Recommendations for electronic crossover.


I am bi-amping my B&W 804 matrix speakers with a 50 watt per channel tube amp for the top and a 200 watt SS for the woofer. Any suggestions for reasonable priced crossover? I have been told Merchand (?) makes a good one.

Thanks!
jpahere
Unless you are bypassing the internal passive crossovers of the 804 you will not need an active crossover such as the Marchand. Typically there are two sets of binding posts on the back of the speakers that are strapped together for single amp use. One set goes to the internal high pass filter and the other set goes to the internal low pass filter. You biamp by separating the terminals from each other on the back and using two amplfiers that have the same gain or one of the amps will need to have variable output to control the gain.
jpahere
Recommendations for electronic crossover.



Don’t go digital to me it only led to sterility no matter what I tried. And I lost the sound of my favorite dac for whatever rubbish dac is in the digital dsp/xovers ones.

If you want the best analog domain xover that’s discrete and that doesn’t use opamps, get a Nelson Pass designed First Watt B4, probably have to find a used one

Or what I would do with those speakers is to go horizontal Bi-amping with the apms you have as the B&W internal xovers are of very high quality and well sorted.
Or with something like a nice Pass Labs Class-A XA30.5 (amp1) on the mids and highs and a cheap Class-D (amp2) on the bass

https://www.av2day.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/biamp1.jpg
Just put a $49 Schiit Sys passive on the input of louder amp to even out the gains, and drive all that from your preamp.

Cheers George
11Audio.com aka OCD hifi guy on you tube is in the process of having Marchand design one for him. Should be available soon, if not already