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1st order crossover?

The speakers I have, have a 2 inch dome driver that has crover points at 1,000 and 2,000. In the owners material and set up a lot of attention is given to phase and time. Each driver is in it's own cabinent and a measuring device is used to align each cabinent after measuring the seating position from top of sub and floor to ear distance. Can the crossover points for that 2 inch dome be 1st order "6db per octave" when it is not even covering an octave. It has been said that drivers for 1st order crossovers have to cover such a wide frequency range. That is not the case here. Hope to learn a few more things on 1st order crossovers. Thanks
saygrr
jdombrow
371 posts
 
What speakers are they? Have you tried asking the manufacturer or the dealer?
saygrr OP
72 posts
 
They are Essence 10As. Yes I have asked but Dale keeps the specifics of his designs to himself. The owners material does say the crossover is 1st order and "This is the only filter that is both phase and amplitude coherent." Have owned the speakers for 12 years. Had them updated once. Have always been wondering about that 1,000 to 2,000 part of the crossover. These are my favorite speakers. I also like Vandersteen and Green Mountain. I know that just because the crossover points are far apart does not mean that it is 1st order but when it is this close can it be 1st order?
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drubin
3,275 posts
 
I don't see why not. 1st order just means the slope of rolloff is at 6db/octave, so the dirver is in fact operating over a greater range than 1000 -2000. That's the tough thing about 1st order crossover designs-- the drivers have to perform well over a much larger frequency range than they do in higher-order designs.

This is a 5-way design? I suppose that is one way to work around the demands of gradual slopes. Is this the same Dale who now makes the Intuitive Design products?
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,247 posts
 
I know nothing about your particular speakers, but there's no reason it couldn't be a first order crossover with a very narrow range. I speculate, but the tweeter couldn't operate effectively below 1kHz (an octave below the midrange crossover point and only -6dB down in level using a first order design) and the lower midrange driver couldn't go as 4kHz, so the designer added a separate driver to span this frequency region. It could work, but it looks like you have three drivers with significant output in the critical midrange. Again, I know nothing about your speaker and I'm just speculating on an hypothesis.
saygrr OP
72 posts
 
Yes it is the same Dale. He makes great products. Have not heard any of his Intuitive Design products, but really liked the Essence stuff he made. Thanks for your input guys.
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