I just built a new set of crossovers. after I hooked them up I knew immediately there had been something wrong. My old x-over was perahps poorly built and my active x-over sounded gritty to me. I had enough materials in old speakers to build another set of x-overs. (except coils) I cant see why they could be so different. Maybe there is a bad joint somewhere in the old ones. Maybe haste and pack rat component selection are to blame. For the latest I salvaged parts. When I first got into diy audio I got the idea better caps would fix things.(anybody been there? yeah!) Caps aren't magic, and they didn't fix my junk. so I ended up with a stash of pretty caps I paid too much for. They do what they are supposed to. Caps are all North Creek & Kimber. Sound is more contrasty, mids are so real and I can hear details at surprisingly low volumes. Bad part is, now I need to rebuild the old x-over with known good parts, so I can see if the caps make a difference that justifies cost. I will post any findings. Bottom line, do it right, or get it from Wayne!

I must mention that the Pi x-over slaughters the Rane AC23 active crossover in sound quality. The Rane seems to impart its own texture and has a thin midrange by comparison. It seems to flatten attack and truncate decay, especially cymbals. This add a hint of that "beer can being hit with a nine iron" sound.(I checked, I wasn't overloading input) Rane is one of the better units around. I did use passive compensation (between amp & tweet). The comp circuit did not function as intended without the rest of the network (even my rat shack meter showed it), it must be in the active network. this is difficult. I think you would have to build your own network from scratch to really get it. I am not the guy for that(yet). I thought it was great untill I heard the difference. Unless I had a big rig in a club I would avoid the active solution. Two Adcom amps and a Rane aint cheap, you know I would use if it was near as good. I think you would pay more for a great active x-over than the price of many Pi speakers. Maybe Bryston would do. Some pro series ten Pi's, big subs and three big amps. Yeah, you would need a club for that. Nevermind

I have seen Theater 4 midrange issues mentioned here, maybe its a bum x-over like mine. Now I can't believe what's coming out of these. I thought they were great before, but WOW! If you don't love your mids, look for a mistake on your part. I know this is subjective territory, but it is blatant. It is really all there! You put on a cd and it's there, you will not need to consider it. What a great speaker!

A lot of this has already been alluded to or said outright by Wayne. I thought It might be good however, to hear how it panned out in my house, far from ideal, and smack in the middle of real life daily use.