In car audio, the most common speaker crossovers are used in 2-way coaxial and component speakers. In fact, you’ll almost never find a good-sounding speaker system that isn’t using one or more types of crossovers that’s how important they are for great sound.Ī crossover (audio crossover) is an electrical or electronic component circuit made up of parts that react to certain frequencies and designed to eliminate unwanted ranges of sound from reaching speakers.Ĭrossovers allow a desired range of sound to pass unaltered and effectively block ranges of sound past a limit called the cutoff frequency.Ī crossover circuit can be used for only one single speaker channel or combined with another to separate and direct sound the best speakers suited to produce it. When we think about musical signals we don’t always realize the important things going on behind the scenes. One reason why crossovers are so helpful there is that we can use them to block terrible-sounding audio frequencies that ordinarily would cause these problems and others, too. That means they leak air badly and can “bottom out” easily if driven hard with bass sounds, for example. To make matters worse, speakers in cars, trucks, and even boats are often mounted in areas where it’s impossible to get great sound because they leak air and don’t form a good enclosure to deliver sound properly unlike home stereo speaker cabinets. Some of the most common speaker sizes installed from the factory or sold for aftermarket use like 3.5″, 4″, and 5.25″ sizes can be terrible for playing bass, resulting in bad sound and ugly distortion.

While they sort-of do, in reality, crossovers are filters that greatly reduce the amount of unwanted sound frequencies sent to speakers.Ĭrossovers are very important for car audio as they help us deal with the poor enclosures they’re used in along with the weaknesses that small speakers have. People tend to talk about crossovers as if they totally “block” sounds you don’t want to go to your speakers.

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