Behringer Crossover for Maggies vs Bryston

Yeah - no DSP. I don't want ad and then da, the Behringer above, as far as I know aren't dsp based. There is another model above the one I mention that is DSP based.

Oh - and one other general comment I should have put in the top part. One way to minimize the impact of the quality of the crossover is when using the amp-matching part, lower one and keep the other at 0, don't raise either, that way you aren't using any pre-amp aspects of the crossover to raise the level of the signal, and thus lowers the quality requirements of that aspect of the crossover.

One thing that is nice about the Bryston are the adjustable slopes. Magnepan recommends the following for the settings at the crossover:

Low Pass: 18dB per octave at 250Hz
High Pass: 6dB per octave at 200Hz

Note that asymmetrical crossover point and slope!

Both the Rane and Ashley look good overall, I think the Rane can only do 24 db/octave and the Ashley and Behringer are the same. That doesn't mean it won't work - but its nice to know that if I stick with what is above then the factory thinks it should work really really well.

Maybe that is part of what we pay for with the Bryston, the flexibility?

Cool. What is funny is that a couple of people have contacted me directly on this, and I may wait a year and then get a floor model XVR-1 - the opposite of where I was heading with this thread. Some say that once you go active, the active crossover itself matters more than the quality of the amps, sort of sounds backwards, but my making the amps around 4X more powerful, can make more sense. But the XVR-1 is a 'sciene project', I may just pay somoene to try and do it over a weekend. Depending on what month it is, I like science projects, but right now I have so many things going on in life I just want this part to work without much time input. One criticism of active crossovers, even the good ones, is that they become 'infinite science projects', which I'm not looking for. But don't properly (or even just within 5-10%) I do believe they totally change what Maggies are capable of.

LiketoListen - yeah, the entry fee is so low, it seems almost worth trying as an experiment. Let me know how your project goes. I am a fan of Hero ICs as a not super-exotic but extremely dependable and have several balanced in my system here and there. I think if you went with Hero balanced you could rule out ICs as a source of any problems. Also - I've heard that going active you almost have to go balanced as otherwise you will get hum, but if you can go with Hero RCA's you'll save a ton of money and still know the ICs are holding anything back. But, yeah, let us know what you find.

Just to share the info - some have told me directly that the crossover is more important than the quality of the amps if you change from passive to active crossover - it changes the whole thing about what is going on so significantly that the amps become less important. Interesting...

I am thinking of going lower-spec on the amp and getting the XVR-1... And after trying to set it up myself, paying someone locally who really knows they are doing to finish it off and continue to work on setting it up for a day.

For the low end, I really think high-power low-cost D is the way to go (i.e., Rotel) and then go crazy high-end on the top side. Our family had some other big purchases recently so the project is on hold for at least 3 - 4 months, but I recently put a kilowatt amp on my 3.6s and now am very excited to get some more power through it somehow!

People talk about amp-matching on active crossover setups, I have to do more listening and testing to see if a low-cost D will match well with a very high-quality 2nd amp.

Another way to look at all of this - from a $ perspective (not from a time perspective) get the Behringer now - figure it all out, tweak it, get the extra amps, etc., but then upgrade the crossover a few years later.

In that sense - how the Behringer gets you started at such a low cost - it is awesome. Remember, though, Marchand has some decently priced modules, albeit with far far far less tweakability.