Passive crossover power usage


The last thread about crossovers (good and bad or as is and rebuilt with better components) got me thinking about the power required in watts to run it. Actually heat dissipated by the crossover itself.  Seems to me it must be minimal if some of you guys a running systems with crossovers and are using 2-5 watt flea power amps on efficient speakers.  Any ideas?  Thanks.

128x128barts

It really depends. Get a hold of XSim crossover simulator or other such device.

The big power wasters isn’t the frequency filters but the equalizer and amplitude leveling resistors.

Look at it this way. Almost all multi-way speaker systems use drivers with drivers that don’t exactly have the same sensitivity to the amp signal. That is, for the same signal a tweeter may be at 96 dB but the woofer at 88 dB.

The only way to equalize these is to "pad" the tweeter level down so it’s at the same relative output given the same amp input. That’s where the power wasting is mostly concentrated, but Zobel, notch filters, baffle step, impedance compensation, etc. can also waste power as heat. This is also why you see such large cement resistors in crossovers. 5W resistors are typical, while 25W resistors are also possible. That’s all wasted heat.  BTW, resistors are not the only place where power waste can occur, but they are the most obvious.

This is one area where active crossovers are undeniably better. Amplitude matching in the signal domain takes microwatts.

Thanks @erik_squires .  That's why I ripped the crossovers out of my speakers and use a Marchand 3-way electronic crossover and four amps to run my speakers. Two mono blocks for the woofers and two stereo amps for the mids and highs.

A lot more control and after I got over the tendency to catalog crossover level settings by "album" it is very nice.

Regards,

barts

  That's why I ripped the crossovers out of my speakers and use a Marchand 3-way electronic crossover and four amps to run my speakers.

So you knew the answer already and I wasted my time?

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