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External crossover good next move?

Hello Audiogoners, budget-minded post

I have an NAD C320BEE amp with a basic Velodyne subwoofer (CT-80) inserted between pre and amp sections (per Bob Reynolds suggestion--thank you). Source is a Lite DAC-AH, fed by an NAD CD player.

The problem is the cable runs to and from the subwoofer need to be quite long (at least 6 feet). I have a DH Labs cable from the DAC to pre, but cables running to the sub and back, I am ashamed to say, are $29 Monster cable. So I wonder how much I am losing in the Monster cable. Also I wonder about the quality of the crossover in my sub: this is an 80-watt HT-oriented sub I got for $300 new in 2001.

I am considering an external crossover, like Paradigm x-30 or Outlaw ICBM. Could I expect a real improvement through this upgrade? Does anyone have a sense of quality of the crossover in a sub like mine, versus those products?

I like the sub-monitor arrangement, and am not quite ready to buy a new amp, although I would not be surprised to hear that is best route. Any ideas appreciated
abarnett
robr45's avatar
robr45
317 posts
 
Can you tell us about your speakers and how they are crossover over/hooked up?

-Rob
robr45's avatar
robr45
317 posts
 
Also- why do you need to cross over in the first place?
abarnett OP
18 posts
 
I have the AR.com kit speakers (Ed Frias design). It has a 6.5" Peerless woofer. I don't know about the speakers' crossover. I see someone on an audio chat site saying he thinks the crossover for the speaker is at 2300 Hz.

The sub has line in/line out jacks. I have the subwoofer between the pre and power sections of the NAD for the biamping effect. The NAD is 50 wpc, and I notice an overall improvement using the sub (with the NAD not amplifying bass). Also, as I understand it, the monitors do a better job if they aren't receiving bass. I set the crossover on the sub at about 80 Hz.--Thanks
robr45's avatar
robr45
317 posts
 
Well, my second question alluded to my reccomendation.

But if you like the sound that is all that matters.

However, it is somewhat atypical to do what you are doing and it opens up multiple cans of worms like this.

9/10 people are simply going to use parallel speaker level runs straight off the NAD and dial in the sub where the speakers naturally roll off. This avoids your very fragile low voltage line signal from having to unneccessarily traverse long IC runs and an additional crossover that might not be well enough engineered to provide pure transparency.

YMMV though.

-Rob
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