Audio Guru's I Need Help.

Diplomat_Wagon

Diplomat_Wagon

Hiding In The Bushes While
I need to make or buy some good sounding three way crossovers for my stereo system.

I picked up a couple cheap "Audio Pipe" ones off ebay and they turned out sounding like shit. :doubt:

Ok, here's the deal.

I have two towers with two 10" subwoofers (one Pioneer and one Pheonix Gold) that I would like to run one of them as a decent sounding midrange if possible, there is also a 5-1/4" two way Eclipse car speaker and a 3" (?) Cone tweeter.

Everything is good for 8 ohms.

Here's a pic. The crapola crossover is on top. The built in crossover/dial thing in the box is fried just so yah know.
DSC00206.jpg


Here's the amp. It's a Panasonic SA-HE75 100W x 5, 250W x 2.
DSC00207.jpg



Help!?

I don't really have a large budget here either, I just want it to sound good as it doesn't sound at all since I fried the original ones and I can't stand the crackly, constant hiss and very low volume distorted crap the "Audio Pipe" ones offer. :mad:
 
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I have no answer to the question you're asking, but if you're the one blasting the neighbors for fun and profit, I recall that you've blown a few amplifiers. One thing I thought of is that you might try getting a small fan and simply placing it on top of whatever amplifier you're using at the time. Have it sitting on top of the vent slots in the top of the case, and have it blowing up so that it can augment the hot air's natural tendency to rise. It needn't cover the whole vented area, though the bigger the better. If you have a power supply, a 12v fan out of a computer (or 3) would work fine. That would probably work WONDERS to dissipate the heat that gets made when you run one at high power continuously, and might completely stop amplifier failures if they've been thermal failures.
 
v8440 said:
if you're the one blasting the neighbors for fun and profit
Click to expand...
No that would be Jass. And I belive it's for revenge[smilie=i:... although, he may be getting some fun out of it:bwuhaha:. You'd have to ask him.
 
Simply put, Dippy, there's no way you're gonna get decent sound out of it. The car speakers are 4-ohm and have internal crossovers (well, at least capacitors) and are designed for full-range use... so trying to cross them with an 8-ohm X-over just isn't gonna work.

Additionally, with two 10" woofers both at 8 ohms (are they each really 8ohm?), the only resistances you're gonna be able to run at are 4ohm (which will fry the amp--trust me on this) or 16ohm, which will negate the effect of having two and make it tough to cross over. If they really are subwoofers, they won't have the range to work as a midrange, as midranges usually need to reproduce sounds as high as 6K Hz.

Here's what I'd do, since you've got a 5-channel amp:

1) Lose the car speakers. You can get decent 5¼" midranges from many sources; I'm a big fan of Dayton Audio speakers when you're looking for good quality on a budget. Go to partsexpress.com or find a Canuck vendor. Make sure you're getting 8ohm speakers.

2) Use a 3-way X-over to drive the tweets, mids, and upper woofers. Good-quality units can be had from PX as well for around $20 each; I've blown parts off the ones I bought, but then again I don't expect you drive your system at the ludicrous levels at which I drive mine. I was also running an amp that put out 50% more power than the rating of the X-overs so it wasn't really a quality issue.

3) Bi-amp the speakers. That is, get a separate sub crossover for the lower 10" woofers (assuming each is 8ohm), and run each of them with separate speaker wires from the amp (obviously, you want each on its own separate channel). You have extra channels; might as well use 'em. This will also serve to allow more wattage to each driver, and the crossover wiring will be simple and direct. It'll be louder and sound much better. Or...

4) If the 10s are actually 4ohm, this goes out the window and you should just wire them in series off the X-over. If they're 4ohm and you're gonna run 'em in series, though, put both Pioneers in one cabinet and both PGs in the other. Wiring two non-similar drivers in series plays hell with the crossover and just plain sounds like hell.
 
You know Jass, now that you mention it the subs are 4ohms. :doh:

The cone tweeters are 8ohms and the car speakers I'm not really sure, I think they are 4ohm as well.

I would like to keep the car speakers because they are nice high end pieces that you can hook up directly to the driver, bypassing the built in crossovers which are quite large on these ones.

See, you can unplug the crossover and run right to the driver.
DSC00208.jpg


I am willing to lose the cone tweeters as they don't produce as much range as the tweeters in the car speakers and for the fact that the resistance on them is the odd one out.

So what would I do with four subs and those car speakers?

I can probably pick up another set of separate tweeters if need be.

Oh and about the amp, it's a home theater amp so the five channels can only be used in "surround" mode, two fronts, two rears and a center speaker. I just run it on "stereo" mode and that runs all power to the front left and right channels.


Just for the record, here's the crossovers I already have.
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-PAIR-3-WAY-PA...ryZ50552QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
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Using the car speakers, you won't need any tweeters. They already have 'em. Adding any more is just going to put too much high frequency into the sound.

The subs present a problem because now the only way they can be wired together is going to result in an horribly-low 2ohm resistance, or a normal 8ohm. Either way, you're looking at building your own crossovers because to my knowledge, no one make a mixed-resistance crossover with a 4ohm high-pass section.

The big issue right now, though, is no matter how you configure the speakers (well, any way that it would sound good), the impedance is too low for your receiver. It's probably not stable into 4ohms, and any kind of volume for longer than half an hour or so is going to either pop the protection circuit, smoke the outputs, or burn up the transformer (my Onkyo's transformer was literally melted).

Can you get me some model numbers off the 10s? I'm going to see if I can dig up some parameters on 'em and figure out if there's any way to do a 2.5-way setup. That would at least keep you in a straight-4ohm configuration; it's still too low for your amp but who knows--it might hold on for a while as long as you don't crank it up for long periods of time.
 
Dr.Jass said:
Using the car speakers, you won't need any tweeters. They already have 'em. Adding any more is just going to put too much high frequency into the sound.

The subs present a problem because now the only way they can be wired together is going to result in an horribly-low 2ohm resistance, or a normal 8ohm. Either way, you're looking at building your own crossovers because to my knowledge, no one make a mixed-resistance crossover with a 4ohm high-pass section.

The big issue right now, though, is no matter how you configure the speakers (well, any way that it would sound good), the impedance is too low for your receiver. It's probably not stable into 4ohms, and any kind of volume for longer than half an hour or so is going to either pop the protection circuit, smoke the outputs, or burn up the transformer (my Onkyo's transformer was literally melted).

Can you get me some model numbers off the 10s? I'm going to see if I can dig up some parameters on 'em and figure out if there's any way to do a 2.5-way setup. That would at least keep you in a straight-4ohm configuration; it's still too low for your amp but who knows--it might hold on for a while as long as you don't crank it up for long periods of time.
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Ok I see.

I do have a set of 10" passive radiators I could use instead of the pheonix gold subs since I have NO info on them at all.

The Pioneers are model # TS-W251F.

I think that would work better by using those radiators, no?
 
The passive radiators are a good idea. If they're off-the-shelf, custom-build units they'll have a provision to add mass (weight) to the cones, usually just flat washers. Adding/reducing mass is how you get them to respond at the same frequency as the woofers. The only real way to do it, barring having the mass numbers of both the woofers and passives, is to add/subtract a little, give 'em a listen, and try again.

Ones that came installed as part of an existing speaker system may be a little tricker to tune... use good epoxy.

Using the passives will leave you with a straight 4ohm resistance across the board; very easy to cross over. Just find a 2-way crossover somewhere between 600-800Hz (I'd try to stay towards the lower number), and you should be good to go.
 
Dr.Jass said:
The passive radiators are a good idea. If they're off-the-shelf, custom-build units they'll have a provision to add mass (weight) to the cones, usually just flat washers. Adding/reducing mass is how you get them to respond at the same frequency as the woofers. The only real way to do it, barring having the mass numbers of both the woofers and passives, is to add/subtract a little, give 'em a listen, and try again.

Ones that came installed as part of an existing speaker system may be a little tricker to tune... use good epoxy.

Using the passives will leave you with a straight 4ohm resistance across the board; very easy to cross over. Just find a 2-way crossover somewhere between 600-800Hz (I'd try to stay towards the lower number), and you should be good to go.
Click to expand...



Awesome!!!

Could you point me to one you would recomend? :shifty:
 
Damn Jass, what am I supposed to add to that?

I could go into PVC pipes and Fostex.. but we would probably end up arguing and have to relocate the thread to Audio Asylum....
 
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