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Holy Crap What have I done?

Ya know that scene in "Aladdin" where Abu the monkey touches the huge ruby of the forbidden treasure and everything goes to hell around them? Well, *that's* kinda what happened to me tonight.

I finally found a Marchand XM9 crossover at the right price from an honest seller, and it arrived tonight. I put it in line between my preamp and amp, and it did both what I wanted it to do and what I didn't want it to do: it improved the "slam" of the bottom end, but sucked all the air out of the music and my system went from a pretty high degree of "you are there" factor to realizing you're listening to music on a good stereo.

Admittedly, I haven't played with the crossover controls yet, but I'll be quite surprised if they can "bring the life back" to my system.

Any thoughts on how to get my system to give me that "I'm in the room with the musicians" feeling again with the crossover still in line? Maybe I need to go to an XM44, or some other brand of crossover?

I should mention I tried the crossover because my nOrh mini 9.0's only go down to about 65Hz -3dB with a really quick downturn to -10dB (around 55Hz at -10dB, if I remember my measurements correctly.) I was happy with my ACI Titan crossoved over at 85Hz, but had read that using a crossover to cut the lowest octave from the monitors would improve the midrange and imaging. In this case, it didn't, interstingly.

I'd sure appreciate whatever thoughts you all have on where to go next.

Howard
aggielaw
dbld
297 posts
 
So does that mean you are running an XM9 with a 65Hz or 85Hz cossover? Also, are you running your mains through the XM9? I am asking because I am thinking about trying an active crossover, but I fear losing the "magic" on the high-pass side.
aggielaw OP
264 posts
 
Dbld,

I will have to look and see which XO module I installed. I'm pretty sure it was the 85Hz. I never went back to running my mains through the high pass. I'm fairly convinced I could tweak the controls all day long and it just wouldn't be the same. I'll try again running high-pass through the XO Sunday when I get to Kansas and report.

Howard
dbld
297 posts
 
Thanks, it would be interesting to know if you can hear a difference. I am not sure about the differences between the xm9 and the xm44 other than the xm44 can input a balanced signal. The boards physically look a lot different. I have been kicking around the idea of an xm44 embedded solution.
aggielaw OP
264 posts
 
Dbld,
The XM44 is certainly a higher-quality unit. I'm not dissing the XM9, because it's great for what it does, but after more listening in my new hom I'm convinced I just can't get my speakers to sound as open and airy with it in their line.
warjarrett
66 posts
 
I have heard and read over-and-over that the best sounding high-pass crossover is simply a capacitor soldered at each input of the amplifier to the main speakers. Or, a little black-box, with 4 RCA jacks outside and 2 capacitors inside. Two pairs of interconnects must come out of the pre-amp: one pair to the subwoofer, the other pair to the black box. Then, a 3rd pair from the black-box to the main amp. As stated in an earlier answer, the value of this capacitor must be calculated for the input impedence of the amp and the frequency. It makes sense to use the same 65 Hz so that the 6dB filter will work perfectly in conjunction with the acoustic roll-off to give you a simple steep 65 Hz cut-off frequency. Then, you can use the 65 Hz Marchand for ONLY the subwoofer, and use its "Damping" adjustment to tweek the midbass sound. The question is: Will a capacitor sound better than the high-pass side of the Marchand crossover?
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