Hello All,
On my build I'm considering using an active crossover as I'd prefer the adjustments. Currently have the Audison AV6 crossover for each speaker. Each side will have 1 6.5 Audison Voce, 1 6.5' KEF R series, one 1' KEF Uni-Q tweeter, one 1' Audison tweeter. Going to implement the D'Appolito configuration with the additional tweeter above the 6.5.
The height will be between 28-30', Width of 10' and Depth between 8-10'. Unable to find the mechanical parameters for the KEF drivers. Any recommendations on the dimensions would be very much appreciated as well.
Thanks for your time gentlemen
On my build I'm considering using an active crossover as I'd prefer the adjustments. Currently have the Audison AV6 crossover for each speaker. Each side will have 1 6.5 Audison Voce, 1 6.5' KEF R series, one 1' KEF Uni-Q tweeter, one 1' Audison tweeter. Going to implement the D'Appolito configuration with the additional tweeter above the 6.5.
The height will be between 28-30', Width of 10' and Depth between 8-10'. Unable to find the mechanical parameters for the KEF drivers. Any recommendations on the dimensions would be very much appreciated as well.
Thanks for your time gentlemen
It is not clear to me from what you write. Are you aware that active crossovers implies biamping or triamping, meaning separate power amps for woofers and tweeters?
first you have to chose an active crossover (of which there are many) and depending on what you get the mechanical parameters of the drivers may or may not be relevant. or are you asking about box tuning for these drivers?(as in based on Fs and Vas and the like..)
My apologies. Tried to edit after posting, yet got an error message.
My confusion in going active is the type of crossover to use. A Beringer, or what looks simpler to me yet I don't know is using a better quality car crossover like the Audio Control 6XS. On the Behringer do you run balanced inputs to your enclosures? On a typical $200-300 price range how many channels can you adjust? Lowpass, highpass, and mids, and subwoofer are all able to be adjusted correct?
On the dimensions I'm trying to determine the best width and depth for 28-30'. Not having the mechanical parameters for 2 of the 4 drivers is why I ask. Leaning towards doing it similar to the KEF R series depth and width of R300. Other than assume the numbers, don't know of a better resolution.
Appreciate the assistance gentlemen.
Make a donation after I get this done
My confusion in going active is the type of crossover to use. A Beringer, or what looks simpler to me yet I don't know is using a better quality car crossover like the Audio Control 6XS. On the Behringer do you run balanced inputs to your enclosures? On a typical $200-300 price range how many channels can you adjust? Lowpass, highpass, and mids, and subwoofer are all able to be adjusted correct?
On the dimensions I'm trying to determine the best width and depth for 28-30'. Not having the mechanical parameters for 2 of the 4 drivers is why I ask. Leaning towards doing it similar to the KEF R series depth and width of R300. Other than assume the numbers, don't know of a better resolution.
Appreciate the assistance gentlemen.
Make a donation after I get this done
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sounds like a mix of car audio and consumer home speaker components with a few design problems mixed in.
like Enzo pointed out active x-over choices require more amp channels to run,do you have those or is that going to be decided on later?
like Enzo pointed out active x-over choices require more amp channels to run,do you have those or is that going to be decided on later?
If you do not have amplifiers, then you should consider amplifiers with build-in crossover.
There are many out there. To name a few MiniDSP ICEpower and Hypex DSP amplifiers with PC software for adjusting crossover. Also many plateamplifiers have build in crossovers.
There are many out there. To name a few MiniDSP ICEpower and Hypex DSP amplifiers with PC software for adjusting crossover. Also many plateamplifiers have build in crossovers.
Yes. I have an additional power amplifier. To be clear you must an additional amp for any configuration of active?
Only car components are the Audison AV6. And I don't think of them and a few other brands like morel, focal, hertz, to be lacking to home audio as majority of car speakers are, but just my opinion. Once my router gets here this week believe it's time to just do it. At a certain point I need to do it to learn more. The crossover has just been a nuisance. Passive or Active
To be clear and keep it simple (I'm not much of a technical guy so I'm hoping to be able to speak in lay-person's terms):
Passive crossover:
You have the amplifier channel send the amplified signal to the passive cross-over and this passive cross-over splits the amplified signal to each of the drivers.
Active crossover:
The non-amplified signal is sent to the active crossover. The active crossover splits this to separate non-amplified signals for each driver in the speaker. These multiple signals then need to be amplified by separate amps, each sending a seperate signal to each driver.
So for a pair of speakesr with a tweeter and a midrange, going active will mean you'll need four amp channels: one for the left tweeter, one for the right tweeter, one for the left midrange, one for the right midrange. That's four amp channels (remember that a stereo amp is two amp channels already).
Sounds though that you're building an in-car system? Both of your 6.5" drivers have their own tweeters and then you're adding a third tweeter too? I can only think that you would do that in a car and not a home speaker? But then you mention D'Appolito configuration...
I'm really not an expert at all and only know the name D'Appolito configuration in basic terms. For me that means two identical midrange drivers (so don't mix the Kef and the Audison Vuce together) and a single tweeter (so shouldn't use 6.5" drivers with their own tweeters like the Kef Uni-Q and the Audison Voce - you end up with three completely different tweeters).
Actually, from my basic understanding, the reason for the D'Appolito configuration is to compensated for the problem of the mid-range and tweeter being in different places. The Kef Uni-Q driver you have is another solution to this problem by having the tweeter placed right in the middle of the midrange driver, i.e. the sound they produce comes from the same place.
The Audison Voce has also the same solution but really to be honest car speakers do this mostly for reasons of space, not for reasons of audio quality, the same for in-wall home installation speakers with the tweeter stuck in the middle of the driver.
Go for it with your speaker building plans. But perhaps either change your plans by using different drivers, or perhaps go about making a good pair of speakers using just the Kef Uni-q drivers?
Active v passive: if you're not following speaker building plans, then active means it's easy to experiment and work out the cross-over you need. But realise it means using a lot more amps. Passive is lot easier to build and complete your speakers but only if you're following a plan where the cross-over has already been designed.
Your Audison cross-over sounds like it is for car audio and will have fixed, non-adjustable cross-over points and is only designed for Audison drivers (not the Kef) and then also for getting good sound in a car, not your living room. If it does have adjustments, they are likely to be for tuning the tone of the speaker to your particular car and this may not be the same as adjusting cross-over filters in the traditional way.
Passive crossover:
You have the amplifier channel send the amplified signal to the passive cross-over and this passive cross-over splits the amplified signal to each of the drivers.
Active crossover:
The non-amplified signal is sent to the active crossover. The active crossover splits this to separate non-amplified signals for each driver in the speaker. These multiple signals then need to be amplified by separate amps, each sending a seperate signal to each driver.
So for a pair of speakesr with a tweeter and a midrange, going active will mean you'll need four amp channels: one for the left tweeter, one for the right tweeter, one for the left midrange, one for the right midrange. That's four amp channels (remember that a stereo amp is two amp channels already).
Sounds though that you're building an in-car system? Both of your 6.5" drivers have their own tweeters and then you're adding a third tweeter too? I can only think that you would do that in a car and not a home speaker? But then you mention D'Appolito configuration...
I'm really not an expert at all and only know the name D'Appolito configuration in basic terms. For me that means two identical midrange drivers (so don't mix the Kef and the Audison Vuce together) and a single tweeter (so shouldn't use 6.5" drivers with their own tweeters like the Kef Uni-Q and the Audison Voce - you end up with three completely different tweeters).
Actually, from my basic understanding, the reason for the D'Appolito configuration is to compensated for the problem of the mid-range and tweeter being in different places. The Kef Uni-Q driver you have is another solution to this problem by having the tweeter placed right in the middle of the midrange driver, i.e. the sound they produce comes from the same place.
The Audison Voce has also the same solution but really to be honest car speakers do this mostly for reasons of space, not for reasons of audio quality, the same for in-wall home installation speakers with the tweeter stuck in the middle of the driver.
Go for it with your speaker building plans. But perhaps either change your plans by using different drivers, or perhaps go about making a good pair of speakers using just the Kef Uni-q drivers?
Active v passive: if you're not following speaker building plans, then active means it's easy to experiment and work out the cross-over you need. But realise it means using a lot more amps. Passive is lot easier to build and complete your speakers but only if you're following a plan where the cross-over has already been designed.
Your Audison cross-over sounds like it is for car audio and will have fixed, non-adjustable cross-over points and is only designed for Audison drivers (not the Kef) and then also for getting good sound in a car, not your living room. If it does have adjustments, they are likely to be for tuning the tone of the speaker to your particular car and this may not be the same as adjusting cross-over filters in the traditional way.
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Hmm, perhaps your Audison 6.5" driver is just the mid-range driver and not the AV x6.5 dual channel driver. Ignore the bits then about having three tweeters, you only have two.
Using car audio crossover is fine, whatever works. The audiocontrol 6XS looks like an adjustable analog crossover. It must be a 3 way speaker with sub 20-90, mid is 90-250, tweeter 250 and up. I'm not sure that will work for you. Maybe it is intended for 2ch coaxial passive speakers for the high pass signals? 250Hz is too low for any tweeter. Probably I am not reading it right, or Crutchfield is not explaining it right.
A Beringer DCX2496 is very flexible and powerful digital crossover which will allow very precise adjustments. Behringer is intended for professional audio use, so it has XLR inputs and output jacks so you may need adapters to connect to your car audio amplifiers. Behringer has a lot of features but the quality is low, so reliability and sound quality are not the best. miniDSP is another inexpensive digital crossover option, with RCA connectors for your car amps, requires a computer to set the adjustments, but runs stand alone. That might be a good choice. For active crossover, you need one amplifier channel for each and every driver and the crossover comes before the amps. In passive crossover only one amp for left and one for right, and the crossover filters come after the amp.
The dimensions of the speaker boxes will depend on the measured woofer parameters. Tweeters are sealed, they don't interact with the air in the box, but woofers use the air in the box as a spring to make them work correctly, so the box volume sets the spring rate, and is critical part of the speaker design.
Estimated driver parameters for audison av6.5 are provided in the mfg specsheet:
Use this program to determine the box volume from the driver specs:
LinearTeam
For the KEF woofers you can either measure them yourself with this tool or figure out the volume of the box from whence they came, or just stick them in any old box size and fuggetaboutit. 🙂 6.5 woofers often live in sealed boxes about 15-20 liters, ymmv.
A Beringer DCX2496 is very flexible and powerful digital crossover which will allow very precise adjustments. Behringer is intended for professional audio use, so it has XLR inputs and output jacks so you may need adapters to connect to your car audio amplifiers. Behringer has a lot of features but the quality is low, so reliability and sound quality are not the best. miniDSP is another inexpensive digital crossover option, with RCA connectors for your car amps, requires a computer to set the adjustments, but runs stand alone. That might be a good choice. For active crossover, you need one amplifier channel for each and every driver and the crossover comes before the amps. In passive crossover only one amp for left and one for right, and the crossover filters come after the amp.
The dimensions of the speaker boxes will depend on the measured woofer parameters. Tweeters are sealed, they don't interact with the air in the box, but woofers use the air in the box as a spring to make them work correctly, so the box volume sets the spring rate, and is critical part of the speaker design.
Estimated driver parameters for audison av6.5 are provided in the mfg specsheet:
Use this program to determine the box volume from the driver specs:
LinearTeam
For the KEF woofers you can either measure them yourself with this tool or figure out the volume of the box from whence they came, or just stick them in any old box size and fuggetaboutit. 🙂 6.5 woofers often live in sealed boxes about 15-20 liters, ymmv.
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