I've said this before, but I had the honor of saying hello and briefly chatting with Dennis in a hallway at a show last year and not only is he talented, he is an exceedingly nice gentleman! Truly one of the good guys!
Question for Amir and Dennis: do you reckon one could get a good chunk of the way by applying EQ to the stock Pioneer speaker instead of making physical mods to the driver, crossover and cabinet?
I'm sure they are not on the level of the AAMs via EQ alone, but I can anecdotally confirm these Pioneers are really quite good when corrected with Audyssey EQ and crossed over to a sub. Results will vary based on room of course. They are brightened up a smidge, and to my ears the 70hz hump is gone. I've got more "hi-fi" gear in my office and den, but I just can't justify kicking the Pioneers out of the living room. Like an old car that runs so well you just can't justify replacing it. But as Dennis himself said, the stock tweeter is not wonderful... EQ can only take you so far.
Alternately (and maybe this is what you're thinking of already) anybody who's interested can check out NoAudiophile's DSP corrections for the BS22. I haven't tried his corrections for the BS22 since I'm running them with Audyssey, but I've run his corrections for other speakers and they darn near turn garbage into gold.
I am still learning here but have always wondered with these cheaper speakers - if the crossover is always such a compromise why not go active with something like a minidsp and some cheap class D amps? Would that not be a better way to solve crossover errors than with passive components and crossover redesign?
I get here that the tweeter replacement also made a huge difference.
For you and I, yeah, that would yield better results. For a talented and experienced designer like Mr. Murphy, no.
Broadly speaking, active speakers with built in amplification and DSP for EQ and active crossover duty are the future. Actually it might be more accurate to say it's the present. Bluetooth speakers, soundbars, tablets, phones, laptops, TV speakers, a lot of car audio... outside of the hifi market this is how things are done now. Even within the Hifi market a lot of offerings take the active approach now. Most (all?) studio monitors as well.
So why modify physically modify the xover on these BS22s instead of going fully active? Well, nothing wrong with that route, but you'd still have to perform physical surgery on the Pioneers to disconnect the existing xover network and install a second set of speaker wire terminals, and you'd have a bit of a Frankenstein-looking setup with four channels of amplification, a MiniDSP in the middle of the signal chain, and a whole bunch of extra cabling. Plus extra wall warts. You could cram all of that inside one of the speaker cabinets but that brings its own hassles and compromises.
Also....
I've had a lot of fun (and continue to have a lot of fun) with DSP-based setups.
But
man do I also love the simplicity of an analog, two-channel setup.
I'm a software engineer by day and sometimes I really value simplicity in my leisure time toys after doing battle with technology for 8+ hours a day.