Are crossovers the most important part of speaker design?

Johnny Vinyl

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There are some people over at another forum who do nothing but talk about crossovers and say it is the single most important factor in speaker design. Is this an over-exaggeration?
 

mep

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There are some people over at another forum who do nothing but talk about crossovers and say it is the single most important factor in speaker design. Is this an over-exaggeration?

Who started the thread? It sounds like someone I know...
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Who started the thread? It sounds like someone I know...

It's not in a specific thread...just some talk about various speakers and their crossovers. I can't believe that one aspect in speaker design is SO important that it outshines all other factors. But what do I know? Hence the question.
 

mep

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John-Of course the crossover is really important. So is the design of the speaker, the quality of the drivers, and the quality of the overall construction. Can a bad crossover design ruin a speaker? Of course it can, but so can every other aspect of speaker design. It's a pointless debate IMO. Chicken or the egg, if a tree falls in a forest...
 

Johnny Vinyl

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John-Of course the crossover is really important. So is the design of the speaker, the quality of the drivers, and the quality of the overall construction. Can a bad crossover design ruin a speaker? Of course it can, but so can every other aspect of speaker design. It's a pointless debate IMO. Chicken or the egg, if a tree falls in a forest...

That's my take on it as well.

So when one starts to design a speaker what is the starting point or is their one? I assume one has a vision for what they are trying to bring across, but how does that start out?
 

garylkoh

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You can't start designing a crossover without having drivers in mind..... Then, the drivers will dictate the size of the cabinet. Or, you design a cabinet and pick drivers that will work in that cabinet. So, the crossover is usually the last thing to be considered. After that, it is iterative because sometimes you just simply can't get the cabinet/driver/crossover combination to work, then you go back and re-design the cabinet and/or the driver.

Even with a combination of drivers and cabinets, placement of the drivers will affect crossover design. Mid, then tweeter, then woofer. Or tweeter, then mid, then woofer? Port front, back, down, or no port?

The reason many diy speaker designers think that the crossover is the most important is because speaker kits that include both drivers and cabinets are easily available (on Madisound for example). When that is the case, the crossover design and make/break the end product.
 

DonH50

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+1. Driver parameters and cabinet design generally dictates the crossover design (primarily frequency and slope). Great drivers can be trashed by a bad crossover, but a great crossover won't help really bad drivers.

Synergy, balance, and all that jazz.

IMO, and please note I am NOT a speaker designer - Don
 

JackD201

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On the other hand, some crossovers have circuitry running in parallel that flatten impedance and frequency response. Of course calling that "driver correction" is debatable.
 

treitz3

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Hello, John. I can say with complete certainty that the crossover components can and will be an extremely important part of speaker design/performance but this question is somewhat like that of the source or speaker thread. There is no real answer.

Tom
 

Robh3606

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There are some people over at another forum who do nothing but talk about crossovers and say it is the single most important factor in speaker design.

It just as important as the drivers are.

Rob:)
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Thanks for all of the replies guys! And the way I'm reading them is that there is no black/white answer to this. Everything has to work together (obviously) and if there is a weakness it could come from a variety of areas or a singular one.

Learning every day and every time I come here! :D
 

andromedaaudio

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What is the most important thing in a car:... the wheels or the steer ?:)
The same answer goes for X overs .
It is possible to screw up a otherwise good speaker through bad X over design .
IMO the most important /difficult /expensive part is the housing of a speaker , once you figure out the optimal X over design its merely routine
Its like with any job .you got to have the right tools (measuring equipment) and experience.
BTW all those books from so called X over experts , i have chucked them in the bin (or rather resold them on the net:D) and lastly the quality of the used parts has to be of a certain standard off course
 
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Duke LeJeune

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So when one starts to design a speaker what is the starting point or is their one? I assume one has a vision for what they are trying to bring across, but how does that start out?

The starting point is simply to have an idea for a way to build a speaker that's enough better than what's already out there to be worth the effort.

Virtually all choices that go into a speaker design are inter-related (woofer/tweeter/crossover/enclosure/anticipated room & placement/WAF/budget/etc.), and any one thing that you don't take into account can sink your ship. Therefore the more you can take into account at the same time, from the onset, the better.

And to paraphrase a line from The Princess Bride: Speaker design is tradeoffs, highness. Anyone who says differently is in marketing.
 
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rockitman

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There are some people over at another forum who do nothing but talk about crossovers and say it is the single most important factor in speaker design. Is this an over-exaggeration?

Ru really concerned ? I'm not...the speakers I chose got it right. Can you imagine second guessing the speaker designer's choice of crossover configuration ? If you can, then build your own speaker. ;)
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Ru really concerned ? I'm not...the speakers I chose got it right. Can you imagine second guessing the speaker designer's choice of crossover configuration ? If you can, then build your own speaker. ;)

Haha...no I'm not concerned at all. It was simply a query based on what was being discussed elsewhere, so I brought it here since we have manufacturers/designers participating.
 

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