#CROSSOVER DEFINITION NETWORKING DRIVERS#
#CROSSOVER DEFINITION NETWORKING DRIVER#

The Maximally Flat Magnitude Filter (commonly referred to as the Butterworth Filter which is much easier and more fun to say), solved the problem of uniform response in a filter network. The quality of the components in a passive crossover, and the overall design standard are also critical for proper performance.

#CROSSOVER DEFINITION NETWORKING DRIVER#

The type of crossover used in a loudspeaker depends on a lot of factors: cabinet design, driver array, etc. With a driver array like the Uni-Q in the design, things like time-shift are mitigated, allowing our engineers more freedom with our crossover designs. In short, the crossover and the cabinet must be designed to work with each other in a complementary fashion. You can see that this will all become very sloppy and/or complicated if not done properly.

#CROSSOVER DEFINITION NETWORKING DRIVERS#

A first order crossover, because of its gradual -6dB slope, introduces a lot of mix between low and mid frequency drivers (for example), so a cabinet designer may place the midrange slightly behind the low frequency driver to compensate for the phase shift between the frequencies. Loudspeaker designers also use the cabinet design and placement of the drivers to assist or compensate for the crossovers. A -12dB frequency roll-off is pretty good in terms of frequency mixing between drivers, but it introduces more time shift. The slope (roll-off) increases by -6dB with each increase in order. A second order crossover produces a -12dB roll-off, a third produces a -18dB roll-off. This means there is a lot of mixing of frequencies near the crossover point between the drivers the filter is operating with.Ī second order crossover uses a double filter, and a third order uses a triple filter and so on. A first order crossover introduces a minimal amount of time shift to the signal, but it also only rolls off the frequency by -6dB per octave. A first order crossover has a single filter consisting of one inductor and one capacitor. The order number is derived from the amount of filters used in the circuit. In fact, crossovers in general are a bit too deep for just a quick Internet read so we’ll stick with just the basics.Ĭrossovers are generally specified by order number. As soon as we place drivers in different locations, we introduce a time shift – physics again.Īctive crossover networks, in particular the Linkwitz-Riley 4th order active, and DSP-based crossovers eliminate a lot of the constraints Mother Nature places on audio filtering, but they are also far more complicated than we can cover in a short Blog article.

The next best solution is multiple speakers producing sound from the same point with no time shift between the drivers. This is the job of a crossover, except it doesn’t operate as a gate because of the time shift, slope and phase delay introduced by the crossover network itself.Ī perfect crossover is a driver that reproduces all frequencies equally well by that definition because of the laws of physics, there can be no such thing as a perfect crossover. Think of a crossover as a frequency gate – a woofer doesn’t reproduce mids and highs very well, so a low-pass filter stops those frequencies from going to the woofer. Crossovers are necessary to ensure that frequencies are sent to the driver best suited to them.

Crossover definition networking