Why aren't component active XOs more popular?

It's not so easy to add an electronic crossover after the fact to just any system. To be brief, first you need a speaker which truly has separate crossover paths for each driver, and not just two or more sets of terminals on each speaker. Second, you need to know, or discover, any number of characteristics of the passive crossover that comes built in to the speaker, for example, baffle step compensation, zobel networks, the optimal operating range of the drivers, plus the frequencies and slopes chosen by the manufacturer (hopefully) for good reason.

In terms of sound quality, it makes no sense whatever to with entry level, non diy electronics or speakers. In terms of being able to play around...maybe it makes sense.

Sure, a lot of manufactured speakers are junk. So's a lot of diy stuff.

Anyway, here's the last two lines of my post:

>In terms of sound quality, it makes no sense whatever to with entry level, non diy electronics or speakers. In terms of being able to play around...maybe it makes sense.

What I meant and thought I said was, "It makes no sense whatever to with entry level, non diy electronics or [non diy] speakers." I thought the second "non diy" was implicit, and I could say why, but perhaps it's ambiguous.

Well, first, answering that active crossovers are superior does not address the question posed: Why aren't they more common?

And active crossovers are not the best solution for every budget or speaker or circumstance, particularly if not included in the design from the ground up, a distinction the thread has already touched on. Actively driven speakers have never done that well with consumers for these and other reasons despite their many technical advantages over passively driven ones, all other things being equal, to take a near cousin example.

>Of course if you open up your speaker and find an overly complex
xover you know one thing for sure: The drivers are not really suitable to run
together! If you know the optimal operating range you already know
the necessary slopes and crossoverpoints.

This will come as news to Thiel, Vandersteen, many of the Joseph Audio models over the years, North Creek Acoustics, Clements and I'm going to go out on a limb and opine also to Apogee, DeVore and old Snell Type A. So, they're all junk. I'm sure we could all go on.

>Suits-me I don't know if you have heard the same speaker in passive then active but I have and there is no contest the active is far superior and the passive that used to be in was a tweeked out one.

Okay, I'd like to know what speaker you heard in both modes, because I gave a couple examples of well regarded speakers which have various functions in their crossovers that would be difficult to adjust for in an electronic crossover. Then I gave some examples of well regarded speakers which use complicated crossovers, and some of those are even time and phase aligned.

Now, if you hate all the speakers I gave as examples, fine. But your vague assertion about whatever speaker you heard in both modes does not address my point or my examples, so I am left to wonder if you understood my posts at all.

>But I would think that a good many it would benifit if done properly which at times can be a tiresome task but worth it. The speakers you gave examples of are fine speakers indeed but you didn't give an example of a speaker that you heard in passive and then active and that was my question

I have heard the Innersounds (and others) with active crossovers which sounded great, although I didn't hear the same speakers passively crossed over. So I cannot answer your question. But I do not wish to hear Vandie 2Ce Sigs actively crossed over, for example, because I don't think it would make sense.

I did not say that active crossovers don't have advantages, if I remember earlier posts of mine correctly without re-reading. I said they are not more popular because active crossovers can be all wrong for a given design or for a given price point. (My opinion would be different for active crossovers used for subs, because passive crossovers are much harder to implement well at low frequencies for a lot of reasons, and there's no baffle step compensation at 50 hz, and so on.)

This is why I asked what speakers you heard in both modes. Enjoy your Maggies!