Hello! I have seen you mention this 400Hz and below crossover point being ideal for WAW many times on this site. May I ask how you arrived at this conclusion? What, for example, makes a 400Hz crossover point, in your opinion, preferable to say, a 600Hz crossover point? Does it primarily come down to the fact that 600Hz is apart of the "critical bandwidth" as you have put it?
The number one criteria is being able to get the woofers and midTweeter within a quarter wavelength at the XO frequency. This places the drivers essentially conncident, so one gets the benefits of a coax without most or all of the time issues eliminated.
Add to that the need to consider the capabilities of the woofers & the midTweeter, how loud you need to play — move the XO up you can play louder usually.
dave
Add to that the need to consider the capabilities of the woofers & the midTweeter, how loud you need to play — move the XO up you can play louder usually.
dave
Understood. Thank you. The midtweet I'm playing with is quite small, with only a 14.5cm^2 Sd, so I thought I should probably set the crossover higher if possible. At 600Hz I still maintain 1/4 wavelength CTC spacing with the woofer I'm working with, so I thought it would be ok, but I remembered your posts about how you like to stick below 400Hz, so I thought I'd reach out in case there were important considerations I was neglecting to factor in. Again, thank you for your response
Isn't it also an idea to crossover at the baffle step frequency, and well away from the resonant frequency of the full range?
Also if you can cross over bellow the resonant frequency of the cabinet, the big heavy bass cone shouldn't excite the panels.
You can kill a lot of birds with one stone with a WAW, the only real drawback is the large value components in the crossover.
Also if you can cross over bellow the resonant frequency of the cabinet, the big heavy bass cone shouldn't excite the panels.
You can kill a lot of birds with one stone with a WAW, the only real drawback is the large value components in the crossover.
Crossing at the baffle step isn't essential but it's a good opportunity.
Normally you pad a tweeter. Crossing at the baffle step gives you some freedom since you can use the FR at it's full sensitivity because you don't need to take it down 6dB.. so you can use one that's lower in sensitivity or, you can choose woofers that keep up with it.
Woofer/fullrange spacing question. If we are running active and able to electronically time align the separate drivers to the listening position, what negatives are we generally left with? It seems that lobing in the vocal range is of considerable concern with driver spacing but when a waf is crossed below 400hz, and even more so lower, are those concerns still worthwhile?
The specific situation that provokes the question is the situation in my home that has been difficult to address in my mind. Because of aesthetics and functional furniture layout, I have come to the conclusion that my best 2ch approach is a fullrange (tang w3 1364sa) on the top shelf of my lamps with a small bass unit on the bottom. These are in the corner so I will be employing the minimum sound absorption for the rear wall bounce, likely around 4-500hz. The acoustic challenges will be addressed down the road but the woofer and fullrange will be 3’ apart and the crossover will be in the 300hz range. Would anyone go into the spacing and possible issues with what I’m thinking of doing?
The specific situation that provokes the question is the situation in my home that has been difficult to address in my mind. Because of aesthetics and functional furniture layout, I have come to the conclusion that my best 2ch approach is a fullrange (tang w3 1364sa) on the top shelf of my lamps with a small bass unit on the bottom. These are in the corner so I will be employing the minimum sound absorption for the rear wall bounce, likely around 4-500hz. The acoustic challenges will be addressed down the road but the woofer and fullrange will be 3’ apart and the crossover will be in the 300hz range. Would anyone go into the spacing and possible issues with what I’m thinking of doing?
I’ve thought about triangular cabinets like that that would essentially extend the baffles considerably. These are the lamps and as can be seen there a 1/2” pole in front of the radiation pattern. The diffraction and at what frequencies is yet for me to understand if it’s even worth worrying about. The lamps could be pushed completely into the corners though and would look a little better than being out as far as I can get away with.
I think though, for my aesthetically I would highly prefer a small sealed cabinet up front with a short 2” absorber hidden behind the speaker and maybe a small plant or maybe a tiny decorative fabric basket stuffed with an old t shirt or something to function as further back reflection control.
The 1/2" diameter pole doesn't do anything, I guess. That's an infinitesimal part of what the 'art' of positioning speakers in ambient (immersion) is asked when finding the best way to set a listening space. The reflecting surfaces around are much more detrimental than a little stick, as you notice. By the way, that corner is for one speaker...uhmmm, corners, cavities ... boxes (speaker 's) and big boxes (rooms).
I've recently made a WAW crossed over around 350hz (near the baffle step frequency) and a tweeter assisted full range (both use 6 1/2 inch bass drivers), the WAW solves a lot of problems in one go, because of the drivers that I have used the frequency extremes aren't as good as the tweeter assisted full range, but everything else in much better.
It would be in the 300-500 range depending on the slope used. The w3 has a tiny .5 mm linear excursion and I believe it is getting close to that at 300hz butters at the higher end of my moderate listening range. That being said, it seems like a lot of drivers first encounter problems in the suspension as the first distortion maker and I don’t know how to think if using all .5mm is going to overwork it or be fine. Having the fullrange three feet above the bass unit is miles away from getting into a 1/4 wavelength spacing anywhere in the useable passband of the w3 so I just wonder if at those lower frequencies and processing it would pose any problems that would be hear able.
If you can get teh drivers within a quarter wavelength at the XO point the drivers become essentially coincident and are already time aligned.
dave