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Making active speakers with 4 Gallo A'Divas

In the process of researching new speakers for my office I've read about the benefits of active speakers over passive speakers. It came to me that I could use 4 Gallo A'Divas, controlled by an active crossover, and powered by two ROTH MC4s, to create 2-way active speakers.

A'Diva as the mid/bass and A'Diva Ti as the mid/treble. A subwoofer would take everything from 120hz down. My question is...how do I determine the best crossover point? Most speakers seem to cross the mid/treble between 1.7k and 2.2k. With full-range speakers I imagine it could be anywhere. I'm just thinking of how to make them produce the same volume/workload, so they blend well.

Any ideas?
What's a good inexpensive crossover?

Thanks!
Mot
manoterror
timlub
2,042 posts
 
Hi Manoterror,
Determining crossover points requires experience. Understanding speaker resonance, crossover slopes and curves as well as time alignment and phasing. If I were doing what you are doing and had minimal experience. I would duplicate the crossover points of the manufacturer and use at least as steep of crossover slopes as they did. This information should be published, if not, the info is not trade secrets and the manufacturer should tell you.
Example would be, if the manufacture used a 3k @ 12db per octave, then your active should stay at 3k and be 12 or possibly 24 db per octave. Probably 24.... Drivers have a natural rolloff on their own and a 12db per octave passive may actually roll @ 18 or 24 db per octave actual. An Electronic crossover will help control this as well as making alot of other variables better.
I am an old guy and haven't done any electronic crossing in 30 years, but I would look for a unit that had variable frequencies as well as slopes. If the slopes are fixed, I would look for 24db per octave or more. Good listening, Tim
herman
2,273 posts
 
The benefit of using an active crossover is eliminating the passive components (crossover) between the amp and the driver. Since those speakers don't have a crossover I don't see any benefit in adding an active crossover to the signal path, and if you do it why use 2 different speakers that have the same frequency range when Gallo says one sounds better than the other?
manoterror OP
216 posts
 
My main thought was that its tough for a single 3" driver to produce everything from 100hz to 22khz. So if I split the signal between two of them, the load on each speaker should be much less taxing, and thus much more efficient at producing music. Simply put: going from a 1-way to a 2-way speaker, without adding the problems of a passive crossover.

I own everything except the A'Diva Ti (better treble), and the crossover. So just a fun, inexpensive project.

@Timlub: These speakers are single, full-range, and have no crossover. So I don't think (he says hesitantly) that I have to worry about the slope, etc. But I could be very wrong. :-)
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