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Frequency response and AVR crossover

3K views 19 replies 8 participants last post by  18Hurts 
#1 ·
Hello,
Does anyone know if its safe for the speaker, meaning no risk of damage, to match speaker frequency response spec listed for the speaker at receiver crossover setting. I would like to try 60hz crossover for all speakers. Receiver has one setting for all speakers meaning crossover can't be set independently for, front back, center. The rp250s specs list 58hz to 15khz. Unsure of upper range, but the low end is 58hz. Will a 60hz crossover be safe to run and continue listening at normal to loud volumes? Meaning that the 60hz crossover setting would not limit how loud the system is listened to regularly.

TL;DR
Can crossover be matched exactly to speakers specs or within a few hz without an added risk of damage?

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#2 ·
It's safe to run them as large if you want to. It's generally not best but it won't hurt them. If you're using a good sub then the lowest crossover for your speakers would/should be 80hz and it wouldn't hurt to go higher. I use 120hz all around and it sounds great.
 
#3 ·
I would not crossover right at the LF spec limit. Remember most speakers distort pretty badly when driven hard at their low end limit and below, and a crossover is not a brick wall that instantly stops all sound below -- it rolls off gradually. With 60 Hz'ish low end corner I'd set the crossover at 80 Hz or 90 Hz and take the load of the speakers...

FWIWFM - Don
 
#4 ·
I would not crossover right at the LF spec limit. Remember most speakers distort pretty badly when driven hard at their low end limit and below
+1. Speakers are most limited in output capability at the lower end of their frequency range, and least limited at the upper end. That being the case:

Meaning that the 60hz crossover setting would not limit how loud the system is listened to regularly
It would do just that.The higher the frequency that the load is shifted off the mains to the subs the louder the system would be able to go, assuming the subs are correctly sized. The line one doesn't want to cross is where the subs become directionally located.
 
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#9 · (Edited)
To test the various settings and choose the one i prefer, maybe get some more "mid bass" ? or "low bass" ? from all around the room. The speakers have woofers wanted to see what they could do. I started a similair post about the rp160m woofer somewhere else on this forum. But that post was about the 160m's that were exchanged due to the speaker not playing any bass at all , no woofer movement. Now that they work i would like to get even more bass without damaging the surround speakers.... maybe this is not the way to do it...

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#10 ·
maybe get some more "mid bass" ? or "low bass" ? from all around the room.
That's not going to happen with 5.25" woofers. Maybe with 8", and then only if your subs are undersized and/or you only have one.
 
#11 ·
Well that has me wondering what the design purpose is of including woofers on speakers is. Wouldn"t a tweeter suffice. Maybe the "woofer" label is misleading me. Thank you all for your responses. I think i will just leave the crossover at 80hz, dont want to damage the speaker

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#12 ·
Well that has me wondering what the design purpose is of including woofers on speakers is.
The term 'woofer' refers to a driver that works down to the vicinity of 40 to 60Hz. It doesn't make mention of how loud it can go in that range. When it's only a 5.25", not very, unless it's quite expensive.
Wouldn't a tweeter suffice.
A tweeter typically works above 3kHz or so. Going from a sub to a tweeter would leave most of the audio bandwidth unaccounted for.
 
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#13 · (Edited)
Ahh so these woofers can play 60hz tones as they are rated at 58hz but they shouldnt and cant play these tones very loud. I was unclear on this part. But after re-reading earlier posts, i can see that thats whats been said. Thank you for clearing that up. However since these woofers are only rated at the upper end of the 40hz to 60hz you mentioned it would seem they are not very good at what they do. So they must be handling 80hz to 3khz mostly given the 80hz recommendation. But you did say vicinity which im guessing means thats an aprroximation so even 58hz would qualify these as woofers. Apart from being big round cone shaped speakers...much more clear on what these do now

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#15 ·
But you did say vicinity which im guessing means thats an aprroximation so even 58hz would qualify these as woofers.
You've probably heard the terms 'moving air' and 'there's no replacement for displacement'. The lower the frequency being played the more air one has to 'move' for the same output. That takes displacement, cone area x cone movement, something that 5.25" woofers don't have that much of. Four of them don't even equal one ten.
 
#14 ·
Also, keep in mind that your speakers are still playing the frequencies at 58hz and below even with an 80hz crossover. Crossovers are not brick walls, but more of a gently roll-off (slope), typically 12dB per octave. So, your speakers are still playing sounds at 60hz, just -12dB below the sounds at 80hz and above. ;)
 
#20 ·
There would be one time setting the XO at the speakers limits of bass is a good idea

IF you play at low volumes and you have ONE sub that works perfectly in a location far from the mains, then you might notice you can hear where it is in a larger room. IF you can localize your sub at 80Hz or higher, then lowering the XO to 60 to 70Hz might give better sound quality. This only counts if your mains don't struggle with the 60Hz XO point and it won't if you don't play loudly.

During the Bose cube era, plenty of people would put the sub crossed at 120Hz behind them and have the mains 4 to 6 meters from the sub and it was an odd sound as the bass came from behind you--most people didn't notice but some people did. Thankfully, the market has moved on from throwing the sub in the kitchen days and it is common for the sub to be filtered at 24dB/Oct than 12dB/Oct back in the day.

Personally, I like to use multiple subs up front and crossover a bit higher, say 100 to 120Hz or so to take the load off the AVR and let the subs throw out a bit of punch. Then again, I'm weird so take my advice at it's face value...free!

Good luck with your system and enjoy.
 
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