Phoenix Gold Phorum

is there any reason using a set of crossovers from a car comp set wont work right for use in home? (doing a cheaper home stereo.. and am in need of crossovers.. )

heard it might change the xover points when using 8 ohm
or if your using the speaker it might load the home amp down to much
what amp?

Crossovers are designed based on the impedance of your drivers. If the impedance of your home drivers doesn't precisely match the original drivers that the crossover was designed for, it will change the tuning frequency.

Partsexpress has some cheap generic crossovers in various impedances.

well the amp hasnt been bought yet.. was leaning towards a couple amps.. the audiosource's.. ima run some saphhire 12's hopefully off of an amp2/3 preferably a 3 with more power. then the mids with an amp1/2 obviously prefer the 2 for power and an amp1 for the tweets. (but i guess probably 2 amp 1's cuz of money for mids/highs and then the biggest, least expensive i can get to run the 12's...

ill check it out, thanks stip

If you're running a separate amps for mids/tweets then you should run active instead. You would need a biampable passive crossover to be able to do this otherwise.

uhhh come again governor?? whats better? or does it matter? whats difference between active and passive? could you not buy/make a crossover for each.. like a crossover for the subs that will play 20-60(w/e) then a crossover for the mids.. 60-150(w/e) and then a crossover for the highs for 150up, with an amp for each..?? not well learned when it comes to crossovers.. although im not a complete idiot.. feel free to explain if you wish

Don't have time to explain now, but read up the crossover sections on http://bcae1.com/

Basically, active filtering is done on the pre-amp level (that is, RCA level), so either your headunit, amp, or an external crossover would cut the frequencies.

Passive filtering is done with components directly in the acoustic circuit (so on your speaker wires). It is strongly tied into the speaker impedances, and has the disadvantage of lowering your overall voltage. Passive crossovers take quite a bit of power away from components for example, which is why running active is usually much louder, watt for watt.

So for your speakers you can make passive crossovers for everything, which would sap power, or you can get something to actively cross them over instead. Unfortunately a good active crossover is hard to find for the home.

back to the explanation I made the other day....

let's start from the beginning. Your sound needs to "cross a river".

The one side is the source, and the other is the speaker drivers. Now, you have a choice: you can either load correctly for your destination at source and steam all the way through, or you have to stop near the end, re-load, losing some cargo on the way to the corrupt customs officers, and then you may continue to your destination.

The container ship that gets sorted at source is active. It only contains the correct frequencies, before the amplifier gets a hold of them, then the amps (!) send each of the frequencies via a seperate boat to their destination. If you build this in software, your options are virtually limitless; building it in hardware (i.e. electronics) is more difficult. There's something called a DCX-2496 which will do this. It's a couple-hundred bux, but it rocks. Big-Time.
The passive crossover is represented in the simile above by the fact that you a) have to stop b) lose some cargo c) split down to smaller boats.
Bigger boats are more efficient, and losing cargo = not good.
You can do it, but active XO would be better. Plus that way you get a lot more control over your sound, 'specially if you use that Behringer I've just mentioned.

There is also a conversion kit for that so you can plant one or more in your car.......

Downside of active is you need one amplifier channel per driven speaker unit, not necessarily per box, and not everyone wants 17 channels of amplification in their living room (7.1, with 3 channels per front, 2 per other and subwoofer)....

Hope this helps.

Bret

definately. appreciate all the input guys, thanks!

brett_kivi, best explanation of active vs passive I've ever read