3way crossover, plz help!

[thatotherguy]

what kind of crossovers should i use? it's for what used to be a loudspeaker (marantz hd 550). i didn't have room for the loudspeakers in my house, and i wasn't going to use them, so i took the drivers out and built some enclosures for them (sealed sattellites dont remember the dimensions off the top of my head, but i could check. subs are ported approx 0.33 cu ft. not counting the volume of the driver or port. port tuned to high 40's(12in flared 2" dia). the reason for that was the driver was rated to go down to 40hz and any longer port wouldn't fit.). i didn't really know what i was doing, but i guess it wouldn't have been much different if i did because i don't have any info on the drivers. anyway, i thought it would be cool to experiment with a 2.2 configuration. the only problem is, my amp is only two channel, so the wattage is the same going to the subs as it is to the sats. the other thing wrong, was the sats are wired in parallel, so i have to drastically compensate with eq's.

i have potentiometers on the mids and subs which i dug out of the loudspeakers. this helps a little as now the mids are turned down very low so the bass can be heard more.

with all this explained, here are the problems. mostly, the bass is too weak. i can't hear the bass drum in the music very well unless i set the amp eq all the way up on the lowest frequencies, and all the way down on the others.

what i was going to do was put resistance of some sort on the whole satts, and redo the crossovers. i could put another potentiometer or a resistor in the satts controlling the whole thing. i also thought about putting the mid/tweeter in series, but i'm not sure if thats a good idea.

so finally for the crossovers, the original crossover points were 3000hz and 800hz, now they are 3000hz and about 530hz. they are also poor quality 1st order. i was going to put in second order(12db/octv) crossovers at least. does it matter what kind of caps/coils i use? which ones should i use? and will it totally kill the mid if i change the low point to mid 100's?

any ideas on any of this are greatly appreciated, sry for the long post.

[PeteMcK]

Whether you can hear the bass drum is unlikely to have much to do with the xover, I think you should be looking for info on the speaker drivers and ensure you'e got reasonable box design before you start thinking about xovers...

[thatotherguy]

yes, ive heard that quite a bit, but i have no idea where to get info on drivers from an old loudspeaker, i've looked but no success. right now, i just want to eliminate the high frequencys from the woofers so i can turn up the watts and hear the bass. the ports put out a relatively low sound, and it is somewhat decent. worst comes to worst and i redo the crossovers and it still sounds terrible, i'll seal up the port, put some damping material in them and have a sealed enclosure.

thank you for the reply, ill keep that in mind.

[thatotherguy]

anyone?

[PeteMcK]

http://sound.westhost.com/tsp.htm

[thatotherguy]

wow thx! i'll look into that, i think i have most of that stuff...

one more thing, like i said in my first post, does it matter what kind of caps or coils i use? are nonpolar electrolytic fine? or is there any advantage to polar? and does it make a difference what kind of coil i use (iron core, foil core, air core)?

i was going to buy them from partsexpress, if there's a better place for the US plz let me know.

[PeteMcK]

In a crossover, you should use nonpolarised electrolytics where electrolytics are required; as far as coils go, use air core, although iron core are OK for the larger ones unless you are running PA system at high volume. When comparing inductors, chose those with the lowest resistance (i.e. larger diameter wire). But otherwise, chose the cheapest.

However, as I said, your problem seems to be related to the box design not the xover. The dimensions of the original aren't really that big, why not use something of equivalent volume?...after all, it was designed that way for a reason...

A couple of other comments - "poor quality 1st order" - what do you base this on, if you have no data on the drivers? (xovers aren't independent, they are designed to work with the driver characteristics) Do you have a schematic of the original xover?
"will it totally kill the mid if i change the low point to mid 100's?" - most likely
"the wattage is the same going to the subs as it is to the sats. the other thing wrong, was the sats are wired in parallel" It's not clear how you've got these wired, but it sounds dodgy...are you running the "sats" from one channel and the "subs" from the other of a single stereo amp?

[PeteMcK]

p.s., have you checked that your woofers are wired in phase?

[thatotherguy]

first off, thx once again for the help.

you should use nonpolarised electrolytics where electrolytics are required

how do i know if i need electrolytic? are they always used? i don't have the details on the original crossover, just that its at 2000hz and 800hz. i could take a picture if you want.

However, as I said, your problem seems to be related to the box design not the xover. The dimensions of the original aren't really that big, why not use something of equivalent volume?...after all, it was designed that way for a reason...

so i measured the original box today, it's about 1.1cu. ft.(a little more to be exact). it was filled with damping material though. i can't remember the name of the enclosure, but it had damping material inside, and a port with some sort of damping device in it(a metal disc with foam on the back). is there any way to find out how much volume the material took up?(is there a usual percentage?)

what i meant by the poor quality 1st order crossovers was that i bought them from an electronics store, and the caps are like 50v.

yes the woofers are wired in phase

[Moondog55]

Sounds like an Aperiodic vent