Has anyone use the crossovers from harrison labs? (1 Viewer)

[Bruce Chang]

I'm looking for crossovers for my paradigm and totem center channel when I get an external amp. Would these work? Do these things just plug into the output on your amp and attach a audio interconect on top of it? What should I crossover the digms and center channel? I was thinking 50hz for the digms and 70 for the center channel both of course high pass.
http://www.hlabs.com/technical/crossovers/
http://www.hlabs.com/colors/

 

[Chris PC]

I'm not sure I understand how they work. If they have a LP filter, then what do you do for a high-pass filter?

 

[ling_w]

These are useless. It doesn't know the input impedence of your amp so how could a passive unit like this cross over at the frequency specified. Amp's input impedence could vary by 10x, from 10kohm to 100kohm, so this thing would have a crossover freq error or 10x.

It could go on saying it has no distortion and all that, but to fit the component into that little plug, they would have to put some very low quality stuff in there.

 

[Bruce Chang]

So what crossover do you guys recommend?

 

[Chris PC]

Outlaw ICBM
Mirage LFX-1, 2 or 3
Paradigm X-20 or X-30
or a marchand
http://www.marchandelec.com/xm9.htm

 

[Bruce Chang]

Outlaw ICBM

Mirage LFX-1, 2 or 3

Paradigm X-20 or X-30

or a marchand

Out of these the outlaw 1cbm is the cheapest. Has anyone used the ICBM before? Whats the dif between the more expensive ones? Is the outlaw ICBM active?

 

[ling_w]

The ICBM is a complete bass management unit that allows different crossover from different speakers to the sub or whatever speaker you designate as large. You would probably set all the speakers as large and let the ICBM handle the rest.

The other units are crossovers with a high and low pass section for 2 channels.

All the units are active.

Since you are looking to cross over to your sub at different freq for different speakers, the ICBM would probably be what you are looking for.

 

[Bruce Chang]

On the outlaw 1050, when I set the front speakers to large, the sub doesn't play.

 

[ling_w]

If you have the ICBM, then you hook all the wiring from Outlaw 1050 to ICBM, and all connections to sub/amp from the ICBM.

If you set the mains to large, the sub will not play, but LFE will. This LFE should be passed to the ICBM. In the ICBM, you could set each of your speaker set (LR, C, Surr) to full range or small with its own adjustable crossover freq. It would then do the bass rerouting.

In your situation, it doesn't matter if you reroute the bass to the sub (since your LCR doesn't even match,) but in certain situations, like when someone is using plasma (or vibrating rod) speakers all around, they don't want to route bass from a plasma (or vibrating rod) speaker to a cone subwoofer. With the ICBM, you could tell the bass from the surround and center to go to the main speaker, and let the sub handle LFE only.

The other active crossovers mentioned are mostly for when you want to hook up a sub with either your center, mains or surround. Good for 2ch systems or people who wants dedicated subs for a specific set of speaker like the center.