Are crossovers necessary

[KD88]

I'm upgrading the audio in my Lotus Elise S1. It's pointless spending large amounts in a noisy, carpet less convertible so keeping the build to;

Pioneer DEH X-7800DAB

Pioneer TS-A173Ci components

Kenwood KSC SW11 compact sub

The head unit has separate phono jacks for front, rear and sub which can be adjusted via the menu.

Does this mean I shouldn't bother with the speaker crossovers and if I should use them how will I wire them.

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[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

If it were me, I would wire the crossovers inline for your speakers. They're designed for the component set. If you ditch the passive crossovers and opt for the active headunit crossover, you introduce user error. For example, if you set the high-pass too low, you can damage your components from excessive excursion if they're trying to play too low at full power.

Also, you can have everything set up great, and then your headunit gets reset for one reason or another (if your battery does dead or gets disconnected during servicing). Then your settings are erased/reset.

Active setups are great when you have an external amps for your speakers. You can fine-tune with the dials and not have to worry about losing the settings.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

you will need to use the passive crossovers that come with the component speakers. i haven't seen a head unit yet that allows for a 4kHz high pass on a speaker output. some head units can offer active crossovers for the RCA outputs, but i don't believe yours is one of them.

 

[KD88]

Thanks guys, clears things up nicely.