If you start out simple - a simple 12dB/octave HP/LP combo, for example - building a crossover really isn't difficult.
You don't even need to know anything about it, to start playing... there are great websites out there, you just plug in your speaker's impedences, your desired Xover frequency, the slope - usually you pick a crossover type (Bessel, Linkwitz, Butterworth, etc), and hit "submit"...
...IT comes back at you with a schematic (which is very, very simple), and the values of the components that you want to use.
And even at that, you don't need to be exact... they don't make 337uF capacitors, for example.. you could use a 320uF.
Honestly, even 24dB/octave filters (which you'd basically never need to go steeper than that), the schematic isn't complicated, not terribly hard to build - just that it gets expensive.
But to get started with, there are
inexpensive crossover parts available too. I personally scale my crossover parts quality with frequency range in mind...
For tweeters and mids, I use high quality components. For my sub, I use iron core inductors and less expensive capacitors.
For experimenting, I use "cheap" right across the board.
If you are curious, check out some of the differences here:
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm ... Page_ID=61
Inductors come with similar quality differences...
You'll notice small-value inductors come in air-core, foil, and other exotic types - these are best sonically, but don't come very large.
Fortunately, you don't need "large" until you need to build a sub Xover... and iron core ones work well (and aren't too expensive) for the job.
PE sells these too.
I buy a lot of my crossover components from them - they have a good selection of "cheap" (but suitable for Xovers), "midgrade", and "high end".
(I used the Dayton Poly caps in my Pathfinder system - that's as exotic as I care to pay for.
And I just used the standard, bipolar electrolytics for my sub Xover.)
Now that I do a search, I see that PE has all sorts of info on Xover design, if you are curious:
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&webpage_id=140
(scroll to "resources and articles")
If you start out simple - a simple 12dB/octave HP/LP combo, for example - building a crossover really isn't difficult.
You don't even need to know anything about it, to start playing... there are great websites out there, you just plug in your speaker's impedences, your desired Xover frequency, the slope - usually you pick a crossover type (Bessel, Linkwitz, Butterworth, etc), and hit "submit"...
...IT comes back at you with a schematic (which is very, very simple), and the values of the components that you want to use.
And even at that, you don't need to be exact... they don't make 337uF capacitors, for example.. you could use a 320uF. :cool:
Honestly, even 24dB/octave filters (which you'd basically never need to go steeper than that), the schematic isn't complicated, not terribly hard to build - just that it gets expensive.
But to get started with, there are [i]inexpensive[/i] crossover parts available too. I personally scale my crossover parts quality with frequency range in mind...
For tweeters and mids, I use high quality components. For my sub, I use iron core inductors and less expensive capacitors.
For experimenting, I use "cheap" right across the board. :D
If you are curious, check out some of the differences here:
[url]http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=61[/url]
Inductors come with similar quality differences...
You'll notice small-value inductors come in air-core, foil, and other exotic types - these are best sonically, but don't come very large.
Fortunately, you don't need "large" until you need to build a sub Xover... and iron core ones work well (and aren't too expensive) for the job.
PE sells these too.
I buy a lot of my crossover components from them - they have a good selection of "cheap" (but suitable for Xovers), "midgrade", and "high end".
(I used the Dayton Poly caps in my Pathfinder system - that's as exotic as I care to pay for. ;) And I just used the standard, bipolar electrolytics for my sub Xover.)
Now that I do a search, I see that PE has all sorts of info on Xover design, if you are curious:
[url]http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&webpage_id=140[/url]
(scroll to "resources and articles")