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Need 3-way Crossovers.

bowtie427ss said:
You're standing on the threshold, looking in to the reality of what's involved in engineering a speaker system versus tossing some random drivers in a box and hoping for the best.

Active crossover goes between source and amplifiers, each driver is individually powered by it's own amplifier channel.

View attachment 2470282
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Oh ok. I didn't know anything about active crossover. Till now. Thanks all for the great feedback
 
John Carr said:
Oh ok. I didn't know anything about active crossover. Till now. Thanks all for the great feedback
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I realize that may seem like a pretty deep rabbit hole, and i'm not trying to steer you into anything overly complex.

Maybe if you shared what drivers you have, there might be other members here with some first hand knowledge of them, and how they're best integrated.

coonmanx said:
I am not so pessimistic that you can't find a decent 3-way crossover that will work.
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Or, that can be easily modified to be a better match than off the shelf.
 
bowtie427ss said:
I realize that may seem like a pretty deep rabbit hole, and i'm not trying to steer you into anything overly complex.

Maybe if you shared what drivers you have, there might be other members here with some first hand knowledge of them, and how they're best integrated.

Or, that can be easily modified to be a better match than off the shelf.
Click to expand...
The woofers: Jenson 12 inch J12w
The midrange: 5.25inch gm-85/8
Tweeter: Foster audio 7x3 inch tweeter.
 
So, constrained by budget, maybe seeking an off the shelf crossover solution from the car audio world is a possibility.

It seems this may have been a consideration from the beginning of your build?
 
bowtie427ss said:
So, constrained by budget, maybe seeking an off the shelf crossover solution from the car audio world is a possibility.

It seems this may have been a consideration from the beginning of your build?
Click to expand...
Yes. I actually have a car crossover in them right now, but it sounds REALLY off. I've asked multiple opinions and they all said it was wrong sounding. I believe it has to do with the crossover giving the woofers 1000hz. I really don't like them.

These are the ones I don't like: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N987TC2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
bowtie427ss said:
Just an example, these would have appropriate crossover frequencies. But, will be twice your proposed budget.

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Visaton/HW-3-130-NG-4-Ohm?qs=VWNNG7jHlrJ1FK4Swp29Iw==&mgh=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiArt6PBhCoARIsAMF5wajEwudiziaqoxz3pVkJ2ofdWE_2TlmvSS1LeLl7jzEkn8fzo3fhNtwaAt50EALw_wcB

Consider also that you will need L-pads to dial down the sensitivity of the mids and tweets to balance them with the woofer.
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Those look near perfect. I'll think on them, but them numbers are looking kinda high.
I am aware of the sensitivity differences.
 
John Carr said:
Those look near perfect. I'll think on them, but them numbers are looking kinda high.
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The vendor is a well known wholesale supplier to the electronics industry and our hobby, you will see them referred to often here.

For your next speaker build, do this homework before you begin the journey. Even a small budget, spent wisely, can afford you a significant final product.
 
bowtie427ss said:
The vendor is a well known wholesale supplier to the electronics industry and our hobby, you will see them referred to often here.

For your next speaker build, do this homework before you begin the journey. Even a small budget, spent wisely, can afford you a significant final product.
Click to expand...
I 100% was under prepared. Thanks a lot for all these helpful responses!
 
So what you need is a graph of the frequency response of all of the drivers. Also you need to know the sensitivity of all drivers as well. This will help with crossover frequencies and also let you know if you need to tame down the mids and/or tweeter with an L-pad configuration. Do you have the technical information for those drivers. I wouldn't want to cross a 12" woofer too high.
 
coonmanx said:
So what you need is a graph of the frequency response of all of the drivers.
Click to expand...
His woofer tops out at 350hz @ 89db sensitivity 4 ohms, his mids are rated down to 500hz @ 95db sensitivity 8 ohms(2 in parallel), that's why i posted the crossovers with the unusual 400hz knee point from Mouser in the link above post #27.

It's probably not ideal. But, likely about as close as you could hope to get in an off the shelf network for the given driver load.

Specifications:

  • RMS Power: 300 Watts
  • Peak Power: 1200 Watts
  • Impedance: 4Ω
  • Frequency Response: 27Hz-350Hz
  • Efficiency 1W / 1M: 90dB
  • Efficiency 1W in-car: 89dB
  • Woofer Cone Material: Polypropylene
  • Mounting Cutout: 279mm (11.00")
  • Mounting Depth: 5.75"
  • Fs: 30 Hz
  • Qts (Total Q): 0.566
  • Qes (Electrical Q): 0.595
  • Qms (Mechanical Q): 11.701
  • Vas: 92.354 L
Product Specifications
Nominal Diameter 5"
Power Handling (RMS) 60 Watts
Power Handling (MAX) 120 Watts
Impedance 8Ω
Frequency Response 500 to 15,000Hz
Sensitivity 96dB 2.83V/1m
Voice Coil Diameter 1"
 
Last edited:
You can do an active 3-way (or 4-way) crossover pretty inexpensively with an obsolete 7.x AVR (with multi-channel inputs) and a Dayton Audio 4x8DSP.

https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...gnal-Processor-for-Home-and-Car-Audio-230-500

Long story short, run the source(s) as zone 2 input and route the (line level) output to the DSP input which acts as a 3-way stereo crossover with outputs to the multi-channel (DD 7.1) inputs of the AVR which then gives you 6 channels of amplifier power for your speakers. With a little extra work you could use a subwoofer amp to run the woofs in mono to the subwoofer XO (150-200Hz?) and get by with a mini-DSP 2x4 and an even more obsolete DD 5.1 AVR to run the mids & tweets.

I am running an active 2-way system in my garage with a $25 5.1 Yamaha AVR and miniDSP 2x4....

Be sure to include protection caps on the tweets since this setup does make it easy to fat-finger something and run a run a full range signal to the mids and/or tweets by accident.

A measuring mic and software (REW) will make the whole process much faster and efficient. This is true if active or passive.

Good luck!

Don
 
bowtie427ss said:
His woofer tops out at 350hz @ 89db sensitivity 4 ohms, his mids are rated down to 500hz @ 95db sensitivity 8 ohms(2 in parallel), that's why i posted the crossovers with the unusual 400hz knee point from Mouser in the link above post #27.

It's probably not ideal. But, likely about as close as you could hope to get in an off the shelf network for the given driver load.

Specifications:

  • RMS Power: 300 Watts
  • Peak Power: 1200 Watts
  • Impedance: 4Ω
  • Frequency Response: 27Hz-350Hz
  • Efficiency 1W / 1M: 90dB
  • Efficiency 1W in-car: 89dB
  • Woofer Cone Material: Polypropylene
  • Mounting Cutout: 279mm (11.00")
  • Mounting Depth: 5.75"
  • Fs: 30 Hz
  • Qts (Total Q): 0.566
  • Qes (Electrical Q): 0.595
  • Qms (Mechanical Q): 11.701
  • Vas: 92.354 L
Product Specifications
Nominal Diameter 5"
Power Handling (RMS) 60 Watts
Power Handling (MAX) 120 Watts
Impedance 8Ω
Frequency Response 500 to 15,000Hz
Sensitivity 96dB 2.83V/1m
Voice Coil Diameter 1"
Click to expand...
Yeah, with such a sensitivity difference between midrange drivers and the woofer there surely is a need for some sort of L-pad configuration there. No off the shelf crossover is going to account for that mismatch.

Great information BTW...
 
NathanMcD said:
buy a Driverack PA2 or minidsp, test, then design crossovers later if you want.
Click to expand...
That would be an easy, yet quite costly method.

donprice said:
You can do an active 3-way (or 4-way) crossover pretty inexpensively with an obsolete 7.x AVR (with multi-channel inputs) and a Dayton Audio 4x8DSP.

https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...gnal-Processor-for-Home-and-Car-Audio-230-500

Long story short, run the source(s) as zone 2 input and route the (line level) output to the DSP input which acts as a 3-way stereo crossover with outputs to the multi-channel (DD 7.1) inputs of the AVR which then gives you 6 channels of amplifier power for your speakers. With a little extra work you could use a subwoofer amp to run the woofs in mono to the subwoofer XO (150-200Hz?) and get by with a mini-DSP 2x4 and an even more obsolete DD 5.1 AVR to run the mids & tweets.

I am running an active 2-way system in my garage with a $25 5.1 Yamaha AVR and miniDSP 2x4....

Be sure to include protection caps on the tweets since this setup does make it easy to fat-finger something and run a run a full range signal to the mids and/or tweets by accident.

A measuring mic and software (REW) will make the whole process much faster and efficient. This is true if active or passive.

Good luck!

Don
Click to expand...
I've looked into something like that. It'd be one of the more expensive methods. plus I'd lose my surround sound speakers that way.
 
coonmanx said:
Yeah, with such a sensitivity difference between midrange drivers and the woofer there surely is a need for some sort of L-pad configuration there. No off the shelf crossover is going to account for that mismatch.

Great information BTW...
Click to expand...
I am looking at a 10 ohm potentiometer. How is that much different then a 8 ohm L-pad?
 
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