Is a single capacitor alright for a tweeter?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ต.ค. 2018
- Is the best crossover for a loudspeaker a single pole, single capacitor for the tweeter? This viewer has heard he should rip out the guts of his 2-way speaker pair and get out the soldering iron. Have a question you want to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/
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Spent about a month designing and assembling some two-way crossovers for some bright tweeters and some thumping midbass woofers that just had to meet each other. Calcs looked great, response charts in two different programs were the flattest you could get, over-joyed when I finally went to solder things up. Once I turned up the volume, the drivers lost their character and just didn't sound how I could imagine them together. Instead, I scrapped the 2-way, slapped a highpass on the tweeters, left the woofers as is and OH MAN does it sound good. Calculations and modeling software are great for a lot of things, but nothing beats just using your ears to get the sound you want!
exactly. each speaker brings out different parts. im new to this, but good enough and a bit of eq goes a long way.
Very good point. The worst problem is lack of complete data to find result of awaited calculation. So we make calculation to prevent damage of speaker and use them at same time for optymalization but knowing there is no much hope .
Speaker is not pure resistance. Speaker has impedance. So why we do not make calculatins with data for impedance? Because there are thousands of impdeances for each speaker and we may get different results for each.
Impedance is depending too much on frequency and depends as well on mechanical resonances of moving coil which affects even stability of induktance . All this is affected by.. filter data which we are looking for. . This equation has no solution . Way with using ear is not beatable even I must admit it is no scientist.
A big thing is room acoustics and by ear, you are compensating for that particular room, whereas bought speakers aren't (obviously). Not only room acoustics, a bunch of other things that ear speaker tuning compensates. Like the electronics, records, CDs, phone streaming, taste of music all affect the sound. Ears compensate all that in one go. I build speakers and I bought some B&W 706s for reference speakers. They helped me cos I'm just an ear/ type 1 crossover maker with no fancy e a uipment or soundproof room. On my made speakers I have semi open med cone drivers and a few other crazy acoustic stuff that flattens the FR in the med by itself (less "shouty" before deploying a crossover). The crossover merely fine tunes it and I can also change the FR acoustically with the semi open cone setup. They flog my B&Ws but I would not have been able to do it without them. You have all those things mentioned above that affects the sound, so I can't go by ear without reference speakers. No way! Same with your built speaker, you still need your other (more objective) tweaking. Whether it's reference speakers or soundproof rooms and all that gear, you still need your ears to do the final artistic tweaks. I copied my B&Ws sound with my made speakers but they didn't sound that good. But after ear tweaking, my made speakers absolutely SMOKED my B&Ws.
Speakers sound different soldered compared to twisted wire connection. At least I seem to get that. My theory is that twisted wire connection have a tiny resistance compared to solder. And with several twisted wire or alligator connections the resistance accumulates. I had to change a resistance recently after soldering a crossover.
what you experienced was likely due to ohase shift issues. the bread and butter is usually the good old 2nd order filter. its a good compromise, but not phase wise.
Paul, it has struck me that many of these talks could be improved by the use of a whiteboard. A few quick hand-drawn diagrams could convey a lot if information. Or, you could edit in a few computer drawn diagrams.
Indeed, and I've done a few like that to mixed reviews.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio For many, a picture paints a thousand words. I made my living as a trainer for more than a decade. There are four main learning preferences (as described by Kolb). The visual is just one, so unlikely to satisfy the three others. The more of the learning preferences you can cater for, the more effective you become. I never did get the hang of teaching MS Word, or Pagemaker through dance, though ;-)
@@jonathansturm4163 Can't just let words create the landscape?
@@basshead3629 each serve different functions. try paint a landscape with words for speakers frequency response curves of two speakers in terms of db!
Love this! You’re communication is so very well thought out. Thank you.
I have been designing speakers since the mid-sixties. My best designs have always been: woofer -full
range, tweeter-one cap and maybe a resistor for padding. I understand that people will not agree, but
look at the Dynaco A25, one of the most successful speakers of all time.
My Royd Doublets are exactly as you described, and they sound pretty good. I replaced the capacitors with Mundorf Supremes, and removed the sand cast resistors and replaced with Jantzen Superes 10w 1% resistors. Otherwise, original values were kept the same, just these better quality components.
A great explanation of a complex problem. Thank you for your continued efforts to explain the intricacies of the perfection all of us seek.
Came here to write something, not because it is very relevant to me. You appear to be more relaxed and natural. So pleasant when you're speaking. I hope you are doing well
Thank you Paul. You have explained it in a way even I can understand..
My KEF Q300s have a simple first order crossover. An air core inductor in series with the woofer and a polyester capacitor and a wirewound voicing resistor in series with the tweeter. KEF did this mainly to make the speaker more affordable. Some believe a simple 6 dB/octave crossover sounds best at the expense of driver power handling.
There are pros and cons to every design decision.
I did convert the crossover to a 2 pole, 12 dB/octave design after considerable research. The sound quality improvement is dramatic.
There is so so much to consider when designing a crossover.
And you don't always get what you pay for when buying a speaker when it comes to the crossover.
It's hidden away inside the speaker and usually not thoroughly described by the manufacturer, especially as to the component quality.
I must be a 59 year old geezer as well, Paul, I sure remember those pills!
Been messing around with speakers for quite a few years, and the crossover has always been the most difficult to get right. Good info!
awesome, i really enjoyed the little bit more technical explanation than your normal videos.
This is very interesting information. I remember owning a pair of Royd Minstral speakers that run the same principle. Akroyd designed and manufactured his own bass drivers, which were matched up to a classic scanspeak tweeter, with just 1 capacitor for the crossover. The bass driver was heavily pulped, with no dust cap. This had the effect of producing no nasty mid or mid-high peaks. So the transition between mid range and treble was smooth and controlled.
In the workshop, there is a 1970s _Holiday_ 8 track stereo receiver with the original 2 way speakers. The 8" woofers are 8 Ohms and rated 3 watts maximum, and the 2" tweeters are 8 Ohms rated 1 watt maximum. They feature a *single* non-polarized 2uF, 15 V capacitor for the tweeter crossover. This would make the 3dB point 9,950 Hz. We all know _Holiday_ was the epitome of hi-fi, so this must be the right way to do it!
That's how my 70's speakers were designed and they worked great
that was an amazing way to answer a question. full of data. thanks for your great channel.
Your best video yet! Thank You!
Great video Paul, I would have to say that over all the videos you have done this one has caught my attention the most. I have designed and built many many speakers over the years. I'm talking the actual driver's themselves. From designing and winding my own voice coils and turning my own T-Yoaks on a lath and magnetizing my own magnets. The science behind passive crossover Networks is mind-blowing intriguing science! There is so much to learn with so many different values an Avenues to travel down. It's endless!
Home-made magnets. Now that's DIY on steroids! The first radiograms I listened to in the 1950s mostly had speakers that didn't have permanent magnets. They had a field coil that generated the magnetic field in the loudspeaker. This was also used as the power supply choke.
@@jonathansturm4163 actually pretty easy to do I would purchase ferrite blanks from China and I would magnetize them using a magnetron that I picked up at a surplus auction. It cost me quite a bit of money to have the power company install a dedicated 420v service from the power line to my shop just to run the magnetron.
great explanation!
Paul,
You may think that you were rambling, but I understood what you were talking about. I just hooked up a pair of (new to me) Onkyo D102ax micro system speakers to my Yamaha DSP-A1 integrated amp yesterday, and they sound amazing to my ears. They feature a single 4.7
I'm currently listening to some "higher end" coax car speakers, only use a small inductor and a cap as a crossover. Surprisingly good and even better with a bit of felt to tame some treble coming from the mid bass. That's on the floor open baffle, I'll see how they go on a large box.
Won't compare to $1000's of dollars systems, but I think it could be nice to listen to :)
i've got a pair of AMC 4-way speakers from the mid-seventy's and i was surprised there is no crossover. especially for a 4-way system.
Thanks. Paul.
I definitely remember Carter's Little Liver pills ads. Guess I'm a geezer.
and goody's headache powder....
@@gizmothewytchdoktor1049 wasnt it just ground up aspirin?
Paul, I need your opinion, I have a Bluetooth speaker that powers a 4" 20-40w 6-ohm woofer and I directly connect my 2" 15-30w 8ohm woofer to the 4-inch woofer but the 2-inch woofer clips whenever I turn the volume to 60% in my computer. So I wanna know what capacitor should I use for this crossover?
If my tweeters have a response is 50hz-30khz and an ohm of 2 what capacity would I need and rated to what voltage
Axiom's M3 series is an affordable example of free 6.5" woofer and crossover for the tweeter (presumably more complex that a single cap). I still like mine after 15ish years.
Speaker designers in the USSR usually liked complex filters. Also, a lot of speakers have LEDs that light up in case of an overload, either just one or one for each driver.
LED lights aren't really for overload. They're used for combating DC current under high power levels. Perchance that you have some issues with your amplifier passing DC current, the bulb lights up. When I was competing in car audio I would build my own crossover Networks for my SQ setups. I would used 12 volt dome lights. If a speaker sees DC current it will blow it instantly
@@danielhillwick8430 Not in those speakers - the LED gets turned on if the input voltage is above a certain limit. Turn the volume up too much and the LEDs start blinking. Oh, and the LEDs are labeled as "overload". Circuit diagram for Radiotehnika S-90D radiostorage.net/uploads/Image/schemes-factory-devices/speakers/speaker-scheme-236.png
LEDs are mostly used as DC blocking filters and flyback applications (these are diodes after all). Sometimes zener diodes are used to cut off at certain voltages, preventing spikes.
this here answered a question i had for ages, "why do a capacitor make only highs pass trough?" and to that guy i would say: "do not rip out that stuff, it was already engineered to sound it's best and they would only save money if they did not NEED IT!" but also if you had a under powered amp to push those speakers... maybe there you would gain some... but best case scenario, if you would be making speakers home made, now you know that adding a capacitor protects your tweeter from accepting bass and ripping it self apart! (those are not made to move even 1mm!)
Thank you for the Videos, always great How you explain things for everybody to Unterstand. I‘m in the DIY Speaker Building for years But Crossover Design has always been a hustle for me. But its so Important and can make a lot of difference. Any Good advice How to Start in this complex Thematic ?
Best Regards from Munich in Germany
FND, Electrical engineering, to start.
So, what's the deal with the taped on screwdriver wedged in the parts bin rack side frame?
Back scratcher
@psaudio Paul, I really enjoy when you dig into the technical nitty gritty. Keep it up and let her rip! Btw, I’m a new subscriber to Octave Records and DSD Studios.
Carter's Little Liver Pills were probably advertised on Paul Harvey's radio show.
One of the many issues with not using a low-pass on most woofers/mids Is that most will start to exhibit 'breakup' as they hit their highest range. And filtering out those problem area's gives cleaner reproduction in the range where it does best. Passively I prefer 1st order filters over anything more complex, but most often I use active crossovers and multiple amps.
My favorite is no crossover.
Active crossover with multiple amps sounds really interesting.
hi sir, can u tell me what is the different when i using Resistor before and after capacitor? and what is the purpose to use resistor series before / after capacitor in passive crossover for tweeter ? thank you so much
The resistor and capacitor form a network that determines where the filter cutoff starts. Here's some info that explains it: www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Low-pass-filter.php
Well said.
Thanks to you Paul. You told this common formula, but very rare knows what it actually means, it can be use only for sine wave. If you try for instance triangle wave , this formula doesn`t work. Sine wave you can find term square root but with triangle wave you should use cube root( if I remember right).
Most simpliest crossover is often the best, it least changes the sound quality . Good advise is that the designer listen many variation s . What we actually hear is very complicate to meausure.
Common rule is that you can filter low frequencies but not high frequencies, otherwise you may change the waveform/ sharp edges.
If you filter tweeter using parallel coil, so removes low frequences, it often causes peak just before the low frequence falls, you can hear this quite clear. You can prevent this using few ohms resistor series with the coil.
I a little fix my own comment: " you should use cube root( if I remember right). " It should be square root three.
I pulled out speakers from an old TV.
Each side had 2 speakers.
one was 15cm long x 4.5cm and a round 5cm
They are 8ohm, 8.5w.
They were wired in parallel.
The round one had a 2.2uF capacitor.
I assumed this is to block the low frequencies
Carter’s were advertised for dyspepsia, headache, constipation, and biliousness. The active ingredient was an industrial grade laxative.
Well done.
What if you want a lot of punchy bass without having overpowering boomy bass, drum beats vs bass guitar for example, lots of drivers or is it all down to the subwoofer? Large diameter or small, or multiple smaller ones.
Multiple subs and or DSP I guess. Also room treatments (bass absorbers). Perhaps you need surface area to get a lot of "punch"
ZU Audio my DW's are exactly that, there is just 1 Clarity Cap in series with the tweeter that high passes at 12K basically a compression driver super tweeter. the 10" woofer is full range and has a wheezer cone (remember them it's actually a modified Guitar Amp Speaker) which helps take care of the mid-range. I cut it off at 80 Hz to my sub. I got to tell you had many 3 ways and I've always dealt with the nasty between the mid and tweeter. No more there so smooth hearing the details of the wood in the instruments not analytical at all just smooth but lively. I guess being 96db efficient also plays a role. There keepers..
If these phase shifts (~90°@-3db) wouldnt happen, it was so easy to design a xover!
All you do is reverse the polarity of the driver.
Nice attempt to explain a textbook’s worth of material in five minutes, and you didn’t even get into the effect of crossover slopes on driver overlap and comb filtering! But the simple answer is this. If a simple cap on the tweeter would be better sounding than a more complex network on a given speaker, wouldn’t the manufacturer have used that? After all, it would save on the parts cost.
"If a simple cap on the tweeter would be better sounding... wouldn’t the manufacturer have used that?"
All loudspeaker design is a compromise. Using the KEF Concertos I mention elsewhere in this thread as an example, you could purchase a better crossover from a company called Radford (if memory serves). I had two friends who owned the Concertos and one replaced his crossover with the Radford part. It made a difference to the sound, but I cannot say whether it was an improvement or not. He had tin ears and had them in the corners of a square room! The bass was fucked, the top end was fucked. What you hear is a result not just of a designer's efforts, but your own as well. My own listening room, our main living area is overly bright. Rather than decreasing the treble at the amp, I put a small (~3.3 or 3.9 ohm) resistor in series with the tweeter. I forget which and I can't be arsed to go and look.
@@jonathansturm4163 I would recommend a 2.5 ohm resistor. At least with most of the speaker combos I have seen, 2.5 ohm is closer to the average required.
Gothame it would depend on the driver. Some high frequency drivers can get away with a simple cap. Others have sometimes got nasty curves and resonances to them. Sometimes a bit of roofers putty can fix some issues, other times you may need a filter.
@@rich1051414 I went and had a look. I use a 3.3 ohm 5W resistor which was my first guess. I then spent another two weeks listening with 2.7 ohms and 3.9 ohms before reverting to 3.3 ohms. I don't have any 2.5 ohm resistors, nor have I ever seen one. I only have 2.2 and 2.7 ohm resistors in that range.
@Marten Dekker "Many manufacturers have relied far too much on measurements instead of listening."
Amen.
Which capacitor needs to be use for 150 watts and 8ohm tweeters.
#Dxn, You'll find they're rated in Volts and Farads.
My 98 Honda has a cap on the little tweeter they come with. Guess it doesn’t matter if that’s all is used for a car’s tweeter?
THANKS.
That 6db filters offer the least phase shift is only right in theory, since the drivers themselves have phase shifts in their frequency range. Often 12db filters offer much better phase alignment, especially at inverted polarity.
Yes, I use Geezer phrases, too.
The problem with a crossover with a simple capacitor to the tweeter and nothing on the woofer, generally causes problems. Where the tweeter takes over, the woofer continues to try to reproduce the same frequencies near the chosen crossover point. The woofer and the tweeter output becomes additive near this crossover, which usually results in a bloat in the midrange. The woofer is physically larger and even though it attempts to reproduce the higher notes, it can't keep up with the faster movement required for higher frequencies. The midrange detail is compromised and the audio results are often referred to as "smear."
@ Michael Livingston
The woofer/mid-range drivers in my VAFs have several specially shaped felt pads glued to the cone. Phil Vafiadis also says the drivers are manufactured to his specification that also plays a role in diminishing HF output near the crossover frequency. There's no smear that I can detect in my VAF DC-Xs.
@@jonathansturm4163 I'm not familiar with your particular speaker. My statement was generalized and pertains to a majority of dynamic cone speakers. Electrostatic and planar types don't incorporate the crossover as I described.
Your speaker I'm sure was designed to take into account a specific dampening mass to reduce output at undesirable frequencies.
There are compromises and problems with any design. For example, earlier acoustic suspension speakers used a larger doped paper cone to increase bass for a smaller cabinet volume. In later years, it was discovered that this increased mass affected the ability of the speaker to be dynamic, responsive to transients.
This ushered in an era of multiple smaller speakers 6.5 inch and smaller, combined in a cabinet to respond well to lower midrange and midrange frequencies, and with a large enough combined surface area to reproduce lower, bass frequencies.
There's a lot more to be said on this topic. I hope this helps.
Yeah, I like multiple smaller drivers that can actually do a good job of reproducing midrange frequencies too, not *just* the bass, because IMO the midrange is the *most* important part of any speaker system, because I love my violins and female vocals, for example, and listening to a speaker that sounds muffled, dull or "bland or boring" in the midrange is really annoying to me!... I can't stand to listen to any speaker for very long that sounds like it has a "hole" in the middle of its frequency response, like something's "missing" from the sound... that just bugs me!
Besides, with many types of modern POP or EDM style music especially, (for 2 examples), the bass and sometimes the highs seem to be majorly boosted during mastering or recording in order to make a song sound the "loudest" or "most impressive" when compared to others, so having a speaker that's maybe (ever so slightly) "bloated" in the midrange turns out to be a "good" thing in the end, kind of "balancing everything out"! Vocal clarity is extremely important to me!
"Most loudspeaker designers know more about it than you do..." is the right answer. Lots of hifi enthusiasts unfortunately get caught up with forum nonsense and sadly, many diy efforts seem ill informed at best and ruin speaker response at worst. Phase, efficiency, frequency response; polar response; damping factor considerations; impedance with frequency; overlap and slope steepness; break up and distortion; power rating and a raft of other considerations all have to be accounted for.
I've been a professional speaker designer for some years and can say with honesty that there's no perfect solution and designers try and achieve optimum performance for minimum complexity. Truth is though that for the most part 6db slopes are not good enough and usually it takes 12 or even 18dB slopes to engineer the best compromise for passive systems. 4th order or more are usually best avoided unless active for reasons of complexity, cost and loss of system efficiency.
Also, simplified analysis assumes perfect driver electro acoustic response but there us no such thing as the perfect or linear response. It's a very complex field.
One thing can be advised with some degree of certianty though...ignore all the nut job advice of one or two companies that advocate ripping out crossovers and replacing with just a cap for the tweeter. They haven't a clue what they're talking about. You'll ruin your speaker response. I've seen the results of this where parallel impedance in a two way dipped to 2 ohms and wrecked a clients amplifier....don't go there! Trust the professionals...they for the most part know what they are about!
This IS good advice, but with two important things to keep in mind... It is advice that's geared to most "average" people, (ones who don't know much or really anything about how speakers actually work), AND if considering that you're talking about a truly good, well-known speaker manufacturer that actually takes the time (AND invests the money and R&D), to actually computer engineer the crossovers in all of their speaker models... THEN, in those cases, you can say that "the manufacturers probably know more than you do"...
Really inexpensive speakers however, (especially ones where there's usually only 1 really cheap quality, extremely low value, (i.e. extremely high x-over freq.), electrolytic capacitor in series with the *tweeter* , a capacitor which is usually seemingly just "thrown in there" with a very generalized and "arbitrary"/average value, one which is very common to a specific *type* of tweeter, but not necessarily to any specific *model* of tweeter, per-sé, and then of course, NO crossover components on any other driver in the speaker), *those* types of speakers have MUCH room for improvement with improving the crossover yourself, as I have done it myself many times, making the speaker sound like a MUCH more expensive one! (At least as long as the drivers are of at least a semi-decent quality)
I know it totally depends on each individual driver, what works best in each specific instance, but I have found more often than not, that a mixed order crossover is generally what ends up working the best in most cases, and after extended listening evaluations...
One example (of a 3-way system) would be using a 1st OR 2nd order, 6 OR 12-dB/octave, low pass filter on the woofer, (depending on how well behaved and extended its top end frequency response is), a 6 OR 12-dB/octave, (1st OR 2nd order), either band pass OR high pass on the midrange, (depending on the midrange's capabilities, top end response, and its overall sound integration with the woofer and tweeter), and then either a 12 OR 18-dB/octave, (2nd OR 3rd order), high pass filter on the tweeter, depending on its power handling and resonance frequency, especially...
OR, if in the case of just a (generally smaller) TWO-WAY speaker system, I like either 6 or 12dB/octave, 1st or 2nd order low pass, OR in some cases, especially with speakers that use smaller woofers of 6.5" dia. or less, and ones that can actually do a good job of reproducing midrange without too much cone breakup, just having the woofer roll off naturally on its high end to greatly improve the *midrange clarity* and *presence* , (as long as it's well behaved and not too "peaky"), (therefore making it essentially be a "mid-woofer"), and then adding at least a 12-dB/octave, 2nd order, high pass filter on the tweeter at a (relatively) higher crossover frequency, (considering the mid/woofer is doing the majority of the midrange frequencies), and of course again taking into consideration the tweeter's power handling ability and resonance frequency, especially. (A slightly higher x-over freq. on tweeter results in higher power handling of tweeter too, regardless of crossover slope/order, as you know.)
Of course all of that above is just one "starting point" to consider with each design, but then you absolutely MUST do a very thorough listening evaluation with many types of music that you know extremely well, in order to tweak the design to actually sound its very best possible! Every speaker combination, (of drivers and crossover components), is totally different of course, (as I'm sure you already know), so you just have to go with what ultimately sounds the best with the most types of music that you like, regardless of what any computer program or calculation tells you is "correct", because if an initial "designed/calculated" combination of driver(s) and crossover components sound "irritating" to you or "grating" on your ears, or just plain "boring" or "bland" to you, when thoroughly listening, or over the long-term, then you know *something* has to change about the design, so you have to keep experimenting until you get a combination of drivers and crossover components that are absolutely amazing and breathtaking, IMO!
I don't even have any computer programs or anything to use for speaker designing/building, because I'm too "poor", (money-wise at least), so I have to do everything "by ear", and taking into consideration everything that I've learned about speakers since I was a kid, (and over the past 40 years or so!), and I definitely have fun at it!... Maybe that's the most important thing to remember of all; to have FUN and *enjoy the music* no matter what! :)
It seems like some "audiophiles" have "forgotten" that sometimes! Lol!
Oh, and in addition to my other longer comment, I also agree with you about generally avoiding using 24dB/octave, 4th order, (or higher), *passive* crossovers because they are too complex and lossy... However, using a digital or electronic crossover to do that kind of a slope is great if it's a good quality electronic crossover!...
I would actually LOVE to be able to (someday) be able to actually afford to buy a really good and versatile electronic crossover and multiple amps to test and design speakers with, because I've heard that you can do some really amazing driver integrations with that type of setup!... That would be a dream of mine!
Dunlavy used 1st order tweeter on his large floorstanders. It blew tweeters at high volumes.
Howdy.
I suspect a series capacitor alone does not provide enough power attenuation. My concern would be one would blow the tweeter at high end power levels.
Regards.
Getting a cross over filter right isn’t all that easy. A simpler cross over will yield more overlapping output between the drivers but will also reduce the phase shift issues arising from more complex filters. A complex filter can make the speaker measure better with a flatter frequency response and lower distortion but it might sound worse due to the filter messing up the phase.
That 6db filters offer the least phase shift is only right in theory, since the drivers themselves have phase shifts in their frequency range. Often 12db filters offer much better phase alignment, especially at inverted polarity.
WESTEL Audio Yes, agree, the typical optimum is neither too little filtering (simple cap) or too crazy filtering trying to make a super flat frequency response.
Did Paul say Bob Carver's "little pills"? I figured that that kind of stuff would be reserved for the book! 😉
must be why my altec 604c sounds so good
Personally I like single pole crossover filters for tweeters. Many tweeters like the 3/8 inch mylar models I like have a free air resonance of around 3 KHz. They should not be used below 2X resonant frequency. They are so cheap you can buy them for multitweeter arrays. This further reduces the power each one has to handle. I've never burned one out this way.
Mylar tweeters are surprisingly nice when implemented properly. Super lightweight coil and cone dome, I wonder why no one has tried to make a supreme version of them
Bowers and Wilkins 606 only has one capasitor in serie for the tweeter and one coil in serie for the woofer. The tweeter and woofer are unbelievable well made and basically dont have a renonance frequency to cancel out. They function just fine with a 1st order filter.
A 2.2uf cap would have a 9khz crossover turnover point with an 8 ohm tweeter. It would take a really rare woofer to have linear response out to 9khz, and even so, it would have very poor dispersion that high, since the driver starts to beam when the length of the waveform equals the driver size. That's why tweeters are 1 inch, because a 20khz wave is 1 inch. So, a tiny 4 inch woofer will start beaming at 5khz. That's why even small 4, 5 and 6 inch woofers are crossed over to the tweeter at 2-4khz, to have good power response in the room, because even if you sit directly in the sweet spot, it won't sound very good if there's not a smooth in-room response too. And, as Paul explained, there aren't too many woofers that have a smooth rolloff at the top of their usable range without nasty resonances that you want to filter out with at least a first order filter consisting of an inductor, especially many woofers made today with metal cones, or other hi-tech composite materials. Go to somewhere like Madisound and look at the response curves they show for woofers to see what I mean. Better still is a 2nd order filter on both drivers, which consists of an inductor in series and a capacitor in parallel with the woofer, and the opposite, a capacitor in series, and an inductor in parallel with the tweeter, for a rolloff of 12db per octave on both drivers. And you want the tweeter to be crossed over at least an octave above its resonant frequency.
Gotta admit I use 15μF bipolar caps on my tri-amped tweeters to block DC in case something goes wrong in the amp. I'll probably replace them with speaker protection relays when I get around to it.
You should try using 12 volt dome lights or a series of LED lights. They will not affect the sound and they will protect any DC current passing through. I've used it many many times and high-end car audio systems. Due to the rudeness of 12 volt audio amplifier design. If there is DC current present they will light up like a Christmas tree and then you know you have a problem with your amplifier.
You can never find any solution, from watching his videos
Good day, how to choose capacitor voltage for tweeters?
Capacitor voltage isn't really as important of a spec. to consider when building speaker crossovers as its actual capacitance value is. If you always use capacitors that are rated at 100 volts or higher, then you will be just fine in most speaker designs. Lower power handling speakers, like lower-end bookshelf or smaller satellite speakers, for example, even sometimes use 50 volt capacitors.
Personally, I would use at least 150-250 volt minimum capacitors myself, especially in HIGH power handling speakers, but most audio grade non-polar electrolytic and most other types of (useable for audio) non-polar capacitors such as Polypropylene or Mylar, etc. are usually rated for that much voltage anyway, so its no huge deal, just make sure that they are indeed NON-POLAR capacitors to use in crossovers, because if you use a regular capacitor, one with a polarity indication on one side, then you'll quickly blow it up in a speaker crossover, because audio is a form of A.C. voltage instead of D.C. voltage!
Hmm maybe doing this ribbon plannar speakers might be good
Carter's got pills. My mother used to say that long ago.
I remember!
Sound like a recipe for tweeter disaster. Dynaudio's Esotar and top-shelf models from Scanspeak, Seas or Morel are about the only tweeters I would attempt a first order crossover with unless I was using a 10-watt tube amp. Most mid-bass drivers need specially designed enclosures to perform well without a crossover (Eggleston tranamission lines and Elac's Adante' series' band-pass) to perform well. Morel's MW166 was or is the only midbass driver I would attempt to use without a crossover as it has a well-controlled upper range roll-off that's ideal to use with single cap tweeter crossover and those were pretty spendy the last time I checked.
for esotar tweeter what is the value of capacitor?
Hi. I have a question. I love vintage hifi from 80’s-90’s. I buy many old equipment and I noticed that they sound much less clearer (much less treble) than what they were sounding when they were new. What’s getting old in them? Is it the old capacitors acting as filter? What’s the reason they sound much less clearer? THX
I'm no expert, so go easy, but am replying as I noticed nobody else did. I bought a vintage pair of Sony speakers from the early 80's that were in good condition to look at but sounded awful. Just sounded out of balance and just wrong. I asked for help like you did and someone suggested I replace the capacitor inside. They were just two way speakers and had a single capacitor crossover. I replaced them like for like for about £2/$3 per capacitor and now the speakers sound so crisp and clear. Obviously not up there with high end hifi, but they sound really good considering their age and price. It's given them a whole new lease of life.
Carters pills 0:54 I think were for constipation. Cures 2:01 Verbal diarrhea. Good vids Paul.
ALMOST ALL OF THE CONSOLE STEREOS USED ONE CAP PER SIDE OR RATHER PER TWEETER AND IT WORKS IT MAY NOT BE CUTTING EDGE BUT IT GETS THE JOB DONE
You didn't mention the oh so dreaded phase shift, caused by the capacitor .... ?!
I remember people saying that that was a no go for using equalizers. So why is it now okay to use capacitors that "ruin the phase" just as bad ?
Tubetinkerer ..... go for bi amping then .. this phase shift only manifests itself when handling power
Janina Palmer Personally I do not dread phase shift, and with good reason. Neither do I avoid equalizers like the true audiophiles do. I am just questioning why phase shift is not an issue now, where it apparantly is in eq's.
And sorry, but the phase shift does not only occur when handling power. Phase shift is inherent to capacitors and inductors in AC circuits.
@@Tubetinkerer Perhaps an analogy will help. I have a book that extols the virtue of Vitamin C. It also tells me that drinking wine is evil because it contains ascorbic acid. If you don't know what ascorbic acid is, look it up with Google.
Jonathan Sturm Hahaha... great analogy... 👍😂
Carter's Little Pills was a laxative. Nothing about the liver, but a lot of people called them Carter's Liver Pills.
Right pill!
I think it would be fine, if the speakers are dual amped. Otherwise, the tweeters will probably be WAY too hot. Tweeters are typically far more effecient than the woofer they are housed with, and need more than a capacitor to correct that. Capacitor and a 2.5 ohm resistor would probably be good enough most of the time. Regarding the woofer running unimpeded... it depends on the woofer xD
Can't you just use a capacitor example 2.2uF or 3.3uF just for protection if amps blow up and go DC....
This after the cross over ative point at 5k
A single compacitor just chokes the high mids that are coming out of your tweeter unit. The key is mastering the three step speakering unit process for clearer mid-range, clearer tweeter, and equal bass balance. Now a compacitor for a tweeter (a good one) should dot every (I) and cross every (T).
An 8 ohm Soft dome tweeter is great with compacitor, but a 3 ohm bullet tweeter is better with an compacitor.
This is the way I see it.....your woofer should have some kind of bottom bass vocal at 6 ohms coming out of the coil in broadcast vocal. The mid-range should have a clear surround sound range at 4 ohms coming out of the coil in broadcast vocal. The tweeter should be in 8 ohms with a highly choked compacitor to cut all mid-range effect sound coming out of the coil, for a clearer direct center sound stage in broadcast vocal.
Note! If you are dealing with different ohms within your speaker unit, than you need a (more powerful amp!) to drive the different types of ohms at full clarity within its unit.
Hope that this helps 🤔 Cheers ✌️
"Compacitor" If you can't even spell it correctly, I'm sure you know FA about crossover design.
One very important point Paul omitted to say ( I thought he was going to mention it when he said " how good is your tweeter?" ) and that is what is the power capability of the tweeter too.. this refers to the slope of the filter . High order networks allow tweeters to be used in higher powered speaker systems
Also in this case, with the points you're both trying to clarify, is if a tweeter has a high power handling capability, along with a low resonance frequency, one can potentially get away with using (only) a first order, 6-dB/octave slope on the tweeter high pass filter, IF the value is chosen wisely enough, taking all important aspects of the design into consideration.
Finaly a video that I understand! The others are basicaly black magic
If using a tweeter with 6db/octave, that tweeter might handle less power than 12d/octave. Because you're sending low frequency to the tweeter. Some speaker built like this 6db for woofer and 12db for tweeter. why? because the woofer can't play high frequency.
I remember Carter's little liver pills, and the expression, you've got more opinions than Carter's got pills.
Single cap or a single w/bypass cap can be done and is done, usually by the creator, tech, someone who understands the math and has measuring equipment to fine tune the amp-cap-speaker interface. In your letter writers case, ya gotta closely match the x-over already in there, and it's likely a crapshoot, as there may be other components in the circuit that can't be ignored.
🤔Pls cut it out Mundorf Capacitor MPK Alum or SilverGold crossection video have too?
You remind me of my maths teacher
Acoustic research 8s telerdyne
According to Wikipedia I looked up that Carter's little liver pills and it's supposed to be a laxative.
A single capacitor can be used to protect the tweeter in the event of a active crossover/minidsp failure.
I just watched a vid by new record day saying I think if I heard him right if u add a tweeter to a full range mid bass woofer with no crossover they overlap to much and it causes alot of cancelation and wierdness in most cases. That statement was way less technical than his and Paul's explanation but it maby the jist of it....
Well, that ALL, TOTALLY depends on *driver matching* , and how well they all "blend" together! I.e., do the drivers all sound really great, very smooth and pleasing, even "spine tingling" &/or mindblowingly *awesome* together, OR, do they sound like total dog shit that you can't stand listening to for even a few seconds, meaning they're either a really great match, OR a horrible match, respectively?! This has to be considered both before, and especially *after* adding in the crossover elements!...
And btw, a really good crossover design and implementation should only *enhance* or *improve* the (already preferably at least *good* ), sound *blend* between the individual drivers, and it should ultimately also improve the overall 3-dimensional "sound picture" produced by ALL of the drivers together, or in other words, the entire speaker as a whole! How well every part of the speaker interacts together as a whole *system* ...
The general idea is to keep the crossover *as simple as possible* , using as few components that makes it work, but where all of the drivers and their associated pass bands, (i.e. frequencies they are allowed to reproduce), are comfortably within each of the drivers "well behaved" and optimum performance frequency responses... And of course also what *sounds* good too, not just measures well!...
There is SO MANY variables and interactions in an entire speaker *system* , the list is almost endless! For example, each of the individual drivers, the boxes they're in and how well they're sealed at all of the joints and holes, whether they are ported or not, each one of the individual crossover components, how many components there is in the crossover, their type(s), size(s), and values, and how they ALL interact with the drivers AND each other, also each driver's cone, frame, surround and spider material, voice coil diameter, wire size, and type, their impedance, and power handling, how big/strong of magnets they have, the driver's excursion capabilities, any enclosure damping material, baffle treatments, internal wiring size, type, and routing, internal bracing, etc., etc., etc...
The list of things to take into consideration when *properly* designing a really *great* sounding speaker, goes on and on and ON, to almost what seems like forever!... Literally *hundreds* of individual things, maybe sometimes more, depending on the speaker design, and ALL OF THAT as a whole, totally interactive and extremely complicated "puzzle" has to be considered, because even CHANGING ANY ONE THING JUST A TINY BIT, AFFECTS EVERYTHING ELSE in the speaker system as a whole unit, so then you have to go back and re-calculate another component that you initially thought was "perfect" before, because *every single individual component* of any speaker system interacts with and affects every single *other* component in that same speaker, and in multiple ways, many/most of which are audible.
ALL of the above, put together, (all which affects overall sound quality), plus having to also consider the speaker's asthetics, and maybe most importantly, the *overall COST* , is/are the (MANY) reasons why there are SO many types of speaker designs and especially brands and models of speakers out there! That's also because no-one has ever really "perfected" the total *art* of speaker designing and building, and probably never will because there is just SO MANY variables! Lol!...
However, even though absolute "perfection" when referring to a speaker's sound quality is really actually totally impossible to ever achieve, the endless "quest" for that will always continue throughout time, because we ALL enjoy *music* so much!
Sorry for the LONG-ass "novel" here, but hopefully you understand now why Paul said (espec. when referring to speaker and crossover designing and bulding) that "the answer is never that simple!" (Actually, speaker designing and building is one of the most diverse and thoroughly complicated things us humans do, because it actually attempts to combine the totally subjective and relative items of art and music along with physics and technology, which is never an easy thing to do, especially since everyone's tastes AND hearing is different, so there's really NO "absolutes" in speaker building in ANY way!... It's still very fun tho, espec. for us audiophile nerds! Lol!
I've heard that the bass and the tweeters make the speakers go to war...
Watching these videos is like talking with the G rents.
The EPI 100 has one capacitor for the crossover.
I had a pair of the later EPI model 70's series III (the ones made by harman kardon) that had a similar network with a phenolic ring/ cone tweeter and 6.5 inch woofer. Surprisingly it was one of the best sounding bookshelf speakers I had ever had, Same with a pair of philips bookshelf speakers that broke the rules and had a "4" cone tweeter, and just a cap that were from the 1960's had to toss them after the very rare woofers voice coil unraveled. The woofers were sellin for almost $300.00 a peice on ebay at the time.
Yep, had me a pair as well. And I remember the Carter’s Little pills too.
Paul: ...."than Carter has little liver pills"
So, i use a tri-amped system.. tweeter caps.. hehe.. no caps needed
Awesome video Paul. I would like to also add, companies are now rating their speakers frequency range at the -10db point instead of + / - 3db. Andrew Jones clarified that in a video recently which also opened my eyes to measurements. The -10 db point is the full frequency range of a loudspeaker. Until it was explained, I didn't know why companies were doing that. Pro Audio lists their speakers like this and the home audio market is picking up on it also...
No, it is not the “full frequency range”. +/-3dB is used because, on average, we hear everything within a 3dB window as basically the same volume, where we can tell a difference if we did a comparison, but it’s close enough to be called the same perceived loudness. +/-3dB is a 6dB window, so double, so that just means everything within that range, on-axis, will sound sorta the same volume.
The -10dB is vastly lower in volume for bass frequencies. That’s simply a cheating spec.
th-cam.com/video/DNfpYncOQRc/w-d-xo.html
No, watch the video, you're wrong..."the defined frequency range of a speaker is the - 10db point" ANDREW JONES...
@@kirkcunningham6146 Very interesting. Thanks. Listened to this on my Logitech computer speakers. I could barely hear what Steve was saying and Andrew's voice was clipping at several points. No, 10 dB is not cheating because that's about speaker impedance. This is manifestly _not_ frequency response for "constant" loudness which remains 3 dB. You are talking past each other.
By the way, I want to clarify that my point is based on bass frequency, not mid-range to high frequency. I apologize, I should have been more clear. Andrew Jones was speaking in the context of impedance and used the - 10db reference point to explain how impedance can change based on the frequency range of the speaker reflecting bass. So if you have a subwoofer at a frequency response of 35hz - 120hz ( + -3db ) but the frequency range is 32hz - 120hz ( - 10db ), the latter is an example of what I'm talking about...the defined frequency range. Meaning - 10db down from flat...the capability of the subwoofer without any boundary reinforcement...
the saying was LIVER pills not LITTLE pills...and it was a reference to cod liver oil pills that the company CARTER would sell.My grandfather used to say it all the time."THEY HAVE MORE OF THAT THAN CARTERS' GOT LIVER PILLS"Becasue ,well,pills come in abundance,especially a whole company.
The tweeters and mid-woofers need to be carefully selected to use one capacitor. Not just any tweeter and mid-woofer. When using such a simple crossover a high quality capacitor will create a phase coherent two-way speaker. Phase coherency gives the greatest sense of depth and imaging when done well. Typical crossovers leave the tweeters and mid-woofers out of phase with one another. Here is one example of an audiophile speaker that uses a first-order crossover. nsmt-loudspeakers.com/Model-15
Can you give the value of the capacitor
How to make a class B amp sound like a class D amp. Use a 2 ohm resistor in parl with a 270 ohm resistor and run it between your amp and speakers. That "spiky" tizzed up top end. It actually seems to act like a 1 mf cap but still letting everything else in. Great for cheap "muffly" FR drivers. If your speakers are a but dull, it will brighten them up heaps. And use a 1 mf cap in parl with it as well to smooth out the "class D" sound. But the resistors (by themselves) seem to have more top end than with the cap! lol (Especially if you lower the value of the high value resistor). The cap is to slow the effect down. lol And only do it to dull top end speakers. Great for BOSE but not so much for Focals. lol Try it and see if you can figure how this "impossible E drive" works. I will be using it with like 5" FR drivers that are more "muffly" than my 3" ones. They don't need it and they are really bright way up top though. Cheers Big Ears!
It can be fine with the right drivers but there are not many drivers these days for which that works. However if an existing design would work well with just one cap the manufacturer would have never spent the money on the other components.
It is possible to improve on a commercial speaker but not buy just randomly removing parts.
How about 120 DB per octave they are supposed to be great.
Upgrade from elcap , you will improve it , try it instead of thinking about it
Carters little pills were basically a mild laxative.
carters had back pain pills as well
Q:Is a single capacitor alright for a tweeter?
A: No!
What is that little hitachi thing next to you? Flashlight?
Cordless drill.
O yes, so like that u say that for i couple dollars more stay whit a crossover and have beter sound,i do that thanks
Really, using a single capacitor instead of a crossover network only protects the tweeter from being fed with signals at too low a frequency for it to handle. It does little to tailor the output of the tweeter so you get all the particular tweeter's anomalies, warts and all.
Cheap speakers use a single capacitor instead of a crossover network just as a cost cutting measure to prevent the tweeters from being fried. More expensive models can only do so because they use a particularly well behaved tweeter. Such items aren't cheap.
The use of a single capacitor also does nothing to address the strange effects that can occur from running certain bass units from a full range signal. Typically, intermodulation distortion can result from running a speaker outside it's comfort zone. Usually this isn't a huge problem but it can be necessary to run the bass unit via a low pass filter to avoid odd effects from the unit used or even the resonant frequency of the cabinet. Low pass filters are often used to avoid "boxiness" or "honking" in the upper mid bass.
However, there's certainly no law against experimenting with a capacitor in lieu of a crossover network and if you don't like the result, it's a simple matter to reinstate the original crossover.