@@AxiomHomeTheaters No crossover, or only the simplest designed 1st order crossovers, are the crossovers that are worth having. Big speakers are not good, they dont play loud like bookshelfs, so only big speakers require all terrible sounding subwoofers to increase their sound volume. Speakers that play flat sound terrible, bookshelf speakers that have a striger midrange over other frequencies sound best & dont require a subwoofer. For example, A piano lowest distorted keys are hardly even used.
Late to this video but, I have to say, after almost 30 years of not understanding and being afraid to ask, I finally get the crossover meaning and function. Thank you! +1
Good idea to go back to basics for a wide number of your followers. Question for you: which factors does a speaker manufacturer consider when setting those crossover points? Additionally, I would like to ask how speaker manufacturers set the sensitivity of their products, can you make a video about it? Thanks Andrew!
You can start with everything set at 80Hz, assuming all the speakers in the system will play down below that frequency. Modern AVRs will often allow you to set individual crossover points for different speaker groups, so this might be work playing with to get that last bit of performance out of your system.
This video covers another useful topic I (a non-techie) never understood and often wondered about. But there is one thing I still don't get - adjusting the crossover. An example: I only have one speaker in my home cinema setup that has a knob for changing the crossover (the subwoofer) but I have no idea what setting it should be at so I left it midway. Does that sound sensible? When you described how crossovers can be altered is this something the average user needs to adjust somehow (how?) or is it something the speaker manufacturer sorts out and we just leave it alone?
If you are using an AVR and your subwoofer is connected to a subwoofer out, set the crossover on the subwoofer to its highest setting. The AVR will handle the actual crossover to the other speakers based on your setup information.
This video got me thinking. I'm assuming that when you don't bi-amp your front speakers, the internal crossover network optimally distributes the correct frequency range to each speaker in the cabinet. What happens when you choose to bi-amp your speakers? I'm guessing woofers are driven separately, and the mids and tweeters are driven together. Where does the crossover come into play in that scenario? Does the internal crossover network still play the same role, or are there frequency settings in my pre/pro that I need to "dial in"? Really enjoy your videos, I've been in electronics for quite a few years but audio electronics is very different than what I'm used to working with. It's good to have a lot of terms explained for any of us that have heard them for years but maybe didn't fully grasp some of them.
The answer is “it depends”. You can passive bi-amp where the internal crossovers are still in play, you are just using separate amplifiers for the woofer and the mid/tweeters. There are also fully active bi-amp systems where there are no crossovers inside the speaker. Instead an electronic crossover is used in front of the amplifiers to divide the signal. In many cases the electronic crossover will be a generic unit and cannot perform all of the system tailoring required, so you can get mixed results.
@@AxiomHomeTheaters So by bi-amping my M80's, I'm still using the internal crossover network in the speaker cabinets (which is what I would want to do). I don't have any external crossovers. Thanks for the response.
Axiom made some adjustments to the crossovers from the v3 to the v4. What sound signature axiom was trying to achieve with the v4 crossover? By the way I did upgrade my m80 v3 to the m80 v3 and the lfr1100 v3 to the lfr880 v4.
1) please consider also making your videos available on other platforms such as Rumble, odysee. Many people are moving away from RU-vid for a variety of reasons. 2) I was under the impression that Axiom was going to release a line of fully active, all in one speakers. What is the status of that? Thank you.
I’ll see what we can do about additional platforms. On the subject of a line of fully active speakers, that’s news to me. Currently the only fully active offering is the LFR1100 active.
Good basic presentation but want to know the difference in benefits between active/passive and three and four way systems please. How to cope with the notches on either side of the crossover point? How to avoid phase shift problems, etc? T-pads - L-pads ?
I believe there is some info on active vs. passive in our video about the LFR1100 active, but I can cover it in a new video at some point. Covering detailed crossover design questions might be outside of the scope of a YT video, but I’ll think about it. Thank you!
Awesome video. I assume the benefit of a crossover is allowing the individual speakers the chance to play a smaller subset of frequencies. So more crossing over and more speakers should give better sound. Is this why the IRSV was so epic? It crossed over enough times to get a better sound "resolution" for lack of a better word? More clear? I have an idea to DIY my own speaker with lots of cheap speakers and lots of crossing over. There are probably some pitfalls along that road. Any thoughts on what to look out for? Thanks for the great videos.
Absolutely…you NEED to limit the bandwidth carried by some drivers. Tweeters will not handle bass, it would burn out instantly with a full-range signal. More crossovers/drivers do not necessarily equal better. You need to remember that passive crossovers are lossy and will consume some amount of amplifier power…too many or too complex of a crossover and you’ll reduce the sensitivity of the loudspeaker. The IRS groups driver sections wired in series-parallel, so there wasn’t a crossover network for each driver. The biggest piece of advice I can give when thinking about building a DIY speaker is to make sure you have some sort of measurement system planned. You cannot design a crossover using a computer program alone.
@@AxiomHomeTheaters we need some future tech that uses magnetic energy to guide the outside frequencies to a different wire for the individual speakers. Like splitting threads off a rope. No signal loss, just signal direction. 😂 or a DAC that has the crossover built in.
@@deleteduser3749 I think at that point we’ll have neural networks that connect directly to our brains and won’t need any audio equipment at all. It will only be for nostalgists!
Depending on the design, multiple tweeters might connect to the same crossover output, or they might have individual networks. In most cases multiple woofers are for additional power handling. It can also be a case of getting the sensitivity of the woofer section up to match with a more efficient tweeter. While many companies only use single tweeters, there are also many that use multiple tweeters in some of their designs, like Axiom.
In one aspect, crossover refers to the separation of frequency between tweer and woofer in a cabinet. In another aspect, let's say for a front speaker and a subwoofer, crossover means another kind of frequency separation in an AVR. In producing the best personal sound quality, how would you weigh the tuning of these two crossover scenarios? Can you clarify if the first scenario is something to deal with frequency response? The latter scenario refers to the low-frequency loading to the main speakers and subwoofer?
Yes, the first scenario, the separation between tweeter and woofer definitely impacts frequency response. But so does the second case. They are both important, but in most cases there is no way to play with the speaker crossover.
