"amplifier maintains its grip on the driver"
Drivers of the world unite! Break free of the tyranny of your amplifiers!
David
Drivers of the world unite! Break free of the tyranny of your amplifiers!
David
When the amplifier has high quality, the active crossover will give better results. If not, it is preferable to use two inexpensive amplifiers, and you can manage easily the power send to each speaker. In such case, intermodulation distortion is further reduced or cancelled. In my case, I did a Butterworth 2 poles 900Hz, and the high out to a TDA2003 from +14V giving 3 or 4w to 4" cone tweeters, and below the 900Hz, it drives a TDA2006 split supply with +-14V (aprox 12/13W) into a 6r 15", both in a Karlson Speaker Project made of my own.
Very interesting observations 🙂
If a multiway faithfully reproduces what comes out of the amplifier then the amplifier is a very important element!
If a multiway faithfully reproduces what comes out of the amplifier then the amplifier is a very important element!
It's the acoustic slopes that really matter, not electrical. Use whatever is needed to achieve your target acoustic crossover slopes.
There is only one correct answer for this debate: It depends.
It depends on the drivers, and on the intended use. For example, a midrange that controls its breakup modes mechanically ( paper folks) may get away with a second order, but if a metal cone, for get it. How far away is the tweeter free air resonance from the crossover? How much power are you intending to pump into them? How are you dealing with offsets and measured differences in phase? How ugly does the tweeter distortion get in it's lower range? How ragged does the mid get?
It depends.
It depends on the drivers, and on the intended use. For example, a midrange that controls its breakup modes mechanically ( paper folks) may get away with a second order, but if a metal cone, for get it. How far away is the tweeter free air resonance from the crossover? How much power are you intending to pump into them? How are you dealing with offsets and measured differences in phase? How ugly does the tweeter distortion get in it's lower range? How ragged does the mid get?
It depends.
For domestic applications I have never heard straight active to sound better than passive , with the best being a combination of active and passive odd / order networks ...
Let me compound it further.
Would you say there are some magical crossover frequencies ?
Lets assume you pick a frequency where you cut the human voice in half. So that there are two membranes(drivers) reproducing that voice (will it sound natural) Definately you do not want a steep slope, however you still want electrical stability 😉
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/images/main_chart.jpg
Would you say there are some magical crossover frequencies ?
Lets assume you pick a frequency where you cut the human voice in half. So that there are two membranes(drivers) reproducing that voice (will it sound natural) Definately you do not want a steep slope, however you still want electrical stability 😉
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/images/main_chart.jpg
Yes. The ones that work best with your drivers and cabinets. Extra magical if you can take the room into account. Other than that, no magic.
I am quite interested in your explanation, do continue and bring the bat-mobile to apprehend the suspect 😉 .
If the crossover were flawed, and they are a compromise, I think I'd rather it be down away from 4kHz than have a rippled response there.
Oddly enough my experience is the exact opposite:
I have never heard a passive sound better than an otherwise identical active speaker regardless of application, be it domestic, studio or PA.
And the difference isn't small either.
Well for PA sure , for studio use it depends on the usage , near field and mastering passive or active/ passive is superior to full active , domestic , the same ...
Since most active system requires EQ and this is done today with DSP , I have never heard one that sounds natural or faithful to the source. Electronic EQing has always been a fail/fail scenario in my books , exceptions being PA and sound reinforcement ...
Regards,
Since most active system requires EQ and this is done today with DSP , I have never heard one that sounds natural or faithful to the source. Electronic EQing has always been a fail/fail scenario in my books , exceptions being PA and sound reinforcement ...
Regards,
I agree. But I also agree with a.wayne that the DSP processing does not always make it better. It can easily be abused to make high Q corrections for blips and dips that ought to be corrected in the driver/enclosure combination, and my guess is some manufacturers do that in order to be able to publish a flat FR. Therefore, I work with analogue active only, with DSP just in an early design stage to get the gist of things.
vac
The thing I like about the second order filter is that it has a small degree of immunity from impedance variations and the ability to control the shape of the knee. If designing with measurements and tools though, this is somewhat irrelevant.
I can't say that one is better than the other. A driver is also a filter. An electrical filter is just an augmentation. We create a goal for the acoustic response and make the difference with the electrical filter.
I was once obsessed with avoiding a fast or steep rolloff. I noticed that an open rolloff can seem better when it's gradual, and I could identify this sound from each driver. It would be quite some time before I came to learn that when a crossover is made well this will not apply, the sound will be continuous as if from a single driver, virtually irrespective of the number of filter orders.
No more than you need. If you can get a fourth order acoustic slope with a first order electrical filter, that's convenient.
If you have a difficult out of band resonance like a horn mouth issue, cut it off. I've used sixth order electrical filtering on one branch in the process of matching delay, with none of the expected issues of poor performance.
Most paper and poly cone drivers (and almost all dome tweeters) have 2nd order natural roll offs. Combine this with a 2nd ordrer filter at the appropriate frequency, play with the Q a little bit by ear, and you have a desirable 4th order LR. Without necessarily thinking about or knowing what you're doing.
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