connected via leads. The cap leads are compliant, so the piezo effect should not be a problem, nor should there be any micro-phonic voltages. Perhaps the intense energy inside the cabinet could be enough to vibrate the end plates?

I'd like to see a test to verify or debunk the benefit of external passive crossovers.


Edit: Just looking online, yes, microphonics/ piezo-electric noise can be a problem.
An elegant solution is described here: Reduce acoustic noise from capacitors

However, a speaker crossover has no gain (or very slight gain in a resonant circuit) so without amplification, any micro-phonic noise present may be irrelevant!

 

Hmm, I now wonder....

One one my speakers, when doing loud bass tone test below 100 Hz, would sometimes suddenly sound considerably louder and more distorted than the other. The issue would go away if I lower the volume.

Could that be due to microphonic?

 

Probably not a micro-phonic cause, as I do not think at this time that it has any audible effect in speaker crossovers.
Sounds to me like you may have a cold solder problem, or cracked solder. Vibration would definitely aggravate that. Check your speaker interconnects for any looseness or corrosion. Your woofer could have a partially detached voice coil. (possible not probable) Could be an issue with the amp on one channel.

 

Right. And that's precisely why I posted the article link. It's an illustration of the fact that the vast majority of internal home loudspeaker crossovers are highly unlikely to be subject to microphonics.

So would I. There aren't any that I can find, at least not for home-based loudspeaker applications for music listening. I think it's just a hobbyist rabbit-hole for audiophiles who want to experiment for its own sake. Nothing wrong with that. But there aren't any obvious sonic benefits per se beyond emotional descriptions of "more air" or "more (something or other)" that lack any definitive basis for testing or technical expression beyond the need to emotionally justify the expense of additional wiring, the external crossovers themselves and the time needed to set everything up correctly while tinkering with the slope controls on the crossover to get to where the speakers were in the first place (when they still had their internal crossovers). However, bi-amping with the use of external crossovers has some useful applications especially in concert halls, theaters, PA systems and very large (home) rooms. Whether or not an appropriate application confers a musically significant benefit is another matter altogether.

I mean, what would such a test even look like? How would it be constructed? Identical pairs of speakers, one with its internal crossover intact, the other hooked up to an external device? What would be measured? I admit to some exceedingly limited thinking about the matter, but it nonetheless seems to boil down to A/B listening tests with all their inherent flaws. Anyway, I think it's not quite as technically dopey as bi-wiring woo (which is really woo).

 

Nope. Sounds like you overdrove the woofer and it started doubling. Very loud, pure, low frequency test tones can do that to a woofer. It's one way to kill a driver.