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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
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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.
honest1
586 posts
 
The crossover point is not the frequency that the driver suddenly stops making sound, but the point where it is 3 dB down. It takes at least 10 dB for one sound to drown out another, so the useful range of that driver at 6 dB per octave is at least 500 to 4000 Hz. It is an unusually small range, but maybe the mid woofer and lower tweeter just didn't have enough musical overlap to work, so this dome is just bridging the gap. This is a range where many systems sound harsh, maybe because the drivers are working at the limits. By putting a dome here, maybe it allows the other drivers to work more comfortably. Are they Thiels?
saygrr OP
72 posts
 
Hi Honest1. It sure is an unusally small range. What ever it is he did he did well. They are Essence 10As.
Thanks Jeff
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