Crossfeed Advice

[blip]

I'm just getting my order together for the CMoy that I'm planning on building and I was thinking about ordering the parts to build a crossfeed at the same time. The only problem is I don't know which crossfeed to build.

The Contenders:
The Meier
Th Linkwitz by CMOY

Have any of you tried these? Which do you think is better? How hard are they to build?

Thanks

 

[mikey]

hi blip, its a question of personal preference really - i know that is not much help but its true. ive tried both, including various permutations of each, that is to say, the meier enhanced bass crossfeed, the cmoy with the R!a and 1b resistors in higher/lower values. i built the meier natural crossfeed first and was absolutely crazy about it - i then went on to build the enhanced bass version and was not so crazy about that - i guess meier was right in calling his 1st design - the natrual crossfeed. the circuit is simple and can be completed within half an hour.
i then tried the cmoy - now the cmoy is slightly more complicated than the meier in that it uses more parts and there are certain values that can be played around with which allows you to basically tailor the level of crossfeed. comparing the meier and the cmoy, i preferred the cmoy. the cmoy does not give, imho, the level of crossfeed of the meier - at least i dont perceive it - but it felt good to my ears - i wouldnt say that one is better over the other - they're both good at addressing the problems associated with headphone listening.
i can only suggest that before you start to build one or the other using good or premium parts, build both on a breadboard - buy cheap generic parts, which can always be used for future experiments - gets lots of alligator clips with leads and hook the whole thing up and listen to each for a couple of days before deciding which is the one for you.
cheers

 

[tangent]

It's true that the Meier circuit has fewer parts than the modified Linkwitz, but the Meier designs require buffering, which adds parts. I prefer the Linkwitz because it can be placed in front of the amp without any special support circuitry, if you build the hi-z version. And hey, it's really not that complicated. Twelve resistors, four capacitors, and two DPDT switches. On protoboard, I can build this up in 2 hours including the time to encase it. I have a new circuit board coming soon that lets me build it in just over an hour.

 

[was ist los?]

can the modified linkwitz crossfeed board on tangent's site be used with a cmoy?

 

[guzzler]

"can the modified linkwitz crossfeed board on tangent's site be used with a cmoy"

yep, its got all the relevant connectors =)

g

 

[tangent]

The original application for this circuit was Chu Moy pairing it with his portable amp. So, "yes".

 

[was ist los?]

Thanks for the info, but how big is the board?

 

[tangent]

Roughly 1.5 inches square.

 

[was ist los?]

you guys think i could squeeze one into an altoids mini tin?

 

[tangent]

You'd have to sand the the board down a bit in one dimension, to take off 10 or 20 mils to make it fit. Then you'd have to compromise on the DPDT switch quality in order to ensure that you can close the lid without having to make notches in the lid for the switch mounting nuts. You also probably couldn't use 1/8" jacks, you'd probably have to insert the crossfeed box inline with a headphone extension cable. Finally, you'd have to use small-ish caps, to keep the component height down. Polypropylenes are too big to fit in that small of an enclosure.

 

[was ist los?]

can anyone post their parts list for the modified linkwitz pcb crossfeed from digikey?

 

[tangent]

The capacitors are the P3223-ND and the P3104-ND. Everything else (resistors, switches) are generic.