I wrote that earlier post so long ago that I didn't remember doing it. Hey, at least I see that I'm consistent!
On May 20, 2010 at 21:33, Herman Trivilino said...
I thought that one of the advantages of biamping is that you eliminate the phase shifts associated with passive crossovers.
I haven't looked into this for literally decades. Last time this came up, the issue had to do with digital filters, which supposedly have no phase shift. It defies definition, however, to be able to remove certain frequencies without any phase shift, so ? ? ?
After all, the difference between a circuit that passes, say, 60 Hz and one that doesn't is a 180 degree phase shift at 60 Hz. Since single frequency notches are impossible, there's phase shift on either side of the target frequency, going from 0 far below the target, to 180 at the target, to 360 far above the target on the other side. The location of "far away" depends on the slope of the curve.
Regardless of the answer to that conundrum, electronic crossovers certainly let you tailor the crossover frequencies, response, and slopes (Q) so that you can obtain the best sounding, the best controlled phase shift. This can only be done with passive crossovers if you have hundreds of inductors and capacitors to play with, the layout system and time to try them out, and enough pairs of speakers to compare different crossovers.
