crossover filters

[yours truly]

hi all. first post here. anyway, from what i understand (and i'm an electronics n00b), a crossover acts as a frequency splitter. so does that simply mean that, say in the case of a three-way crossover, it takes an audio signal and splits into three outputs and each output only letting through a specific frequency that is unique to the other two outputs (i.e. one for the lows, the one for mids, and the third for the highs)? and how difficult is it to design a crossover where you can actually set separately the range of frequencies that come out of each output?

also, do EQs have crossovers in them?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Books have been written on this subject..

In general loudspeaker crossovers are filters that direct the signal to different drivers depending on frequency. The transition between adjacent drivers, is not a sharp cut off but both drivers receive signal in the middle of the hand off. There is much work involved in getting these adjacent drivers to play nice with each other during this transition.

Proper crossover design involves factoring in the individual drivers phase and amplitude response along with the electronic circuitry.

JR

 

[Mark Burnley]

Hi,

and welcome!

As John mentioned above, it's a massive topic- and now in PA land this is handled almost exclusively by digital processing- google for dbx driverack, bss Omnidrive, Dolby Lake etc.

Old analogue units still exist in venues and nightclubs, even studios. An example which has public access to schems and manuals would be e.g. Rane AC22-

http://www.rane.com/oldman.html

More worthwhile reading from here-

http://www.rane.com/library.html

If you get a chance, play with a digital crossover- they also have individual channel EQ's (usually parametric with 5 bands or so) plus gain, limiting, delay etc per driver band output.

also, do EQs have crossovers in them?

No, not unless it's a speaker-specific product, but as I mentioned above, crossovers usually contain EQ's!

Hope this helps,

Mark