Alpine 3 way setup..

[PaLiAcH]

originally i was going to do a 2 way setup, consisting of the Alpine SPX-177R (6.5" and tweeters) but have decided to go with a 3 way...



so i would like to make a 3 way component setup, and this is what i have in mind:


Alpine Type-X SPX-17MB 6-1/2" Component which is just the 6.5 woofers and crossover (w/ dedicated amp switched on mid filter for midbass)

http://iweb.alpine-usa.com/pls/admn/item_info?p_item_name=SPX-17MB&p_category=80&p_subcategory=155&p_main=10&p_more=y

and

Alpine Type-X SPX-137R 5-1/4" Components for midrange and tweets... (with dedicated amp switched on high filter for mids and highs)

http://iweb.alpine-usa.com/pls/admn/item_info?p_item_name=SPX-137R&p_category=80&p_subcategory=155&p_main=10&p_more=y

or

Alpine Type-X SPX-107R 4" Components for midrange and tweets...

http://iweb.alpine-usa.com/pls/admn/item_info?p_item_name=SPX-107R&p_category=80&p_subcategory=155&p_main=10&p_more=y



the tweeters i believe are the same as the 6 1/2" set as well as the 5 1/4" and 4"




is this setup correct?? do i need the bigger speaker for the midrange? or can i do a smaller midrange, such as the 5.25" or 4"? or should i go with a 6.5 mid bass, 6.5 midrange, and tweeter?

i believe the smaller woofers have a higher frequency i think, which ould make it ideal for a midrange, right?


also, the specs show that the comp set with tweeters are 3-Way/Dual Midbass Ready and Bi-Amp/Bi-Wire Capable .. what does that mean?


thanx for helping a newbie out! i thank you guys for all your help so far!!
-pino

[PaLiAcH]

bump

[packerfan]

I belive the 3 way set up has a slightly larger tweeter, like 1.2"? Dont take my word for it but thats what i think i read. I think the 3 way had a 28mm and the regular 2 way had a 25-26mm IIRC.

[squeak9798]

do i need the bigger speaker for the midrange?

Nope. Actually, it's very common for a 3-way setup to consist of a 6.5" midbass, 4" midrange and tweeter.


can i do a smaller midrange, such as the 5.25" or 4"?

Yes


or should i go with a 6.5 mid bass, 6.5 midrange, and tweeter?

You don't need to. Depends a lot on how much room you have in your kicks and what the xover points are on the passives, how much you have to spend, etc.


i believe the smaller woofers have a higher frequency i think, which ould make it ideal for a midrange, right?

They may be capable of playing higher....though, it all depends on where Alpine crossed them at on the passives. Ideally, you want to have the midrange playing as high as possible to push that midrange to tweeter xover point up higher and out of the more "critical" range. That's one of the advantages of a 3-way...it pushes the xovers points out of the critical "midrange" area and allows all the midrange frequencies to played by a single speaker. Hence why you see smaller speakers being used for dedicated midranges...they typically can play higher. Though, like I said....it all depends on where Alpine crossed them at on the passives. They may have used the same xover point for all the speakers (6.5's, 5.25's and 4's).....I have no idea.



also, the specs show that the comp set with tweeters are 3-Way/Dual Midbass Ready

Well, from the manual I can see that their passive xover has a jumper to allow you to wire two midbass in parallel and run them off the passives, so that you would have 4 midbass in total ("Dual Midbass Ready"). But I didn't see where it mentioned what the "3-way ready" was for........



I tried get and Bi-Amp/Bi-Wire Capable .. what does that mean?

Typically it means that, through the passives, you can use a 4-channel amplifier and wire one channel of the amp to each speaker. So, instead of the passive xover only using one input, you would have two inputs on each passive xover; one for the tweeter and one of the mid.


Hope that helped...some.

[PaLiAcH]

awesome!!! thanx for the thorough explanation squeak! ill definitely go with the 4" mid and tweet with some 6.5 midbass!!!

[Flipx99]

I was curious how the SPX-107R worked out.