Low freq. from small drivers? Is it possible

Sean,

I'm aware of the advantages of actives, but again it becomes an issue of the overall design compromise. As few people would be interested in a $15k/pr monitor, only a tiny fraction of them would even take a glance if it required biamping. Besides, using really high quality parts makes a huge difference, and keeping it simple helps perhaps even more.

The tweeter power handling (from LF leakage) in a series crossover is a function of the DCR of the woofer inductor. The tweeter attenuation "shelves" at some point, and the lower the DCR, the lower that point is.

The power handling in our case isn't even close to being an issue. The inductor is small with very low DCR, the crossover point is fairly high, the tweeter is padded down, and on top of all that, the response is designed to fall like a brick below the tweeter resonance, which is more than two octaves below the crossover point. So in this particular case, it is more than bombproof. But that isn't always the case.

Best Regards,
Karl Schuemann
AudioMachina

Karls...In a SERIES crossover, a WOOFER inductor? You need to explain this.

El: Series crossovers consist of the opposite components one would use in a parallel crossover.

While "common" crossovers are called "parallel" designs, they really are closer to a series circuit by their very nature. Some newer speakers ( and old ones like Fried and Koss ) use what is called a "series" crossover, which is really like a parallel circuit. You can see a diagram of a basic "series" crossover here at Karl's website. The terminology is quite confusing and i can understand why this baffles people.

As a side note, i was doing a search and ran across Clement Perry's comments about Karl's speakers. You can read it by clicking on the link to Stereotimes CES coverage. Sean
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Sean:

Series crossovers consist of the opposite components one would use in a parallel crossover

I think that's what El was asking about: how come the woofs are looking, so to speak, at an inductor rather than a cap...

Yep Gregm.

In a series crossover you first put the woofer and tweeter in series. That would, of course, pass all frequencies through both drivers, briefly until the tweeter burned out. To avoid this you put an inductor across (in parallel with) the tweeter, so that LF signal bypasses the tweeter. Similarly, a capacitor across the woofer keeps HF out of that driver. The value, mH, of the inductor, together with the inductance of the driver determines the high pass frequency of the tweeter.

In summary, the inductor relates to the tweeter, not the woofer.

Perhaps the terminology just got mixed up, but, I wonder...