Different Crossovers

[Dan_Sheets]

I'm just curious whats the difference between the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th order crossovers.

Does it make a lot of difference in the sound.

Also, i was reading about Zobel networks, do they go on the Woofer, Tweeter or Both. And do the go on after or before the crossover.

Thanks

[Hornlover]

Zobels go after the crossover, and can be used on both the woofer and the tweeter. The different crossover 'orders' refers to the slope of the rolloff. Each order is 6db per octave, so a 1st order is 6db/octave, a 2nd order is 12db/octave, and so on. A first order is best as far as sound is concerned, however, most mid or tweeter units need a faster rolloff, either for power handling or resonance effects. In my opinion, crossovers are best handled electronically (in other words, bi-amp).

[Dan_Sheets]

Ok i will go with a 1st order for this priject.

As for the zobel, if using 2 Drivers in Parralel, would they each get a Zobel, or just one after the crossover before i split the wire to goto each driver.

Also, how can i get the Inductive Equivalent for the drivers. I don't have much info on them, and no T&S parameters. I will measure the Ohms with an multimeter of the 2 in paralell.

[cheesehead]

Dan_Sheets:

Hmmm... a friendly suggestion from an almost-newbie. Get thee the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook! Or build a kit or someone else's design to get started. (that's a better idea, since the LDC can be a little dense...)

As I've lurked the past year or so, and built a set of speakers or two, the more I learn about crossovers the more I realize the less I know. Without measuring equipment, it's really easy to build a crappy speaker with great drivers. Just throwing things together without T/S will be tough.

Good luck!

cheesehead

[5th element]

What sounds better 1st 2nd 3rd 4th etc. Neither sound better then the other its the end result with the drivers which matter.

A 1st order on some drivers could sound much worse then 4th order.

For instance if you used a metal cone mid/bass, with its res peak at 8k and a tweeter with a fs of say 1500 with a 1st order chances are it would not sound as good as a higher order crossover due to the limitations or design "flaws" of the drivers in this situation.

1st orders are meant to sound the best because you can make linear phase designs out of them but this requires robust drivers with well extended frequency responses.

I have read that the lower the order the more "real" the speaker sounds.

[Andy G]

Be pretty carefull when working with low order x-os. You MUST have drivers that are suitable.

When it come to 1st order, the 1st order Series X-O is by far the easier to implement and will in nearly every case sound better than the parallel variety. But the drivers must be suitable !!!

For more info visit

http://users.tpg.com.au/users/gradds...ross-overs.htm