Someone stole my crossovers question
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 321
Likes: 0
From: Earth
Someone stole my crossovers question
When I unistalled my speakers recently when returning my car to stock, I discovered something alarming.
I had my system installed by an audio shop that is now closed. I provided them with a set of Boston Acoustics SL 60 component speakers complete with crossovers. I removed my system recently and found they never used the crossovers for my front speakers (on my car at least,) and spliced the wire ghetto style between the tweeter and woofer with electrical tape.
Now that I decided to keep the Z and want to put my system back, I want to buy just the crossovers for the component set. Can I use a crossover from other Boston Acoustics speakers or should I find ones specifically for the SL 60s? I am asking because I found a set from Boston Pros for cheaper; so would that be better (or at least the same) ?
I had my system installed by an audio shop that is now closed. I provided them with a set of Boston Acoustics SL 60 component speakers complete with crossovers. I removed my system recently and found they never used the crossovers for my front speakers (on my car at least,) and spliced the wire ghetto style between the tweeter and woofer with electrical tape.
Now that I decided to keep the Z and want to put my system back, I want to buy just the crossovers for the component set. Can I use a crossover from other Boston Acoustics speakers or should I find ones specifically for the SL 60s? I am asking because I found a set from Boston Pros for cheaper; so would that be better (or at least the same) ?
Last edited by twotonetrack; Nov 6, 2008 at 07:42 PM.
Well, the crossovers are designed to work with the drivers that they came with BUT, I can see the PRO crossovers working ok with the SL60's. The Pros will probably play lower so the crossover will be set up to play a lower freq than the SL crossovers. Could you tell the difference? Probably not...will it damage the speakers? Probably not. Just be weary of distortion and your speakers will never be damaged.
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 321
Likes: 0
From: Earth
Well, the crossovers are designed to work with the drivers that they came with BUT, I can see the PRO crossovers working ok with the SL60's. The Pros will probably play lower so the crossover will be set up to play a lower freq than the SL crossovers. Could you tell the difference? Probably not...will it damage the speakers? Probably not. Just be weary of distortion and your speakers will never be damaged.
Not exactly.
The crossovers aren't there to provide frequencies for the speakers to play but rather they are there to reduce certain frequencies (or filter out if you will) so the speakers are not damaged during their performance.
Lets say for the sake of argument the PRO crossovers are designed to filter out frequencies from 0-60 hz and 2000-20k hz for the midbass driver. The speakers will perform optimally between these two ranges (60-2000 hz) and the tweeters are designed to operate from 1500-20k which the crossovers are designed for. Keep in mind these numbers are all just hypothetical. The SL's crossover points will be much less aggressive - lets say 90-1500 for the mid and 3000-20,000 for the tweet. There are 'holes' in the lower end speakers' crossover points which is why they are cheaper. Using a higher end crossover on lower end speakers may damage them because the mid may not play that low. Also, the tweeter may be sacrificed as well. Its hard to say without some cold hard facts but that is generally the theory behind mixing drivers and crossovers.
In my case I did away with the crossovers. I ran a 4-channel amp to my mids and tweets and adjusted the crossovers and levels at the amplifier. There is a lot more driver control but there is also more chance of damaging drivers if you don't know how to make the adjustments correctly.
The crossovers aren't there to provide frequencies for the speakers to play but rather they are there to reduce certain frequencies (or filter out if you will) so the speakers are not damaged during their performance.
Lets say for the sake of argument the PRO crossovers are designed to filter out frequencies from 0-60 hz and 2000-20k hz for the midbass driver. The speakers will perform optimally between these two ranges (60-2000 hz) and the tweeters are designed to operate from 1500-20k which the crossovers are designed for. Keep in mind these numbers are all just hypothetical. The SL's crossover points will be much less aggressive - lets say 90-1500 for the mid and 3000-20,000 for the tweet. There are 'holes' in the lower end speakers' crossover points which is why they are cheaper. Using a higher end crossover on lower end speakers may damage them because the mid may not play that low. Also, the tweeter may be sacrificed as well. Its hard to say without some cold hard facts but that is generally the theory behind mixing drivers and crossovers.
In my case I did away with the crossovers. I ran a 4-channel amp to my mids and tweets and adjusted the crossovers and levels at the amplifier. There is a lot more driver control but there is also more chance of damaging drivers if you don't know how to make the adjustments correctly.
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 321
Likes: 0
From: Earth
Not exactly.
The crossovers aren't there to provide frequencies for the speakers to play but rather they are there to reduce certain frequencies (or filter out if you will) so the speakers are not damaged during their performance.
Lets say for the sake of argument the PRO crossovers are designed to filter out frequencies from 0-60 hz and 2000-20k hz for the midbass driver. The speakers will perform optimally between these two ranges (60-2000 hz) and the tweeters are designed to operate from 1500-20k which the crossovers are designed for. Keep in mind these numbers are all just hypothetical. The SL's crossover points will be much less aggressive - lets say 90-1500 for the mid and 3000-20,000 for the tweet. There are 'holes' in the lower end speakers' crossover points which is why they are cheaper. Using a higher end crossover on lower end speakers may damage them because the mid may not play that low. Also, the tweeter may be sacrificed as well. Its hard to say without some cold hard facts but that is generally the theory behind mixing drivers and crossovers.
In my case I did away with the crossovers. I ran a 4-channel amp to my mids and tweets and adjusted the crossovers and levels at the amplifier. There is a lot more driver control but there is also more chance of damaging drivers if you don't know how to make the adjustments correctly.
The crossovers aren't there to provide frequencies for the speakers to play but rather they are there to reduce certain frequencies (or filter out if you will) so the speakers are not damaged during their performance.
Lets say for the sake of argument the PRO crossovers are designed to filter out frequencies from 0-60 hz and 2000-20k hz for the midbass driver. The speakers will perform optimally between these two ranges (60-2000 hz) and the tweeters are designed to operate from 1500-20k which the crossovers are designed for. Keep in mind these numbers are all just hypothetical. The SL's crossover points will be much less aggressive - lets say 90-1500 for the mid and 3000-20,000 for the tweet. There are 'holes' in the lower end speakers' crossover points which is why they are cheaper. Using a higher end crossover on lower end speakers may damage them because the mid may not play that low. Also, the tweeter may be sacrificed as well. Its hard to say without some cold hard facts but that is generally the theory behind mixing drivers and crossovers.
In my case I did away with the crossovers. I ran a 4-channel amp to my mids and tweets and adjusted the crossovers and levels at the amplifier. There is a lot more driver control but there is also more chance of damaging drivers if you don't know how to make the adjustments correctly.
I have a JL 300/4 for the speakers and a JL 500/1 for the sub, so I wonder if the installer took my crossovers because he adjusted the crossover levels at the amplifiers (I doubt it since the wire looked spliced to me splitting the tweeter and woofer but I could be wrong.) I have read about adjusting the crossovers on the amp but I didn't know you could do it separately for the tweeters and speaker of the component set.
Last edited by twotonetrack; Nov 8, 2008 at 12:03 PM.
Great info orgasm_donor! I am not as worried about damaging my speakers, because the shop also returned the 6 1/2" speakers I gave them to Sound Advice, who allowed them to switch it with 5 1/4" so they didn't have to do any work or supply extra parts. I didn't realize it until I measured the speakers. I am going to try to do this whole system myself so I have the knowledge for the future and won't get taken like this again. I don't know how it is in Canada, but it seems like 4 out of 5 audio shops in South Florida are run by scam artists.
I have a JL 300/4 for the speakers and a JL 500/1 for the sub, so I wonder if the installer took my crossovers because he adjusted the crossover levels at the amplifiers (I doubt it since the wire looked spliced to me splitting the tweeter and woofer but I could be wrong.) I have read about adjusting the crossovers on the amp but I didn't know you could do it separately for the tweeters and speaker of the component set.
I have a JL 300/4 for the speakers and a JL 500/1 for the sub, so I wonder if the installer took my crossovers because he adjusted the crossover levels at the amplifiers (I doubt it since the wire looked spliced to me splitting the tweeter and woofer but I could be wrong.) I have read about adjusting the crossovers on the amp but I didn't know you could do it separately for the tweeters and speaker of the component set.
in Canada we have a lot of shady shops that cut corners. Fortunately though, those shops don't stick around for too long after people find out that they are super sketch.
Good luck with your install and tell us all how it turns out!
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
