speakers and cables

@mitch2

 sub’s crossover as a high-pass filter

Are you saying the in and out connections on my subs have a crossover in between them? What I am curious if it's a filter actually, filtering anything out that maybe shouldn't be

Are you saying the in and out connections on my subs have a crossover in between them? What I am curious if it’s a filter actually, filtering anything out that maybe shouldn’t be

@grisly: hopefully someone will chime in and offer an explanation I can wrap my head around. For the time being I will say that it is my understanding that the dial on back of your sub where you adjust frequencies is the low pass filter, and that this adjustable low pass filter is what determines at what frequency the subwoofer starts trying to reproduce bass. In other words, if you set the low pass filter at, for an example, 60, theoretically your sub would reproduce 60 hZ and LOWER. In a perfect world your main left and right speakers, and this is just a hypothetical example, would reproduce bass down to 60 hZ and then quit, and in that same perfect world, your sub would reproduce NOTHING higher than 60 hZ, and this would be perfect sub/speakers integration (as I understand that when the sub and speakers start reproducing the same range of certain frequencies, using another hypothetical example: sub and speakers overlapping from 50 to 70 hZ this OVERLAP is when bass gets "muddy").

(So to "muddy" the waters some more, remember when I was attempting to explain the high pass filter? Using my high pass filter as an example, it is preset to pass on frequencies of 80 hZ and HIGHER to the main speakers. In the perfect world that I understand does not actually exist, if one was using a high pass filter that was passing on frequencies of 80 hZ and HIGHER to the mains, , then setting the lowpass filter on the sub to 80 hZ would mean that the sub is going to make bass from 80 hZ and LOWER. Perfect integration. But I understand room acoustics and other variables usually prevent frequencies from being lopped off EXACTLY where the filters are set.)

I did a search using does a subwoofer have a crossover for a search engine. Found a forum where someone provided this answer:

"Does a subwoofer have a crossover or a lowpass filter?

within the context of a sub. Same thing. However the crossover is designed to also feed the non-sub speaker.

A crossover separates the signal. Over the point goes one way, under goes another. Only the under would get used on a sub. The rest are used on the non-sub speakers of a system.

A low pass just removes and throws away stuff over the point."

So if I understand that correctly, and it seems quite possible that I do not, if the sub does have a crossover, it would come into play if and when one was using speaker wire from L and R speaker posts in amp out to L & R speaker inputs in subs, and then speaker wires out of subs into main speakers. And the crossover would determine at what frequency the signal would cross over to the main speakers.

Don’t take that last paragraph I just typed to the bank yet. Let’s hope some one who is knowledgeable on this subject weighs in and clarifies how this works..

@immathewj

OK. that would make sense. I will check out the manual for the PSW10 if indeed it matches the crossover. (I also might just open up the beast and see if there is a crossover). It does sound "thinner" maybe because I am keeping the low frequency from the speakers and I should dial it down. And overall, the "sound chaos" I sometimes had when I set the frequency on the sub too high is gone. Incredible how simple minded I can be and clueless about such simple things. Until I am not!

Thanks for figuring out my limitations and educating me.

One benefit would be, if the frequencies were split, for the bookshelf speakers to have to produce the sound in a smaller range - which then makes the sub placement even more important.

It does sound "thinner" maybe because I am keeping the low frequency from the speakers and I should dial it down.

I am assuming from this comment above that you are using speaker level input at this time, and if the way I interpreted that quote is accurate, the quote that I provided in my last post, what would be going on in that mode is the crossover in the sub is determining at what frequency the signal makes it to your mains. (Which actually should provide better integration, I would think.) However, as I also typed in my last post, I may not be understanding that correctly.

If it’s sounding "thinner" I guess there are a few possibilities. Subwoofer break in, meaning the amp, the driver, the crossover, probably the whole shebang of the new sub, probably enters into it. I am assuming that now you have one sub that is well broken in and one that is brand spanking new. You could play with the ’level" adjustments (NOT the frequency adjustments, which I am still assuming is aka the low pass filter) on back of the subs and see if that changes anything to your liking, but I am assuming that you have already done that.

With everything I have just typed, I do not know if a sub would have both a low pass filter and a crossover or only one or the other. It seems to me, and as I always say--I could very well be wrong, that in order to be able to use the RCAs, in that mode, it would have to have a low pass filter. Because if you think about it, in that mode your sub is operating independent of the mains. Your mains are not directly connected to the sub when you are using RCAs, therefore, a crossover in the sub would have no effect on the mains. So in the RCAs mode, what you would want to do is figure out how low (at what frequency) your mains are going down to, and then use that as the basis to start playing with the frequency adjustment of the low pass filter on back of the sub.

So if I’ve got that part right, then if you were using the speaker wires-from-amp-to-sub-then-out-to-mains-mode, then in that scenario it would be the crossover in the sub that would determine where the frequency that arrived at the main speakers would be. It would no longer be a full frequency signal the mains are seeing.

And if I’ve got all that right, which it is quite possible that I don’t, in the speaker wire and crossover of sub mode, it almost seems as if the frequency adjustment on back of the sub (the low pass filter) would not be active?

But then again, I may have all of that completely wrong.

Incredible how simple minded I can be and clueless about such simple things. Until I am not!

You and me both.

One benefit would be, if the frequencies were split, for the bookshelf speakers to have to produce the sound in a smaller range - which then makes the sub placement even more important.

That certainly seems as if it would be a benefit IF I have got that right about the speaker wire mode and the crossover. And yes, I can absolutely see that in either mode (RCAs/lowpaass or speaker wire/crossover) placement of the subwoofer is going to make a difference. But now I think I just realized what you are saying about that? If there is a crossover that lets frequency cross over from the sub to the mains at a fixed point, if you have your sub placed badly and there is a "hole" up around the crossover point of the frequency that the sub should be reproducing, then you are going to hear that hole as a bass deficit? Versus if you were using RCAs and the adjustable low pass on the back of the sub to adjust frequencies, that "hole" would be less likely to occur with your mains getting a full frequency signal?

And overall, the "sound chaos" I sometimes had when I set the frequency on the sub too high is gone.

. . . hmmmm.  Before you were using the speaker wire from amp out to sub and then speaker wire out to mains mode before, right?  So maybe that shoots down my theory about crossover in sub to speaker wire from sub to mains theory making the frequency adjustment on back of the sub inactive.