High order crossovers

Which is better, red wine or white? Bourbon or single malt?

Crossover comes down to integration.

There are no flawless drivers. The designer must make decisions as to whether the 4k bump in the woofer/mid is tolerable or not. He may choose to live with it as low order summing floats his boat.

First order sum nicely but do little to manage driver flaws and absolutely nothing for time coherence.

Like all things audio, crossover BS is waist deep. Reading some manufacturer's material is funnier than the comics.

Time-coherence implies first-order acoustic crossovers, if we’re talking about passive loudspeakers.

First order crossovers phase sum electrically.

Time coherence would only occur with mechanically identical drivers. As this is seldom the case, physical displacement is required.

Asymmetric slopes may give better integration depending on the drivers.

@audiokinesis 

So my crossover boards all have these big unsightly clusters of resistors.

thus reducing the inductance vs a single resistor of the same type