crossover freqs - HU or amps

[jojosdad 10+ year member]

Should I use the crossover freq's on my headunit or amps?

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[msrpIZtooMUCH 10+ year member]

Use one, the other or both, depending on what you are trying to do.

 

[jojosdad 10+ year member]

Use one, the other or both, depending on what you are trying to do.

Care to elaborate?

 

[msrpIZtooMUCH 10+ year member]

It's all a matter of what frequencies you want the speaker to be playing at. For example, if you had two 8 inch drivers in your front doors for midbass, and a 2 way component set for mids and highs that are also located somewhere up front, you would want the midbass drivers to play from (roughly) 60hz to 175hz and the component set to pick up from there. The frequency at which the component set would begin to play at would be dependent on the decible per octive rating of the crossover. Back to the midbass drivers: In order to highpass them at 60 hz and lowpass them at 175hz (this is called a bandpass BTW) 2 active crossovers are needed. You would highpass at the HU and lowpass at the amp or visa versa. For the component set, you would just highpass at the amp, or at the HU (assuming we are dealing with an active front stage). At the subs, in this particular example you would lowpass at roughly 60hz (again, depending on the decibles per octive rating of the crossover) and set the subsonic filter (if applicable) at roughly 25hz (another bandpass). I don't know what the capabilities of the crossover in your head unit are nor do I know the capabilities of the crossover in your amps. Furthermore, I don't know what kind of drivers you are using or what it is that you are trying to accomplish. But, in this particular example, some channels only require one crossover, and others require two. Whether YOU use the crossover in the HU or the amp or both will depend on the capabilities of the crossovers and what kind of front stage you have.