passive crossovers and watts

[ENDER_XVICM 10+ year member]

I have been wondering this for a while but never thought to simply ask. I have Rainbow's SLC 365s. This component set uses the cal 2045 tweeter. Not sure how many watts it can handle. If I change this tweeter though to CDT's ES-01 tweeter how will this change the ammount of watts that I want to send through the crossover. Right now I am sending about 100W to each side. With the tweeter changed to the ES-01 will I want to send more to each side or will that be to much for the crossover to handle?

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[jblayz1 10+ year member]

i wouldn't recommend using a driver thats not part of the comp set. the crossover is set to the specific drivers in that set. you have 100 watts running to your passive comp sets now. your output to each set is around 85 watts each. more or less.

 

[ENDER_XVICM 10+ year member]

85 watts to each driver???

 

[jblayz1 10+ year member]

sorry, each set.

*edit last post edit

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

85 watts to each driver???

Yes, for the most part. A crossover sends a certain range of frequencies to the mid and each tweeter.

Ideally (not counting electrical losses), a mid and a tweeter connected to a crossover, which in turn is connected to an amp that is delivering 100w rms to said crossover, will be getting 100w rms simultaneously since the frequency ranges are different.

MID = 100w rms from 50-3500 Hz

TWEETER = 100w rms from 3500 Hz on up.

....and that is from a single 100w amp channel.

Now, with that said, most passive crossovers will cause some power loss due to heat (electrical components), and limit the power to the tweeter if there are protection circuits integrated.

 

[ENDER_XVICM 10+ year member]

Thanks much deja, that actually clears up alot of confusion I was having about it. If though I did want to change to an ES-01 tweeter would you recomend taking out the Cal 2045 and running the ES-01 active or is there a different method that would work better?

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

The Rainbow set crosses the tweeter frequency at 3800 Hz, so give it a whirl, as most CDT crossovers are around 3700Hz.