OK, Im going to reveal my ignorance here so be kind.
I have tweeters and woofers (Peerless: 2x P810921 1"tweeters and 4x 830883 6.5"woofers).
I wish to use pre-made crossovers as Im not an electrical engineer.
Now the question, is it possible to "tune" the crossover by replacing a component until the desired separation of frequencies is accomplished and the sound is right?
I have tweeters and woofers (Peerless: 2x P810921 1"tweeters and 4x 830883 6.5"woofers).
I wish to use pre-made crossovers as Im not an electrical engineer.
Now the question, is it possible to "tune" the crossover by replacing a component until the desired separation of frequencies is accomplished and the sound is right?
Is it possible? yes. But how hard (without the ability to measure) depends on how well trained you are with music, identifying anomalies over a particular frequency band of annoyance, your knowledge of the behaviour of your specific drivers and how sensitive your ears are.
For most of us - that would be as easy as finding your way through Fangorn forest blindfolded without legs.
Worst case - you could blow your tweeters ($160+ shipping of damage) and blow your amplifier.
The drivers you have are worth implementing properly (they are good drivers). You don't want to "fry" your lovely Peerless 810921 with a guessed crossover. Another possibility is your initial guessed crossover could present a low load to your amplifier and cook that too.
An off the shelf crossover at the very least will not account for your specific drivers impedance - remember changes in impedance greatly affect crossover behaviour.
The options (most to least preferred):
1. Find an existing design using those drivers and implement that
2. Ask someone (like Jay) to simulate / model a crossover for you. You would need to let that person know the cabinet constraints (size) and driver layout you want. A 2 way MTM or 2.5 way TMM are possible. Or they could work it out for you....
3. Cannibalise 2 different designs that use those drivers. ie. "Copy" the woofer circuit of one MTM design usign the 830883, and copy the tweeter leg of another design using the 810921.
Whatever you do - make sure you measure impedance across the terminals of your completed speaker before you plug it into an amplifier to make sure you don't have a short somewhere and apply low power initially.
Cheers,
David.
For most of us - that would be as easy as finding your way through Fangorn forest blindfolded without legs.
Worst case - you could blow your tweeters ($160+ shipping of damage) and blow your amplifier.
The drivers you have are worth implementing properly (they are good drivers). You don't want to "fry" your lovely Peerless 810921 with a guessed crossover. Another possibility is your initial guessed crossover could present a low load to your amplifier and cook that too.
An off the shelf crossover at the very least will not account for your specific drivers impedance - remember changes in impedance greatly affect crossover behaviour.
The options (most to least preferred):
1. Find an existing design using those drivers and implement that
2. Ask someone (like Jay) to simulate / model a crossover for you. You would need to let that person know the cabinet constraints (size) and driver layout you want. A 2 way MTM or 2.5 way TMM are possible. Or they could work it out for you....
3. Cannibalise 2 different designs that use those drivers. ie. "Copy" the woofer circuit of one MTM design usign the 830883, and copy the tweeter leg of another design using the 810921.
Whatever you do - make sure you measure impedance across the terminals of your completed speaker before you plug it into an amplifier to make sure you don't have a short somewhere and apply low power initially.
Cheers,
David.
My recommendations, in order of preference.
1) Join or start a local audio club. You will certainly find people as interested in audio as yourself. One or more of them may help you with design and measurement.
2) Spend time learning Speaker Workshop or some of the other free design/measurement tools.
3) find a happy medium between the rolloffs of the low and high frequency drivers and design a cookbook crossover with zobels and experiment with tweeter polarity and padding to get a good balance. Do a lot of trial and error listening to lots of music and comparing your speaker to a known good reference speaker to try to get a good balance.
1) Join or start a local audio club. You will certainly find people as interested in audio as yourself. One or more of them may help you with design and measurement.
2) Spend time learning Speaker Workshop or some of the other free design/measurement tools.
3) find a happy medium between the rolloffs of the low and high frequency drivers and design a cookbook crossover with zobels and experiment with tweeter polarity and padding to get a good balance. Do a lot of trial and error listening to lots of music and comparing your speaker to a known good reference speaker to try to get a good balance.
Off the shelf crossovers are a pretty poor solution.
Your best bet it to try and find an existing design that uses those drivers.
If your are going to design your own crossovers you need the right tools. I use SoundEasy V14 with John K's guide. The mic I use is based on a panasonic capsule. This does give very good results.
I think anyone who wishes to build speakers but does not have the tools to properly design a crossover should look to build an exisiting design or go with a kit. There are plenty to choose from.
Your best bet it to try and find an existing design that uses those drivers.
If your are going to design your own crossovers you need the right tools. I use SoundEasy V14 with John K's guide. The mic I use is based on a panasonic capsule. This does give very good results.
I think anyone who wishes to build speakers but does not have the tools to properly design a crossover should look to build an exisiting design or go with a kit. There are plenty to choose from.
Finding an existing design is the best choice but it's not going to be easy to find a design with those drivers together but you can get lucky. It's either a MTM or a TMM 2.5 way I imagine.
Have a look at Jay's site as some of his crossover designs could give you some clues and be a great starting point. He has a great article on designing a crossover using software only and would get you much closer than textbook formulae.
http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spkrbldg/
Have a look at Jay's site as some of his crossover designs could give you some clues and be a great starting point. He has a great article on designing a crossover using software only and would get you much closer than textbook formulae.
http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spkrbldg/
the art in loudspeakers...
is truly crossover design and implementation.
Crossovers can be quite difficult and are more than just a sum of parts or good simulations. One solution, suggested by Dave Bullet(#3 on his list) suggests finding some designs which use your particular drivers. Not an ideal approach, but maybe one worth investigating. An already suggested site, Jay's speaker projects , has a project using these drivers (simulations only, but it appears to be thorough) also see elsewhere on his site regarding tuning crossovers.
Commercial designs often go through several incarnations of the crossover to get it "right" based on the designer's tastes, biases and voicing requirements.
Another approach could be the use of a good electronic crossover and multi-amping. That way a great number of crossover orders and frequencies can be tried, until one that you enjoy can be found that works with your drivers. Then implement it using passive components (if that's what you want) or keep the setup multi-amped.
Just curious, does Peerless use these drivers (together) in any of their designs ?
stew
is truly crossover design and implementation.
Crossovers can be quite difficult and are more than just a sum of parts or good simulations. One solution, suggested by Dave Bullet(#3 on his list) suggests finding some designs which use your particular drivers. Not an ideal approach, but maybe one worth investigating. An already suggested site, Jay's speaker projects , has a project using these drivers (simulations only, but it appears to be thorough) also see elsewhere on his site regarding tuning crossovers.
Commercial designs often go through several incarnations of the crossover to get it "right" based on the designer's tastes, biases and voicing requirements.
Another approach could be the use of a good electronic crossover and multi-amping. That way a great number of crossover orders and frequencies can be tried, until one that you enjoy can be found that works with your drivers. Then implement it using passive components (if that's what you want) or keep the setup multi-amped.
Just curious, does Peerless use these drivers (together) in any of their designs ?
stew
http://www.rjbaudio.com/Audiofiles/FRDtools.html
http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spkrbldg/
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113361&highlight=
/sreten.
http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spkrbldg/
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113361&highlight=
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
/sreten.Thanks
Ive learnt a lot and you are right Jay had the crossover already designed for these drivers.
Next will be some research and experimentation with enclosures.
Volume and porting can be altered as MDF is cheap and Ive lots of toys I mean tools to shape up just what is needed.
Ill keep looking and asking till Im happy with the theory then start
working.
Ive learnt a lot and you are right Jay had the crossover already designed for these drivers.
Next will be some research and experimentation with enclosures.
Volume and porting can be altered as MDF is cheap and Ive lots of toys I mean tools to shape up just what is needed.
Ill keep looking and asking till Im happy with the theory then start
working.Thanks to all!
Im very gratefull for your contributions.
Ill print off and study all suggestions and get my áged' father to assist with the crossover. He is a retired electronic technician.
Im very keen to hear what they sound like and if for $1000 I can match a set of $3000 Wharfedales or Focals.
Thanks again
Steve
Im very gratefull for your contributions.
Ill print off and study all suggestions and get my áged' father to assist with the crossover. He is a retired electronic technician.
Im very keen to hear what they sound like and if for $1000 I can match a set of $3000 Wharfedales or Focals.
Thanks again
Steve
This is interesting. Someone emailed a few days ago asking for a crossover design for MTM or TMM with four 830883's and two 810921's he already bought. Are you the same person?
In fact, a person in this forum (I believe marchel) built a TMM with a crossover I designed (posted above by sreten). Note that this crossover was from my quick, rough modeling.
Actually, I'm not so comfortable with a TMM 2.5-way design. Depending on midwoofers' HD profile and room acoustics, TMM can sound "heavy" due to its natural full, 6 dB BSC. Tweeter network fine tuning doesn't help much in this case.
A while ago, upon someone's request, I designed an MTM crossover for this driver combination. This was designed more carefully than the above TMM crossover. I sent this crossover to the person I talked about above. If you're interested, it's here:
http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spkrbldg/Misc/Peerless_HDS_MTM.gif
As for the cabinet and port tuning, the same dimensions as those of my Usher/Peerless MTM design can be used.
In fact, a person in this forum (I believe marchel) built a TMM with a crossover I designed (posted above by sreten). Note that this crossover was from my quick, rough modeling.
Actually, I'm not so comfortable with a TMM 2.5-way design. Depending on midwoofers' HD profile and room acoustics, TMM can sound "heavy" due to its natural full, 6 dB BSC. Tweeter network fine tuning doesn't help much in this case.
A while ago, upon someone's request, I designed an MTM crossover for this driver combination. This was designed more carefully than the above TMM crossover. I sent this crossover to the person I talked about above. If you're interested, it's here:
http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spkrbldg/Misc/Peerless_HDS_MTM.gif
As for the cabinet and port tuning, the same dimensions as those of my Usher/Peerless MTM design can be used.
Jay_WJ said:
Hi,
I agree, a TMM 2.5 way is not a good idea for near wall placement,
they need space away from room boundaries. But they are much
less intrusive then a correctly hieghted MTM, which I do not like.
Zaph described "warm sounding" drivers (due to mild bass distortion)
balancing better with less BSC but I do not think that it applies here.
I think TMM 2.5 way is better than MTM 2 way, but not as flexible.
/sreten.
hybridfiat you don't need any special skills or training to build crossovers - the kind of diagram Sreten posted from Jay's site makes a great template. A soldering iron and some solder and perf board and you're on your way.
Just dive into it and give it a try - I think you may derive great satisfaction out of doing this part of the build - it's actually quite fun and you'll gain a lot of knowledge and experience from doing so.
Just dive into it and give it a try - I think you may derive great satisfaction out of doing this part of the build - it's actually quite fun and you'll gain a lot of knowledge and experience from doing so.
Oh boy, its very neat ... I dare not say, beginners problem 
First, the two channels must be mounted exactly the same, preferably, if you want it to perform the best
Second, the inductors may cause problems, please study this
http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/coils.htm
You may not notice any problem, but anyway thats how it is
btw ... dont bother with short connections ... its much better to use the whole space with as much distance between the coils as possible
Its mean, I know, but others should agree
First, the two channels must be mounted exactly the same, preferably, if you want it to perform the best
Second, the inductors may cause problems, please study this
http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/coils.htm
You may not notice any problem, but anyway thats how it is
btw ... dont bother with short connections ... its much better to use the whole space with as much distance between the coils as possible
Its mean, I know, but others should agree
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