[richidoo]

Interesting! My brain that is trained from years of thinking that more digital conversion is bad is scared. But if coloration or signal degradation is not an issue here, I might just do it. I trust your opinion, based on what you've written so far. It would actually be very useful for room correction as well -- I'm using a high quality EQ plugin on my computer for a little bit of room correction, and it would be great to take that out of the DSP usage and switch it to the Xilica.

How would you sonically compare the Xilica (going in analog) vs. the DIY version you described in the former post? Again, I need the most un-colored and transparent sound possible.

I understand your concern. I share it. I have not used a Xilica in my own system so i can't compare it directly to analog or other XO boxes. I have heard them several times as part of trade show demonstrations of Legacy Audio speaker systems. They sounded excellent with very revealing AMT mid/tweeters. The Legacy designer, Bill Dudleston has written on his website that when he considered switching his speaker designs from passive XO filters to digital, he daisy chained 5 of the XD4080 version together and he says he didn't hear degradation. Xilica is well respected and the xilica designer seems to put SQ first. You can read up on it. The one for sale has been there for a while, without digital input I don't think it will disappear anytime soon. I'm sure you can make a lower offer. They also make a 2 in 4 out version, don't know the price.

An analog filter can be really excellent, worthy of any ribbon tweeter. Choosing good opamps and caps helps. For XO filters I like to use STMicro MC33079 opamp unity gain, with Vishay 1813 caps, Dale CMF55 resistors.  Inexpensive and very effective. Add the THAT balanced line rx and driver, and power supply, XLR connectors. It would not be hard to slap it together on perfboard <$100 to see how it sounds if you have someone who knows what they're doing, just using the published circuits. You could go full audiophilanoia with VCaps on the HP only, four for $110 ea.    I think you'd be happy with the Vishays about $1 ea, at least to try the concept.

[Headlands]

I understand your concern. I share it. I have not used a Xilica in my own system so i can't compare it directly to analog or other XO boxes. I have heard them several times as part of trade show demonstrations of Legacy Audio speaker systems. They sounded excellent with very revealing AMT mid/tweeters. The Legacy designer, Bill Dudleston has written on his website that when he considered switching his speaker designs from passive XO filters to digital, he daisy chained 5 of the XD4080 version together and he says he didn't hear degradation. Xilica is well respected and the xilica designer seems to put SQ first. You can read up on it. The one for sale has been there for a while, without digital input I don't think it will disappear anytime soon. I'm sure you can make a lower offer. They also make a 2 in 4 out version, don't know the price.

An analog filter can be really excellent, worthy of any ribbon tweeter. Choosing good opamps and caps helps. For XO filters I like to use STMicro MC33079 opamp unity gain, with Vishay 1813 caps, Dale CMF55 resistors.  Inexpensive and very effective. Add the THAT balanced line rx and driver, and power supply, XLR connectors. It would not be hard to slap it together on perfboard <$100 to see how it sounds if you have someone who knows what they're doing, just using the published circuits. You could go full audiophilanoia with VCaps on the HP only, four for $110 ea.    I think you'd be happy with the Vishays about $1 ea, at least to try the concept.

Man, this is all such great information -- greatly appreciated.

Did he daisy chain five in a row going analog in and out? If he really didn't hear a difference, that's impressive.

I've decided that I'm going to go with a full-blown XO instead of having my sub and mains running in parallel -- it makes more sense, methinks. I pretty much never turn the sub off, so there ya go.  I still can't go digital out of my interface though, because the actual feed to my speakers comes out of my monitor switcher. So I need to decide if I'll go with the Xilica or do the DIY XO thing. The Xilica has more options, of course, for fine-tuning, which is attractive, but I'm still hesitant because it's another conversion. That's the old school in me, and it might be unfounded in this case. The Xilica stuff does seem very highly regarded. Hmmmm!

[richidoo]

I can't find the article where he talks about daisy chaining, sorry. I'll try again later

[Headlands]

,

[richidoo]

This is the quote from Bill Duddleston about the Xiica XD4080 used in Whisper XD speaker system, "When I chose this processor I literally chained five units in a row to evaluate its performance (learned this trick from Bob Stuart at Meridian). It outperformed a unit of our own manufacture and three other units in a blind session.”

From this review on Stereomojo.com:
http://www.stereomojo.com/Legacy%20WhisperXD%20Review.htm/LegacyWhisperXDReview.htm

[Headlands]

Well, I'm gonna go ahead and buy it -- seems like the best option right now.

[richidoo]

I hope it works out for you!

[gkinberg]

I am interested in this topic so I decided to revive this thread.

Richidoo, are you saying that the electronic crossovers such as the driveracks and the Xilica convert the analog input signal to a digital one, presumably for the signal processing, and then back to analog for the ultimate output?

Headlands, what did you think about the Xilica in your system? Where you happy with the performance?

Thanks, Garth