I'd like to know how this turned out since I'm thinking of doing the same thing. I'm familiar with modding and fixing power supplies on electrostats and have bypassed the crossover units before. Made my own bass units and tried a bunch of DSP units (both Behringers, miniDSP, a Brazilian model and an Audia Flex from BiAmp) and found them all to be quite inferior to a well made active x-over. I ended up with a Behringer 3 way and a dual 31 band EQ, I tried 2 ways crossovers and found out that you need to have an overlap with the natural roll off of the panels.
To do it correctly I used a testing microphone and a few programs to check between them to see if I could trust the results. At the time I found a phone app that did quite well but that app has disappeared since. I tested the panels full range and found the lowest roll-off point.
Then used the crossover in 3 way mode but didn't use the mid, since my panels were good to 660Hz, I set the woofers to stop at 800Hz and let the panels go to 600Hz (basically ran them full range) I wasn't sure if I had to terminate them due to the crossover design.
The price of a 3-way active is only a few $ more than a 2-way and I was originally going to do a 3-way until I started testing and found the 3-way set up has too many issues with no gain in sound.
Most subs I tested played nice and flat up to 3kHz which was a big surprise, but you must take into account the timbre changes with subs. They all have a different sound and I found using a dedicated woofer along with a smaller sub gave me the best results. Both played the same range. My amps are good to 1ohm so I had no worries about stress. The load on the woofers was around 3 to 4 Ohms and I was able to hit 24Hz in sealed boxes each had a separate box the woofer was a 12" Infinity from kappa 7s , the sub was a Monitor Audio 10". Both tested flat up to 3kHz but neither sounded just right by themself. The mix really nailed it.
I had much more volume (efficiency) than the Aerius do so I needed to be able to match the panels and I needed a bit more output. Funny thing is the woofers used a box that was 4 times three size of the subs!
I'd like to try and use the box as is with a better woofer or possibly go with an iso baric if there is a way to mount one aiming out the back. I believe the reflected sound will help imaging and if iso mounted they will give higher output with lower range of frequency.
If that board with the electronics is the back panel then that would require moving the power supply to the bottom and that box needs to be air tight to work correctly.
If not iso then a rear port might help get the refected output better.
I'm just not sure that the rear waves are ever going to get the pinpoint staging that a flat panel can do. The waves all cross each other before they ever get to the rear wall which leads me to believe the Aerius may sound better with the rear waves blocked off completely.
Has anyone tried this? The only problem is they have a relatively low output as it is and cutting off half of the sound might make them too low to use.
I take it the 1 ohm resistors are there to keep amps with high ohms ratings from smoking and not required for high current. I question the 20w rating would be good for high current amps. At full power my amp can hit 100v output and have burned an infinity crossover in seconds at moderately loud volume. (That's why I bypassed all crossovers and went with active).
If anyone has attempted anything like this on the Aerius I'd like to know how it went. I'm used to working with JansZen panels and this is my first time with ML.
I can tell there's room for improvement and think it's doable without too much extra work. I'd like to just bypass the crossovers to start and see what that will do. I'll have a better idea of where I'm at once the proper overlap is set. They will never play any lower with those woofers but I'm sure the transition between them will disappear with more control.
From what I'm hearing there a hole in the sound in the 300 to 600Hz range just from moving sliders on a dual 31 band EQ. I haven't spent much time correcting sound since I haven't tested anything yet to confirm this.
