Focal PS165 tweeter crossover not working properly?

[gamehawk55 10+ year member]

Hey guys,

So on Wednesday I installed a pair of Focal PS165 components in my front doors. Everything went fairly smoothly and everything works and sounds good but I have a small concern though. The speakers come with 2 crossovers for each side, one for the mid and one for the tweeter. For those not familiar with these sets, the tweeter x-over has 2 dip switches. One for controlling the volume of the tweeter (0db,-3db and -6db) and the other for controlling the x-over frequency of the tweeter (3 settings but none are known).

Anyways, it seems as though the crossover for the tweeters are not working as intended because the tweeters will only work with the switches set to position "3". Any other setting and they play no sound at all. And also I'm not too sure if the volume switch is actually doing anything either, I tried that in all positions and didn't really notice any difference in how loud the tweeters were, and I would assume there should be a pretty major difference between 0db and -6db for a tweeter.

For those familiar with this set of focals also knows that the manual is practically useless and offers little to no help in terms of installation and troubleshooting. Just a couple of simple pictures for 2 different wiring options. I'm currently using option "1" where I'm only using 1 set of wires from the amp for each side and wiring the crossovers together in parallel. I've included a picture of how my crossovers are wired and hoping someone comes along who has ran these speakers and can tell me if this is normal and the tweeter crossover will only work as intended when wired to it's own channel or if it should also work no matter which wiring option you choose.

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[gamehawk55 10+ year member]

Morning bump

 

[gamehawk55 10+ year member]

Really? Has nobody here run these speakers before?

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

Are your head unit and amp filters set properly, considering your using passive crossovers?

Also, there wont be a substantial difference between 0, -3, -6 db, especially since your volume levels are the same as your woofer volume levels.

If I were you, assuming your hu and amp filter settings are correct, only wire your tweets up and see if you hear music when switched to the other spots on the crossovers.

And you need to get in touch with focal and find out the frequency settings on the crossovers, thats important to know when tuning.

 

[gamehawk55 10+ year member]

Are your head unit and amp filters set properly, considering your using passive crossovers?Also, there wont be a substantial difference between 0, -3, -6 db, especially since your volume levels are the same as your woofer volume levels.

If I were you, assuming your hu and amp filter settings are correct, only wire your tweets up and see if you hear music when switched to the other spots on the crossovers.

And you need to get in touch with focal and find out the frequency settings on the crossovers, thats important to know when tuning.

Shouldn't matter where the amp and HU filters are set at because they're only used to stop too low of a frequency from reaching the speakers. But regardless I have them crossed at 60-80hz (I switch it up sometimes depending on the music). I didn't try and wire up just the tweeter crossover to the amp though. But when they're wired up the way they're supposed to be the tweeter only play at position "3" which is the highest crossover frequency. It still sounds good but I have seen that most people seem to run them crossed over in the center (2) position because they felt their highs sounded better at 2. But unfortunatly I havent been able to test that because they don't play on any other settings haha. Normally I would think it was just a faulty crossover but both crossovers do the same thing so I have to assume the crossovers themselves are fine. I will probably try to wire up the tweeter x-over by itself when the weather clears up (been alot of rain here lately lol).

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

It does matter though. If you use your amp crossovers and passive crossovers, one could be defeating the purpose of the other. Same as head unit crossovers. Really, all crossovers should be turned off except the passives.

And I would listen to your tweets by themselves, those woofers can be distracting.

Its possible your amp and head unit could be set to such a frequency that its blocking frequencies from going to your tweets that that "1st" and "2nd" switch on your crossovers are trying to pass, so they get blocked before they ever reach the crossover. Im just speculating though

 

[gamehawk55 10+ year member]

It does matter though. If you use your amp crossovers and passive crossovers, one could be defeating the purpose of the other. Same as head unit crossovers. Really, all crossovers should be turned off except the passives.And I would listen to your tweets by themselves, those woofers can be distracting.

Its possible your amp and head unit could be set to such a frequency that its blocking frequencies from going to your tweets that that "1st" and "2nd" switch on your crossovers are trying to pass, so they get blocked before they ever reach the crossover. Im just speculating though

Except for the fact that the woofer has no crossover settings so yes the amp and head unit settings have to be used because they are affecting the woofer only. And considering the tweeters play high well above 2.5khz it would be impossible for a high pass filter set at 60-80hz to block out a tweeters frequencies. The tweeters crossover is most likely in the 2.5-5k range. And it's not a matter of the woofer being distracting that I can't hear any sound come out of the tweeter at the other settings because it's not there. It literally goes from clearly audible on the 3 position to absolutely nothing on the rest. And considering the 3rd position is the highest frequency they would be more audible at the lower settings not less because u would start to get more vocal range in the tweeters the lower they're set.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

Yea you are right. I didn't know your woofers werent connected to the passive crossovers.

Hm. I wonder whats going on. Doesnt make sense that the sound goes away when switched to a different position. But considering its on both crossovers makes it more weird.

something has to be setup wrong... Or by chance they are both defective like you mentioned.

Sure your amp and hu crossover lpf settings are set at like 2.0khZ or something?

 

[gamehawk55 10+ year member]

Yea you are right. I didn't know your woofers werent connected to the passive crossovers.Hm. I wonder whats going on. Doesnt make sense that the sound goes away when switched to a different position. But considering its on both crossovers makes it more weird.

something has to be setup wrong... Or by chance they are both defective like you mentioned.

Sure your amp and hu crossover lpf settings are set at like 2.0khZ or something?

It's not that the woofer doesn't have a crossover, it does (right side in picture). But there are no settings for that crossover. This crossover network acts the same as any other does, except that it's split into two seperate boxes instead of one big box so that you can install them in seperate locations if you dont have the room to install them together like I did. It's wired as such.

Woofer +/- to (W+/-) on woofer x-over box (right)

Tweeter +/- to (T+/-) on Tweeter x-over (left)

Amp wires - 1 set +/- to (IN+/- on woofer x-over) then wired in parallel from IN+/- of woofer x-over to IN+/- of tweeter x-over (done for each door)

According to the manual that is one of the ways they should be wired. The other way uses 4 channels instead of 2. One set of +/- to Woofer IN and another set to the Tweeter IN (2 Channels for each door). From another forum where people were installing these speakers the general install method seemed to be the 1 set method bridging the x-overs together and nobody complained about the tweeter x-over settings not working with this wiring method.

 

[CrossoverOre 10+ year member]

I doubt the crossover is smart enough to tell the difference from bi amped or not. I would look into giving focaL tech a call.