How to use Passive Crossover Designer by Jeff Bagby

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Toid

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Joined 2016
How to use Passive Crossover Designer by Jeff Bagby

For years, I wanted to design my own speakers, but didn't understand the intricacies that went into it. For all I knew, you bought a 2500 hz crossover from parts express, picked a woofer and tweeter that looked cool and went at it. It wasn't until i really got into DIY speaker building that I understood how wrong I was. Thankfully, Jeff Bagby came up with a great free to use program that can help us all out. My goal here is to help the DIY community along by helping teach the program to the best of my abilities. If anyone has any suggestions or questions, let me know, I'll see if I can help. Since, I personally am a visual learner, I'm creating a video tutorial series on this program. The first one, I just completed which shows you how to import FRD and ZMA files, as well as where to locate them. And how to use SPL Copy, if all else fails. I also help troubleshoot if your frd files are not importing properly. Here are the programs you will need:

Passive Croosver Designer: Loudspeaker Design Software


SPL Trace: https://app.box.com/s/qa3g6ukzxp6410dwmcrv (Frd-ZMA Zip)

First Video in the Series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm6tsj9Tpqs
 
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Toid

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Okay Guys, we are on to the third part of this series. In this video, I show how to actually created the crossover in the program based off the earlier videos. Later I will go into greater detail in how to calculate the different types of crossovers, some things to watch out for on the graphs, and how to add notch filters (ie baffle step compensator), etc. But the next video will show you how to take the values you have and physically layout the crossover.

Until then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDlPswC5U8U
 
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Toid

Member
Joined 2016
I just added the 5th installment. I've already shown how to auto-populate a 2nd order crossover based off the frequency. Unfortunately, this only creates a Linkwitz-Riley, which is not always the best for the speakers you choose. In this video, I will go over the 4 different types of crossovers in this program (Bessel, Butterworth, Variable Q, Linkwitz-Riley), how to determine their component values. Each one of these crossovers will directly affect your final frequency response of the speaker you are building. So if the auto calculate does not get you your desired response, try a different 2nd order crossover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2EEIECq_fs
 
rongon

rongon

Member
Joined 2009
I just watched a few of them. Excellent! One question for you... Is it possible to use PCD for horn tweeters? Can it predict response for a compression driver with this or that horn or waveguide added? Or is PCD only useful for direct radiating tweeters (cone or dome tweeters)?
 
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Toid

Member
Joined 2016
rongon said:
I just watched a few of them. Excellent! One question for you... Is it possible to use PCD for horn tweeters? Can it predict response for a compression driver with this or that horn or waveguide added? Or is PCD only useful for direct radiating tweeters (cone or dome tweeters)?
Click to expand...

I am so sorry. I thought I responded to this, but it must only have been in my head. It is possible to use any type of tweeter in this program. I hope this helps.
 
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thirumalkumaran

Member
Joined 2018
Toid said:
Alright guys, I added another video today about phase. So if you are having any issues understanding phase and it's graph in the program. Check it out. It may help.

How to Design a Crossover - Part 7 - Calculating Phase - YouTube
Click to expand...



Hi Toid,


First I would like to thank you a lot for these videos, they are informative and made a mechanical engineer venture into sound design.
I'm currently designing a MTM version of speakers using SB Acoustics drivers and using this to arrive at teh final data.


One request. This particular video, Calculating phase, seems limited to 480p thus couldn't figure out much details. Anychance a re-upload can be considered?


Thanks
Thirumal Kumaran
 
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Nordo

Member
Joined 2004
@Toid and Everyone.

Does anyone know if Jeff's PCD can work with a spreadsheet program other than Excel?

I don't have Office or Excel.
I have tried LibreOffice, Open Office, Google Sheets, Zoho, etc. but can't get PCD to work on any of them.
In each of those programs I have tried to find and load the equivalent of Excel's Analysis Toolpak, but still didn't work.

Any ideas?
 
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Nordo

Member
Joined 2004
DcibeL said:
No, Excel only for VB scripting / macro requirements. But...it is a rather outdated and feature limited sheet anyway compared to what's freely available today. Welcome to the future, I recommend checking out VituixCAD for your speaker design needs.
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I had a quick look at VituixCAD, and it appeared a bit daunting to me.
I have been playing with Xsim and find it fairly easy to understand, but it doesn't appear to be as thorough as PCD and VituixCAD.
In the meantime I have watched all of the videos on PCD by Toid, and with the videos (and Jeff's included tutorial) I think I could handle PCD better.

Also since my last post, I have been given a copy of Office 2016. Haven't had a chance to test it with PCD yet, but hopefully I'm good to go. (y)
 
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Nordo

Member
Joined 2004
kimmosto said:
Should I add splash screen with puppies or kittens to make starting less daunting? :)
Click to expand...
You've got to remember that even though I designed some basic crossovers 30 years ago, I'm very much a newbie - especially using the modern programs like Xsim, PCD and your VituixCAD.
Is there a comprehensive tutorial of VituixCAD that you or someone has produce for dummies like me?
Similar to what Toid has done for PCD?
 
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