ok just one more question about crossvers, how are you supposed to control how much wattage goes to each speaker? ImI mean for say you have a 200 watt woofer and a 15 watt tweeter all ready to go in a cabinet and all when you send 215 watts through the set up how do you make sure only 15 is going to the tweeter and that the rest goes to the woofer?
It's Ohm's Law, but applied to impedances instead of pure resistances. I didn't get taught that until sophomore year of college, but it's really just algebra.
If the crossover is done properly, you might not be able to send 200 watts to the woofer and 15 watts to the tweeter. You might only be able to send 50 watts to the woofer before the tweeter sees 15 watts. In this case, the design would be limited by the power handling of the tweeter.
If the crossover is done properly, you might not be able to send 200 watts to the woofer and 15 watts to the tweeter. You might only be able to send 50 watts to the woofer before the tweeter sees 15 watts. In this case, the design would be limited by the power handling of the tweeter.
ok so what if I inreased the impedance of the tweeter circuit with a resistor and fine tune it till it evens out proportionaly with the amount wattage the woofer is getting?
Then your tweeter will be too quiet because it is receiving less power than the "correct" crossover would have given it.
Do you want to think about what would happen if you made such a crossover, and then added an external equalizer to correct for the too-quiet tweeter?
Do you want to think about what would happen if you made such a crossover, and then added an external equalizer to correct for the too-quiet tweeter?
yeh that is true but couldn't I just increase the impedance just till the amount of power that tweeter recieves is proportional its peak rating and proportional with the woofer's input to it's peak rating?
Punk, my young friend, you still havent learnt to listen.....
it is clearly stated in a previous post(?) that....even a small resistor will dampen/attenuate tweeter.... and just a little too big and you wont hear much of the highs, it dies...so to speak
The amount of power that goes to each driver is roughly determined by your choice of crossover, which again relates to your choice of drivers, and to some degree the sound you want to achieve
it is clearly stated in a previous post(?) that....even a small resistor will dampen/attenuate tweeter.... and just a little too big and you wont hear much of the highs, it dies...so to speak
The amount of power that goes to each driver is roughly determined by your choice of crossover, which again relates to your choice of drivers, and to some degree the sound you want to achieve
IF you are concerned about how loud the tweeter is vs. the woofer, then you can "turn down" the more efficient driver (usually the tweeter) with an L-pad. These can be made from a couple of resistors, or there are adjustable ones available for about $5 - good to experiment with.
With a crossover at a reasonable crossover point, the tweeters don't get sent that much power, because there is less power in music in the tweeter range. That said, it is always possible to blow up tweeters.
With a crossover at a reasonable crossover point, the tweeters don't get sent that much power, because there is less power in music in the tweeter range. That said, it is always possible to blow up tweeters.
Hi Punk,
crossovers are complicated. Be prepared to read and learn. Yes, ask questions and your latest is valid.
Joe,
I disagree with your view.
a crossover CAN pass maximum power to any device on the output.
Apply a 10kHz signal at 200W (40Vrms) to the crossover and all the power will go and blow the treble driver (or it's series protection resistor if fitted).
Now change the frequency of the test signal to 20Hz and watch the bass driver starting to struggle with the power sent from the crossover.
Punk,
It is the spread of power in "normal" music that limits what is sent to the individual drivers. This is adjusted by choosing appropriate drivers and crossover frequencies.
The AVERAGE power in music signal over 3kHz is usually less than 5% of the total signal. The peak power can be a very much higher proportion. Fortunately the treble can cope with short term peaks. Treble speakers DO NOT SURVIVE long term test tones at high level.
What does this mean for the crossover/treble driver combination.
Moving the crossover frequency up a little WILL REDUCE the average power sent to the treble. Move the frequency up a lot will massively reduce the average power. Result= long tweeter life.
The down side is you ask the mid driver to handle more of the upper frequencies and because the mid drivers are not usually designed for this duty the sound quality goes down.
That won't matter here. You want massive bass. Add in your protection resistor. It will allow you to turn up the wick and your tweeter will survive a bit longer and you have massive bass.
Similarly move the mid crossover point up to protect the mid driver from big power and it too will survive. Now you can really turn up the wick and get more massive bass.
What the heck, add in another driver and bandlimit it as well so that it can survive the excess power you are going to put into this speaker combination. All to allow you to produce this massive big overblown bass.
Do you see the problem?
Each time you adjust the crossover/drivers to suit survivability you are potentially reducing the sound quality.
What am I saying?
We agreed way back that the client (Punk) sets the target standards.
Blow the tweeter and listen to the BASS.
crossovers are complicated. Be prepared to read and learn. Yes, ask questions and your latest is valid.
Joe,
I disagree with your view.
a crossover CAN pass maximum power to any device on the output.
Apply a 10kHz signal at 200W (40Vrms) to the crossover and all the power will go and blow the treble driver (or it's series protection resistor if fitted).
Now change the frequency of the test signal to 20Hz and watch the bass driver starting to struggle with the power sent from the crossover.
Punk,
It is the spread of power in "normal" music that limits what is sent to the individual drivers. This is adjusted by choosing appropriate drivers and crossover frequencies.
The AVERAGE power in music signal over 3kHz is usually less than 5% of the total signal. The peak power can be a very much higher proportion. Fortunately the treble can cope with short term peaks. Treble speakers DO NOT SURVIVE long term test tones at high level.
What does this mean for the crossover/treble driver combination.
Moving the crossover frequency up a little WILL REDUCE the average power sent to the treble. Move the frequency up a lot will massively reduce the average power. Result= long tweeter life.
The down side is you ask the mid driver to handle more of the upper frequencies and because the mid drivers are not usually designed for this duty the sound quality goes down.
That won't matter here. You want massive bass. Add in your protection resistor. It will allow you to turn up the wick and your tweeter will survive a bit longer and you have massive bass.
Similarly move the mid crossover point up to protect the mid driver from big power and it too will survive. Now you can really turn up the wick and get more massive bass.
What the heck, add in another driver and bandlimit it as well so that it can survive the excess power you are going to put into this speaker combination. All to allow you to produce this massive big overblown bass.
Do you see the problem?
Each time you adjust the crossover/drivers to suit survivability you are potentially reducing the sound quality.
What am I saying?
We agreed way back that the client (Punk) sets the target standards.
Blow the tweeter and listen to the BASS.
yeh thanks for the input, In my situation like the tweeter is XOed at 5kHz and what Andrew said has already crossed my mind so I went ahead and decided to use 2 drivers for the mid range frequencies, low and high mid. With the tweeter crossed around 5kHz I figure that it'll be handling about as much power as it was meant to the high mid is a Eminence 6 inch , I know a crossover point of 5kHz is a little risky for that 6 inch but I think if I drop it a little to 4500 Hz it'll suit the 6 inch mid better and give a flatter response then I let the lower mid take over at 1700 Hz and at around 300 Hz it'll be good to let a reasonable sized woofer take over 
although the response graphs for those mids is a little jumpy but I'm designing series notch filter right now to help out with those spikes and dips a little show when I do build this set up the response won't be as jumpy.
PS: I've constructed my first crosser it's a simple 1st order Butter-worth for a Diappolito arrangement (I don't think I spelled that right but o well) and I'm currently waiting for the drivers to arrive so I can get on it but seeming as I already have to enclosure ready and the crossover installed all I have to do now is drill some leads hole wire up my positive and negative on the drivers and screw them on and I'll have my first official built from scratch project done. I'll try to get pics up but don't expect them any time soon I'm having difficulties with my camera.
although the response graphs for those mids is a little jumpy but I'm designing series notch filter right now to help out with those spikes and dips a little show when I do build this set up the response won't be as jumpy.PS: I've constructed my first crosser it's a simple 1st order Butter-worth for a Diappolito arrangement (I don't think I spelled that right but o well) and I'm currently waiting for the drivers to arrive so I can get on it but seeming as I already have to enclosure ready and the crossover installed all I have to do now is drill some leads hole wire up my positive and negative on the drivers and screw them on and I'll have my first official built from scratch project done. I'll try to get pics up but don't expect them any time soon I'm having difficulties with my camera.
Hi Punk,
Whichever, sounds like progress has been made.
How's the budget? or should I ask the loan company?
A little word of warning.
Single pole high pass filters let a lot of power from below the passband through to the driver. Take care to listen for distortion when turning up the volume. Your ears are very good at telling you when the driver is struggling to cope.
you are getting awfully good at using words or maybe even starting to understand this stuff.punkrokr1701 said:yeh thanks for the input, In my situation like the tweeter is XOed at 5kHz and what Andrew said has already crossed my mind so I went ahead and decided to use 2 drivers for the mid range frequencies, low and high mid. With the tweeter crossed around 5kHz I figure that it'll be handling about as much power as it was meant to the high mid is a Eminence 6 inch , I know a crossover point of 5kHz is a little risky for that 6 inch but I think if I drop it a little to 4500 Hz it'll suit the 6 inch mid better and give a flatter response then I let the lower mid take over at 1700 Hz and at around 300 Hz it'll be good to let a reasonable sized woofer take over
PS: I've constructed my first crosser it's a simple 1st order Butter-worth for a Diappolito arrangement (I don't think I spelled that right but o well) and I'm currently waiting for the drivers to arrive so I can get on it but seeming as I already have to enclosure ready and the crossover installed all I have to do now is drill some leads hole wire up my positive and negative on the drivers and screw them on and I'll have my first official built from scratch project done. I'll try to get pics up but don't expect them any time soon I'm having difficulties with my camera.
Whichever, sounds like progress has been made.
How's the budget? or should I ask the loan company?
A little word of warning.
Single pole high pass filters let a lot of power from below the passband through to the driver. Take care to listen for distortion when turning up the volume. Your ears are very good at telling you when the driver is struggling to cope.
once I get them built I'll be sure to do that, yeh I've been doin alot of learning the past few days and I laugfh at howiggnorant I was when I first started posting here with ideas of 8 ft talls tower of 12 ince woofer and 3 or 4 tweeters,lol, Im glad you guys fed up with me long enough so that I could learn this stuff, thanks. Umm budget's doin better but with christmas here I'm not planning on doin much spending on speakers so that I won't be draining my pocket. actually, I stll have plenty of money left to do 2 more smaller projects but right now I'm currently workin on workin out the kinks in the XO i'm designing for my ever changing big project and I'm rebuilding that so called skyline "professional" speakers that my dad got ripped off on, once I get my Diapolito design done Im gonna start purchasing parts for the Stripped down white van speakers which are now just a pair of actually really nice cabinets that modified for the new drivers.
hmm well I was just wonderin about passive radiators, is it a good deal to get just the radiator when you can just go ahead and get the full driver for a few bucks more?
What are you asking? A PR allows you to decrease the box size while an active driver increases it.
I hope he's asking if you can use a normal driver as a passive radiator... and the answer to that is "yes, you can do that". The interesting thing is that in addition to adding or subtracting mass on the cone, you can also short the voice coil with different resistances.
About the two Alpha 6" mids- no, I believe punk was still talking about his hypothetical fantasy speakers.
About the two Alpha 6" mids- no, I believe punk was still talking about his hypothetical fantasy speakers.
Well for one, joe those "fantasy" speakers are actually becoming a reality believe it or not. I've done sketched up everything , purchased my wood wihcih by the way is the same kinda of birch i'm using for the BBBIB's, dad is finally get his monster table saw out of storage soon so Ill be cuttin those up and starting my cabinets soon. and about the mids Im using the alpha 6 as the upper mid and the Kappa 10 as the lower mid. The speaker everyone keeps callin fantasy are really comin to life now so you cant call it just a dream,lol, and just so you know the design isnt the same as Ive posted earlier AIll get a pic up here later on for you guys becuase this speaker IS gettin built wether you like it or not
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