Question about components and crossovers.

[stay_high 10+ year member]

Im kind of confused on how crossovers work. I know you run speaker wire from the amp to the crossover then 2 runs of speaker wire, one to the tweeter and the other to the mid speaker. Then it sends high frequencys to the tweet and low/mid frequencys to the mid. So lets say you have an amp that puts out 100 rms. Does this mean the tweeter and mid speaker will each only see 50 rms since the crossover like.. splits up one channel to power two speakers? Or do they both get the full 100 rms?

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[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

It's not an even split. The woofer will take more power than the tweeter, and the tweeter will differ depending on whether the crossover has a level adjustment and where you have that set. Also, the parts inside the crossover take some of that power and turn it into heat, so the power shared doesn't even start at 100W.

 

[stay_high 10+ year member]

It's not an even split. The woofer will take more power than the tweeter, and the tweeter will differ depending on whether the crossover has a level adjustment and where you have that set. Also, the parts inside the crossover take some of that power and turn it into heat, so the power shared doesn't even start at 100W.

wow. So are you saying that if i wanted to properly power compnents that are rated at say... 100 rms i would want a amp that does like 200 rms?

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

wow. So are you saying that if i wanted to properly power components that are rated at say... 100 rms i would want a amp that does like 200 rms?

No. It's safer to stick with the manufacturers' recommendation on what the components can handle or go a bit over. I can't speak for every speaker company but they should consider the small power loss through the crossover in the power rating.

 

[Jerhemy 10+ year member]

Sorry OP, not tryna thread jack here, but maybe you have/had the same question. But what happens to the impendence * or ohm load of the speakers at the crossover? like if you had a 4 ohm mid and a 4 ohm tweeter, would the amp see 2 ohms at the crossover or still just 4?

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

Im kind of confused on how crossovers work. I know you run speaker wire from the amp to the crossover then 2 runs of speaker wire, one to the tweeter and the other to the mid speaker. Then it sends high frequencys to the tweet and low/mid frequencys to the mid. So lets say you have an amp that puts out 100 rms. Does this mean the tweeter and mid speaker will each only see 50 rms since the crossover like.. splits up one channel to power two speakers? Or do they both get the full 100 rms?

They both get 100 watts because only one of them is playing at a time. When high frequencies are played the mid doesn't get any power because the crossover blocks them.

This ^^^ is a VERY simplistic answer. In reality, it's a bit complicated. The amount of energy contained in a music program is much higher at the low and mid frequencies than in the highs. Tweeters don't see anywhere close to the average power level that the mids get. The good news is that the speaker manufacturer has figured all that out for us with the crossover design.