Time Delays in crossovers

[merlin]

Patrick,

Everything is possible. Finding my ideal solution with a digital crossover is however unprobable based on past exterience. But then I find top of the line Naim/Linn systems to lack transparency so maybe my expectations are different to others.

NB. Even an LP12 would suffer going through the crossovers I have heard, yet Sony proved transparent a/d was possible. I just haven't found one yet.

 

[Patrick Dixon]

AFAIK, the TACT stuff is not just a digital crossover and does some fairly major DSP. However, there is no reason why you shouldn't have a very simple digital crossover with completely linear phase and all the time re-alignment of drivers you want. I'm 100% confident that a good digital x-over could beat a good analogue X-over any day. The penalty is the AD and DA conversion, but as you say, Sony proved (to Ivor's ears at least) that you can do that OK too.

Having looked at RC, at the moment I'm uncomfortable with the various compromises and the shear amount of processing (of the audio signal) involved. From my own experience, I've learnt that I can hear seemingly insignificant differences in how digital audio signals are processed, so I'm not surprised that you haven't been impressed with what you've heard to date.

 

[Cesare]

Merlin,

If you are happy to play in the digital domain, something like this would probably do everything you want:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHDCX2496

If you can't configure it to do exactly what you want (up to 3 way stereo) then you aren't trying hard enough. In fact you can cascade more than one unit to setup more complex scenarios.

Cheap enough to explore some quite complex possibilities i'd have thought.

Cesare