ELECTRONIC CROSSOVER: HOW AND WHY?

M2TECH writes: "The use of electronic crossover in multi-amplified systems is a topic of constant relevance. As in many other cases when it comes to high fidelity, there is the party of supporters and that of detractors. The latter, in particular, complain about the insertion of an additional circuit that the signal must pass through to reach the speakers, with its influences on sound and its negative effects on detail, background noise and so on. I do not feel like countering these fears, which are far from unfounded. In favor of electronic crossover, however, we can propose equally valid arguments."

"First of all, it must be considered that passive crossover is itself a compromise: in fact it "eats" a lot of power in its dissipative elements, reducing the efficiency of the diffuser and forcing the use of amplifiers more powerful than those theoretically necessary to obtain a given sound pressure level. In addition, the passive crossover is working on a highly reactive load (the loudspeaker), offering a driving impedance too high to prevent the load from altering the actual response. In this sense, the electronic crossover, which works on the input impedance of the amplifier driven by it, does not have these problems, as doesn't the amplifier, which impedance is less than a tenth of that of the crossover, in the transition and suppressed band.

But there is another aspect, which has a lot to do with the dynamic behavior of the speaker. When the loudspeaker is driven by a source with impedance comparable to its own, its impulsive response tends to lengthen and become oscillatory, with a considerable detriment to the transient behavior. If instead we drive a speaker with the direct output of an amplifier, the impulsive response of the loudspeaker improves considerably. This translates into greater control and better listening detail. This is why, in our opinion, the use of the electronic crossover in multiamplification can bring benefits to listening.

In the photo, the module of a mono way of a three-way analog electronic crossover widely programmable via software (with a special program that will run on Windows and Linux, via USB connection) under development at M2Tech R&D. See you soon for more details!"