1uf or 2uf for helper tweeter

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I have some drivers that go up to about 15Khz and need a bit of help above that. A lot of people say use a 1uf cap to cross at 10Khz (for 8 ohms) but the calculations say a 1uf cap puts the xover freq at 20Khz, but 2uf is 10Khz. Should I use 1uf or 2uf for a helper tweeter? I have a lot of 1uf metal film caps, will these work? Thanks
 
This is the first time the entire spectrum of my system is covered by DIY speakers! :cool: This cheapy mess of drivers sounds better than my mordant shorts running > 80Hz did!

I don't understand why the treble sounds so much better than on my supposed "hi-fi" speakers. Cymbals now sound like bits of metal instead of a generic TSSSss sounds. Very odd. The tweeters cost about 5 pounds each!
 
bigwill said:
This is the first time the entire spectrum of my system is covered by DIY speakers! :cool: This cheapy mess of drivers sounds better than my mordant shorts running > 80Hz did!

I don't understand why the treble sounds so much better than on my supposed "hi-fi" speakers. Cymbals now sound like bits of metal instead of a generic TSSSss sounds. Very odd. The tweeters cost about 5 pounds each!

congratulations!, TL subwoofer + widerange + helper tweeter is a good way to go.

you might be surprised at how cheap the components in many "hi-fi" speakers really are (and also how compromised commercial designs often are), hence the whole diyaudio thing

be sure to check that your tweeters aren't running several dB louder than the rest of your system (and in general that your system has a balanced response. there are several shareware RTA audio analysis programs out there
 
zobsky said:


be sure to check that your tweeters aren't running several dB louder than the rest of your system

Is it possible for this to happen and go unoticed? I don't want to be blasting my ears with loud 20Khz all the time! :dead: I'm 18 so my earing still goes that high and I don't want to mess it up with some badly integrated tweeters :xeye: I have a bad feeling they're too loud actually... turning the treble down on my preamp gets rid of the treble quite a lot - but it's not completely gone like on my other speakers. The treble set to +0 sounds good, possibly rather bright.
 
bigwill said:


Is it possible for this to happen and go unoticed? I don't want to be blasting my ears with loud 20Khz all the time! :dead: I'm 18 so my earing still goes that high and I don't want to mess it up with some badly integrated tweeters :xeye: I have a bad feeling they're too loud actually... turning the treble down on my preamp gets rid of the treble quite a lot - but it's not completely gone like on my other speakers. The treble set to +0 sounds good, possibly rather bright.

even if your hearing goes out to 20KHz, chances are it's not going to be as sensitive at that frequency as say, 1000Hz.

if you have the T/S specs for the drivers, you could compare the efficiency of the widerange and the tweeter to guestimate if you might have a mismatch.

from there, experiment, ... a small resistor is a simple way to pad down the output ot a driver, if needed. google up for more info
 
Re: Re: 1uf or 2uf for helper tweeter

My ears suddenly feel a lot less sensitive :eek:

I wasn't listening that loudly, I swear! My ears feel a bit muffled. Is it possible to have a system that hurts your ears even though it doesn't sound that loud??

Edit: Oh, zobsky pretty much answered my question already :clown:

Edit 2:

Zobsky, both drivers are about 91dB efficient, however, the tweeter does sound awfully "hot" when you put your ear up to it...despite the tweeter being possibly too loud, it doesn't sound harsh or unpleasant in the listening position.

Edit 3 :clown::
Landroval said:


May I ask what driver are you using?

I don't know what the tweeter is, but the wide range driver is a 'Cliff LT200W'. Google returns next to nothing about this driver but it is featured on the CPC website:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?SKU=LSL200WTC&N=411
 
Godzilla said:


I beg to differ, O mighty lizard. Consider the Seas 27TDFC: it has 0.05 mH Le. 1 uF in series (Cs) with 0.05 mH will have a resonant frequency of about 22 khz, which means at 22 kHz the impedances of the capacitor and the tweeter series inductance cancel each other out, driving Re with the entire input. 20 kHz isn't that far off. Note also that Le will have a non-zero equivalent voltage across it, so the tweeter could very well see more voltage at its terminals than present before the capacitor when driven with a signal close to the Cs-Le resonant frequency.

On the other hand, this isn't such a bad thing, since the transfer function up until resonance is pretty close to exactly 6 dB / octave, as opposed to the gradual softening of the slope with standard 1st order RC networks.

As for the original poster: if the tweeter is too hot, merely reduce the capacitance until it comes into balance. That'll get you better results (in my opinion) than fussing with L-pads.


Cheers,
Francois.
 
Yes, to reduce the 'hotness' of your tweeter try a .47uf cap or even a .33uf.... you can also combine caps by twisting them together in parallel or in series. For example; twist a 1uf in parallel with a .47uf and you have 1.47uf cap value.

Peace,
Godzilla

My chart was taken from the parts express catalog (i think) and posted as a guide for others looking to add super tweeters. I rounded off the frequencies to keep the chart organized. I take the numbers as starting points. Listening confirms if the cap value is correct in any given situation.
 
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