explain to the noob

[slidegirl]

wtf is a crossover, how would one be wired with a comonet set?

[cam2Xrunner]

A passive crossover that comes in a component system looks like this


Basically it seperates the high frequencies and the lower frequencies and sends the power to the appropriate speaker.

http://www.bcae1.com/passxovr.htm



To wire it up, you take the positive and negative of one channel off the amp and wire it to the inputs on the crossover. From there you will make new wires and wire them off the two different set's of outpus on the crossover. The crossover will have on it which speaker wires go to the tweeter an which one goes to the mid.

Make sure to use spade terminals and crimp them good. Soldering is not a bad idea either. Make sure to use adequate speaker wire. At least 16 gauge.

There's also active crossover's as well that will seperate the frequencies before the amplifier. You can do this with the headunit's crossover's(if you have an adequate one) or you can use an electronic crossover.

http://www.bcae1.com/elecxovr.htm

When you go active you can get better results but it does take a bit more effort for it to work good.

For instance if you had a 2 way front component set, and you want to wire it "active" you would need a channel for each individual speaker. One channel to each tweeter and one to each mid(4 total)

If you were running a 3 way active setup, ideally you would want a 6 channel amp, or a 4 channel amp and a two channel amp.

A few of the advantages of using an active setup is that you have the ability to use Time Alignment. You can typically send more power to the different speakers, because the lack of the passive crossover.



But the basic component set with a passive crossover will sound alot better than a coaxial speaker.

You might look into a set of components that allow you to Bi-Amp the speakers. Thsi is where you still utilize the passive crossovers, but you can wire a 4 channel amp to the crossover and utilize time alignment.

One set that I know of that will do this is the Alpine Type-X (spx-177r).
http://iweb.alpine-usa.com/pls/admn/...=155&p_main=10

[Pb]

Crossovers are very good things. There are low-pass and high-pass filters. Ever notice how a cheap or stock sound system sounds when you turn it up real loud. Usually the bass is what is making it sound funky. THis is because the small door speakers can't handle the high movement (excursion) of the bass. If you filter out this bass the speaker will sound a lot better, and you'll be able to turn it up louder without distortion as soon. For most door speakers I use a filter around 125 Hz. Which means that the speaker will only play frequencies from 125 Hz and up. And then when you have a subwoofer, you set it to play 125 Hz and below (a low-pass filter), so now you have the whole spectrum.

A low pass filter does the same thing, except it lets the low frequencies pass, and it filters out the highs.

Lots of nicer head units have a crossover built in. This can help a lot in a lower budget sound system.

[Knailgun]

A noob that acually posted well...you will walk with the chosen....great answeres guys, remeber as well that the crossovers are a NECESSARY part of a component set of speakers, that is the tweeter and driver will sound terrible without one...unless you have something else to compensate for this...ie source unit crossover