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Crossover Review Needed

automojo

automojo

OurBandCouldBeYourLife
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I am finalizing a speaker upgrade/project, and am planning to use, in the final phase a hard wired crossover. I have been using a mule with the O.E. PC board, but would like to eliminate it in this project.
If one or two of you has some time, I would like it compared to the O.E, schematic and see if I made any errors. This would be much appreciated!
I am far from a whiz at this stuff, and the project has be a long, fun but tedious undertaking, and I just want to make sure I have this done right.
I found a couple errors from my early layout- and thats why I would appreciate some input.
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=341433&d=1333829058
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=341434&d=1333829058
You may have to print them out, as the scanning was less then perfect with the hand drawn crossover.
Thanks!
 
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HI,

I can tell you about the values,of course, but what I see in the drawing (the "readable" one) is that the tweeter + and - are connected to the same "-" signal ? Perhaps a mistake in the drawing... But definetly there is something I don't understand in this network. I see also 2 caps numbered "7" . Are they the same cap?


Can you draw every driver crossover separately? It will be clearer...
 
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Are you comparing your drawing with some original crossover design ? What speakers are we talking about ? ESS AM 3 ?
 
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Yes, it's for the AMT3. If you look at the "schematic" crossover (from ESS) the tweeter appears to be hooked up this way-if you follow my drawn picture-it's this same way.
I didn't really understand it myself-that's why I was asking for a more expert review. I could be, and possibly am misunderstanding the crossover. schematic-but it appears those wires are joined this way.
Alternatively, I can use my "mule" pc boards, but was hoping to save them for another project, or as spares, and thought this would be a good reference for those who wanted to clone a ATM3 as well.
Any additional help would be appreciated.
 
I was looking again to the network.... It seems OK, I tried to draw the same in other way, removing the woofer and the tweeter atenuation, so it looks more familiar...
I think this is what you have in the orig schematic in the "bright" position: (my software changes to uH when you draw an small value inductor)

ess%20network.png


It's quite hard to follow the signal path in your drawing... I'm sorry but I have to tell you :)
 
elnaldo said:
I was looking again to the network.... It seems OK, I tried to draw the same in other way, removing the woofer and the tweeter atenuation, so it looks more familiar...
I think this is what you have in the orig schematic in the "bright" position: (my software changes to uH when you draw an small value inductor)

ess%20network.png


It's quite hard to follow the signal path in your drawing... I'm sorry but I have to tell you :)
Click to expand...

Very nice! The inductors are 2x .83;cap 55uf and 2X33uF, and one 2.3 inductor as well. Sorry-it's a bad drawing1
Could you do me a big favor, and draw me a more laymens terms shematic like the one you have above, but with the mids and woofer-(and tweeter switch) just go off the ESS schematic. That would be very helpfull.
I owe you one, and thank you very much!!:thmbsp:
 
Yes, no problem, I can draw the same ESS schematic, changing the location of the components to help reading or understanding in other way... I,ll do it tonight :)
 
elnaldo said:
Yes, no problem, I can draw the same ESS schematic, changing the location of the components to help reading or understanding in other way... I,ll do it tonight :)
Click to expand...

Watch out for the shared (split) zobel on the tweeter in the soft position because he doesn't know it's there. ;)
 
Good eye, a line is missing in the drawing. ... Let's try again...

"ESS AM III " crossover. Watch out, the mid-range is wired phase reversed.

ess%20network_R1.png


The inductors, to me , are #8 0.83mH and #9 0.33mH . And they have different numbers in the schematic. All components with same value have the same number. I did the drawing following the values I read in the original.

ess%20network_zoom.png


I hope this will help...
 
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Awesome!!
Thanks so much, your excellent work is much appreciated!!
Thanks El7 as well.
This schematic will be the future reference model, since as El7 and you mentioned there was a missing line-probably due to the copies have been copeid so many times- or perhaps someone just forgot!
Again excellent work-I can't thank you enough!:thmbsp::music:!
 
Looks OK to me.

The part that makes it slightly hard to follow, is that this is a "hybrid" between a parallel and a series crossover. The woofer section is a parallel arrangement, as is the midrange high-pass... but the midrange low-pass and tweeter high-pass are a series arrangement.

That said, I was able to follow through the original ESS diagram, comparing to the drawing of the circuit as laid-out, and they seemed to match. It looks like it should work...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Yes, the mid-range low pass looks strange... like a 3rd order low pass??, but with one coil on the "-" side ??? And sharing coil #9 with the tweeter, what is a 3rd order too.....

Actually that was the reason to arrange everything in another way and draw it again, because I though it was a mistake in the orig drawing...
 
Adding a non stock midwoofer-Alpha 6A to the mix.

Looking at using this driver-early test's seem to confirm it sounds very good.
I'm thinking the sound might be improved by smoothing off some of the higher end response.
I have played with a few different things here already (marginal differences) but am open to suggestions-would like to leave the stock crossover largely intact if possible.
http://www.parts-express.com/pdf/290-400s.pdf
http://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/more-info/290-400-eminence-alpha-6a-more-info.pdf
 
Do you mean the higher end response of the new midrange? What about efficiency? Is it similar to the original one?

If you increase the value of inductor 8, you are lowering a bit the crossover point. You could do some testing, adding some 0,1 mH in series. Inductors in series add inductance. You could try some attenuator as the tweeter one, but with inductors instead of resistors...

If you don't have inductors at hand, you can do one just for testing purposes. There are some online calculators quite accurate.
 
I see what happened, some how I slipped the .33mh in the #8 spot in my mule.
With the .83 in there, everything sounds much better-I don't hear any peakiness to the drivers at all- in fact they are really astonishingly smooth IMHO.
I think being in a sealed enclosure helps.
I ran my mule speaker next to the one with the stock driver, and the midbass detail has gone up a notch or two perhaps, again with out any audible peaks or dips.
 
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