Quote Originally Posted by Mannermusic View Post
Last sentence! Been there, etc. It gets beyond the hobby stage. Thing is, after some years, everything becomes unstable - connections, electronics degrade . . . and you don't realize it at first, the human brain tends to adapt. So, KISS is best philosophy in the real world. And, a well developed passive system sounds plenty good, to these ears, at least. In fact, better in some ways. No magic. I like your "down the rabbit hole" comment.
I run full active 4 way, bi-amp and passive set-up's. There is something to be said for the simplicity of a passive system but even they can have issues such as the dreaded Bi-amp switch and potentiometers. I have had more issues with the pot's in my old school L/R active crossovers. You really need to go into maintenance mode every couple of months to rotate and clean off the whippers as part of it. Plug and unplug connectors and so on.

I would avoid using pot's in new crossovers and use stepped attenuation instead like L250/9800 as examples.

I don't think that's big price to pay and with modern DSP it's not an issue no Pots! One thing for sure if you can take measurements good enough to do a passive crossover you can certainly use them to create DSP filters for an all active system.

The ease of which you can create filters using DSP is impressive so you can try and make changes almost on the fly. Simply can't do that with passive networks so if experimentation is your thing DSP has distinct advantages.

Either way active or passive it's all a fun time!

Rob