It's in the crossover!

[Steve Gonzales]

Hello members,

I just had an experience that I thought to share. Most all of the seasoned veterans will probably not gleen anything from this, but for the up and coming speaker guys, it will reinforce something that you might not realize.

First off, I am just beginning to explore the ins and outs of crossover design. It is complicated in a lot of ways because there is SO much to consider. Here is something that I just found out that has firmly pointed me in the right direction-for good.

I have a dedicated two channel system for my music and a pretty good Home Theater for movies. I bartered and traded, bought and sold, to get what are the top of the line suite. I don't like plugging another company too much, but I'll say that they are from England. I've noticed that the $550.00 center channels (one front and one rear) have a less than appealing mid/HF output. You all know that the Center channel handles most of the dialogue (speech) and it's frequency response and timbre, is critical to a realistic experience.

Not being satisfied, I decided to investigate the crossover and speakers. I took the connector cup/crossover out ,and to my disbelief, in my $1100.00 worth of center channels ,were but a single capacitor (first order or 6db) and the LF was running full range!!!. Now, don't get me wrong, if the design team did that and achieved a good result, who am I to mess with success?. Here comes the big BUT!.---But they didn't and it was clear to me why. Being one to tinker, I looked up the crossover points and then went to my spare parts box and found a pair of JBL L19 crossovers. The specs were within 200hz, the impedence is the same, blah, blah,blah. I took my time and figured out how to make them fit by ungluing some of the JBL components from the board and arranging them a bit closer. After a short while, the moment of truth. I fired them up and WOW, what a complete difference. SWEET voicing!. I even have a HF level control now.

That brings me to my point. If I didn't already know what a huge difference a crossover can/could make, I certainly do now. I just wanted anyone new to the game, to know how important and critical, the crossover is. I've been at this for a long time and never gave this as much attention as I now firmly believe it deserves. Maybe this will help someone out there. Steve G

[jblnut]

I agree 110% with this Steve. I could never have predicted the difference that new xovers would make in my L250's. Getting it "right" is a mix of science and art (some might say magic) but I'm here to tell you - once it's right you'll never want to go back.

In fact it's gotten me wondering about active crossovers...

jblnut

[rek50]

I've been trying to injest a "Couple" of network ideas. You know the TWO: Cap selection, Coil selection, Resistor selection, Conductor selection, Roll-Off, Congjugate, Frequency cut-off, Low Pass, Band Pass, Pass Pass,Wire the cap with the foil side facing the output, Hold your tongue right while soldering, Theil/Small, . The distilate, so far, looks like, a Biased/Charge-Coupled, Dayton Capped, Theta bypassed Hi-fallutin network is THE answer, The Holy Grail, the end. Thanks Giskard. Now all I got to do is START.

[Valentin]

i wonder if LSR 6332 will ever have charge coupled crossovers and how big a differce would this be any body tried it .

[Steve Gonzales]

I've been trying to injest a "Couple" of network ideas. You know the TWO: Cap selection, Coil selection, Resistor selection, Conductor selection, Roll-Off, Congjugate, Frequency cut-off, Low Pass, Band Pass, Pass Pass,Wire the cap with the foil side facing the output, Hold your tongue right while soldering, Theil/Small, . The distilate, so far, looks like, a Biased/Charge-Coupled, Dayton Capped, Theta bypassed Hi-fallutin network is THE answer, The Holy Grail, the end. Thanks Giskard. Now all I got to do is START.

Exactly!, there is SO much to the crossover to consider. We are fortunate to have a place to go to and get this info. And I thought enclosure tuning was difficult!.... It gives one hope though, that the very same driver compliment can sound completely different with a better crossover.

[DavidF]

You may already be familiar with Lynn Olson's 2-way design called the Ariel. If not, below is an address to one excerpt relating to the crossover design. May be somewhat lengthy but in reading all the way through you may get an idea of what goes into the crossover design for a small 2-way with some similar considerations for minimalist style of crossover.

DavidF

http://www.nutshellhifi.com/Arieltxt2.html#top

[Steve Gonzales]

What I have found is that although I can grasp, vaguely, the concept of what is going on, most of these good, in depth, articles are filled with terms that are unknown to me. It's like trying to understand a car's fuel injection system without really understanding the parts. You know "what" it's doing but can't connect the dots because you are not familiar with the parts. I find myself looking at the dictionary quite often. Like the word "conjugate", that means where two things meet, etc, etc. Maybe someone has a link to a good glossary to lift the vail of mystery?. I think that once this is accomplished, there will be an explosion of hungry, budding, crossover "mechanics". Anybody out there have a link to a glossary of terms?