cross over question

[jjrho]

hi, new to PA amplification.... we are playing with speakers/amps for small DJing, home/garage gigs... just learned re: speakon cables on another thread...tnx all...

anyway, i have a pair of peavey 215, which has some 40-khz range and one yamaha sw118, both 8 ohm speakers....
going to power the peaveys with a qsc plx 2ch amp (forgot the exact model) and the yamaha sw with qsc 2402? by bridging the output for sub....

we will use numark ns6 as a 'mixer'.... question is; what type of crossover do i need ? i 'm confused with all the different type out there....

2 ch, 3mono ? 2 way, 3 way, 4 way ? i figure i just need two outputs..i.e. L and R to plx for the peavey high/mids and one subout to qsc 2402 for sub... alot of these crossovers have 2 different outputs , for high/mid and low, and some with another output just for subwoofer.... for a newbie , the verbage/nomemclature is confusing....

pls advise....

i figure,something like a dbx 223 or various similar models out there would do what i need... just have to figure out what input/output i want...xlr vs trs etc etc.... but that's just detail so....

thanks in advance for the info/education...


james R

[Leo_Gnardo]

I've done well with a Rane AC23 stereo 3-way. Nice steep slopes. Been very reliable. I'm sure you'll get some other good answers.

What's in those Peavey cabs. 40 kHz? Are there going to be dogs & bats at the party? 40KHz will keep them entertained. Some more info from you will help get good answers from the MEF'ers.

[jjrho]

re: pa crossovers

I've done well with a Rane AC23 stereo 3-way. Nice steep slopes. Been very reliable. I'm sure you'll get some other good answers.

What's in those Peavey cabs. 40 kHz? Are there going to be dogs & bats at the party? 40KHz will keep them entertained. Some more info from you will help get good answers from the MEF'ers.

hi, yeah, the peavey 215 is tweet, 2 15"; they are rated i think some 40hz upto 20Khz; i will drive it with qsc plx amps....
i have one yamaha sw118, which is an 18" element, i think range of 30 hz to 2khz.... also do drive with a qsc amp/bridged....

so, my question is.... do i buy a 2 way crossover, with maybe a separate sub output ? i get confused with what they mean by 2 way stereo but 3 way mono, or 3 way stereo but 4way mono, etc.... if i'm just separating two freq. ranges, do i go with a stereo 2 way crossover? 3 way XOs are if you have 3 differrent freq. range of speakers ???

also, on the crossover setting, i figure the peavey can take maybe 300hz and up.... and the yami sub can take anything below the 300hz range ??? what do you think ?

i guess i need to know what XO configuration I need to buy for what i'm doing....

thanks for your helps....


james R

[Leo_Gnardo]

hi, yeah, the peavey 215 is tweet, 2 15"; they are rated i think some 40hz upto 20Khz; i will drive it with qsc plx amps....
i have one yamaha sw118, which is an 18" element, i think range of 30 hz to 2khz.... also do drive with a qsc amp/bridged....

so, my question is.... do i buy a 2 way crossover, with maybe a separate sub output ? i get confused with what they mean by 2 way stereo but 3 way mono, or 3 way stereo but 4way mono, etc.... if i'm just separating two freq. ranges, do i go with a stereo 2 way crossover? 3 way XOs are if you have 3 differrent freq. range of speakers ???

also, on the crossover setting, i figure the peavey can take maybe 300hz and up.... and the yami sub can take anything below the 300hz range ??? what do you think ?

i guess i need to know what XO configuration I need to buy for what i'm doing....

OK 40 Hz, not k, as I suspicioned...

Simplest would be a stereo 2 way crossover, Rane makes those too and there are other brands besides. Don't get confused by the same unit claiming 4 & 5 way, you have to do some "trick" wiring to get that, and you don't need to go there. We'll keep it "plain vanilla" for now so you can make some progress.

I'd pick a crossover point @ 100 to 150 Hz. I like to keep the XO point out of the human voice range so that we don't have to worry about bollixing up the tone for that. Also it's good you have that sub - the Peavey 15's won't have to handle super lows and take a chance on breaking 'em. You might even think about getting some more subs. Dancers love that boom boom stuff, and it's asking a lot for just one to do all the work. You'll also find that if you're doing sound outdoors, there's no room to reflect that energy back - it just goes out and keeps going - can make a system sound dry as toast.

There are passive crossovers in your Peaveys. You may want to modify them to increase the frequency of the crossover point to the horns. This has two good effects. Takes some harsh "bark" tone out of the audio. AND makes it harder to destroy the horn driver diaphragms. There's another thread where our friend SGM recently "sounded off" on this subject. If you want to get a little fancier, get yet another (stereo PA) amp to drive the horns and consider the Rane AC23 or similar 3 way stereo crossover.

One problem that other discussion* never got to - about passive crossovers - is IF you drive the power amp into distortion it will generate excess hi frequency energy components that your passive XO will cheerfully deliver to the horn drivers, and that will sound super harsh until the horn diaphragms just roll over and die. And those diaphragms are not cheap to replace.

*Have a look over here. It does turn into a minor donnybrook but there are also some very important points made and you could gather a bit of understanding:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t33883/

When you read this try not to get too upset with SGM's rants. He's a good guy, just gets frustrated sometimes and lets loose. He's trying to help y'all save money and sound better and that's all to the good.