Hi,
Thank you for helping me.
I've searched but apparently don't know the right way to search for the answer. This has to be a common design situation.
I'm building a 3.5-way speaker and trying to select the drivers.
The woofers are 200-watt RMS. I have a mid that is 150-watt RMS. And the tweeter is 25 watt RMS.
What am I supposed to do to integrate that 25-watt tweeter into the mix without risking damage to the driver?
I've never built a crossover before, but am learning.
Thanks,
Dan
Thank you for helping me.
I've searched but apparently don't know the right way to search for the answer. This has to be a common design situation.
I'm building a 3.5-way speaker and trying to select the drivers.
The woofers are 200-watt RMS. I have a mid that is 150-watt RMS. And the tweeter is 25 watt RMS.
What am I supposed to do to integrate that 25-watt tweeter into the mix without risking damage to the driver?
I've never built a crossover before, but am learning.
Thanks,
Dan
Hi Dan,
There is less power in the upper frequencies so that may not be a mismatch at all.
A 3.5 way is an ambitious project when you are just starting out. People often get their feet wet with a much simpler 2 way. What have you done before?
There is less power in the upper frequencies so that may not be a mismatch at all.
A 3.5 way is an ambitious project when you are just starting out. People often get their feet wet with a much simpler 2 way. What have you done before?
I always seem to bite off more than I can chew, lol.
Regarding what I've done before, it's mostly a lot of studying and theory-crafting. I have NOT built anything since I was a teenager, over 30 years ago.
That said, I'm still planning to build this 3.5 way.
Since there is less power in the upper frequencies, does that mean that I don't need to do anything to protect that driver?
"does that mean that I don't need to do anything to protect that driver"
Nothing extra (on top of the crossover).
I do HF tests (sweeps in REW starting at 1kHz) an tweeters without any protection at all.
If I forgot, and started the sweep at 20Hz, the tweeter might explode.
Nothing extra (on top of the crossover).
I do HF tests (sweeps in REW starting at 1kHz) an tweeters without any protection at all.
If I forgot, and started the sweep at 20Hz, the tweeter might explode.
The crossover is going to be quite difficult and you need a solid understanding of them before attempting this. You also need to be able to measure unless you are hoping to do this simply by voicing. I suggest you read two of the sticky threads here about starting from scratch and intro to xo’s.
Wattage is much less important then efficiency and resistance.
Speakers and crossover frequencies are selected based on the fr response of each individual driver.
Do you have measuring capability? Like REW?
Thank you for directly answering my question.
I am planning to use rew once I get all of the drivers delivered and my enclosures are done.
Thank you. I never stopped to think about how the power actually flows through a speaker, before. This is really becoming an enlightening project.
Thank you.
I have not used it yet, but am planning to use REW once I get the speakers into their enclosure. I'm probably going to experiment a little with that design, too. I always planned to use REW to sort out the frequency response and adjust the crossover frequencies.
The woofers I'm using are supposedly 95 db and going to use compression drivers for the mids and highs, and they are super sensitive, so will need to tame them a lot.
95dB for a woofer is not bad
wattage becomes even less important
with just a few watts it will get crazy loud in normal size room
wattage becomes even less important
with just a few watts it will get crazy loud in normal size room
I pay no attention to the power handling spec. There is no definition of it, so they are very hard to compare.
In a typical hifi system you will not run into any issues, you are likely using much less power than you think.
dave
That's pretty bold for a 1st build. I have tried to make something like this, and have never been 100% happy with the results. In fact, I gave up on CDs for midrange (tried a few good ones: B&C DE950, JBL 2445J, Community M200) and have switched to using horn loaded cones.
Your compression drivers will not be the weak link in the system you describe, unless you are making a boutique build that runs the CDs over a very wide bandwidth. Even if you try that, power is not the problem: you'll be distortion limited well before you are power limited.
JBL Technical Note Volume 1, Number 8
"Distortion in high frequency drivers is largely a function of acoustical output, not electrical input"
Their 2445J CD can handle 100 watts ...but when they put 6.3V (2.5 watts) into it, they measured 25% distortion at 10kHz.
In any wide bandwidth CD build (as seen on the Inlow Sound website and other boutique builds), the only way to avoid this distortion is to put less power into the driver. This is true no matter how cheap or expensive the driver is, or how much power it can theoretically handle.
https://sound-au.com/articles/pa.htm#ref
"Past a certain limit (which varies with frequency vs. horn cutoff), supplying more power creates no increase in SPL, but simply creates more and more distortion."