2 diff thoughts on X-over. 2 channel & Long!

[KingRT]

1) The cleanest possible sound will be achieved by running your signal through the fewest components possible. Each new piece of equipment, amplification stage, eq, A/D>D/A, cable etc. has the opportunity to help in some way, but will also add noise and reduce the purity of the original signal. Despite what some say, if your speakers and amplification are good enough, you can hear it! In this particular case, you'd be inserting a mediocre piece of equipment into the connection between your high quality electronics and speakers. Keep in mind your signal can only be as good as the weakest link in the chain. In fact it is usually worse than the weakest link caused by compounding weaknesses in cable connections, introduced noise etc.
Plus this would be redundant control over the crossover. Your signal is already going through a crossover in your sub. This would be duplication and would cut off the low end of your SF's. I never understand why someone would want to spend that much money on speakers, then think they know better than the manufacturer and insert crossovers to change the speaker. That is essentially what you would be doing, changing the entire design of the speaker's sound. The cabinet, drivers and crossover work in synchronicity. Change one and you change the sound of the speaker. The manufacturer did that design for you and you chose that speaker because you liked it. You shouldn't change it. (My caveat to this is if you were running HT, but you said this is music only.)


2) 80HZ might not be best for your room but it is probably not the worst either and would be a safe bet. If you can get more I'd try 90 and 100. 60 I feel is straining your speakers, remember a crossover is not a cutoff and 60hz crossover would still let some 30hz signal through to your speakers. Also, 60hz rarely is the best crossover for most rooms unless the room is VERY large
Any helpful thoughts on these 2 statements?

Sumiko (FS) says go low.
JL says go high.
Both reputable! I would like to save the $'s, but do it right the first time.

[PHC1]

Get the best crossover you can get and don't look back. The mid-bass struggling to reproduce deep bass and midrange at the same time will thank you. The amps will also have more overhead and reserve not having to do low bass while the 1500-3000w dedicated sub amps will be happy to pound the snot out of the woofer of the sub.


There is no precise crossover setting either, since the suckout of the speaker in your room will depend on how far apart your speakers are and how far from the walls they are as well. There are actually formulas for that, 1130/d x 0.3
where the d is the distance from the center of the woofer to the nearest boundary. There is inter-woofer interaction as well between the two speakers. When calculating the suckout notch between woofer (or subwoofer) centers you would use half the distance (1/2d) between them as d. You would still use the 0.3 multiplier.

If you measure the response of your speaker in the room and the suckout happens to be in the range that a sub like JL can handle, it is big help when you have an active crossover and you can eliminate the speaker from the dip equation. Trust me, the JL subs do bass no worse than any speaker out there, including Sonus Faber.... That is what I did with my SF and 2 JL subs and an active crossover, the results were well worth the effort, providing you understand the setup and what's going on.


Pretty typical in room response of a speaker, look at the bass...

[KingRT]

As you already know. You are right!

I did a little/ a lot, of homework.
Lots of questions to those in the know...

Case closed.