Wanting to run active but confused...

[Echo42987 10+ year member]

Alright so lets make sure I have this correctly.

1) From the HU run a 4 channel to the amp.

2) From the amp take out passive crossover and run connections directly to the speakers.

3) Ditch rear speakers

4) Set HU so it knows it's running active

5) Adjust settings on HU?

Is it okay that I'll be runnin 75watts to my tweeters? Isn't that a little excessive?

-Nick-

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

Taking your passives and going active won't immediately make things sound better. Ideally you now have the ability to tweak xover settings, hopefully more EQ'ing, and TA to get the most out of what you have.

Front/Rear RCA's out of the HU to the 4 channel amp, then 2 channels to the tweets, and 2 go to the mids.

I also run a 2 channel for rear fill and it's daisy chained off the front amp.

What Focals do you run? I have sigs/avatars blocked since I mostly read at work. I heard the K2P's in a demo room and they sounded pretty nice.

We should meet up sometime as I'm in Beach Park, so only like 30min away....

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

You'll have the gain way down on the tweeters I'm guessing...

 

[MiniVanMan 10+ year member]

Look in the manual again under the crossover section. It gives a couple of options. If I remember right it's something like 4.2 and 2.2. It gives a detailed description of what each mode does. I'm pretty sure you set it to 2.2. I can't tell you right now as the manual is in my wife's car, and she's at work.

Anyway, when you enter that mode, the system automatically defaults to 80 hz high pass on the mid, 4khz low pass on the mid, and 4khz high pass on the tweeter. I really liked that as it protects your tweeters when initially powering up the system.

I dropped my mid to 63 hz @ 24db and 3.2khz @ 12db respectively. The tweeter I left at 4k. It's really quite simple once you decipher the manual.

 

[redcalimp5 10+ year member]

Yeah, if your amp puts out 75w a channel, I wouldn't give your tweeters any more than 50w rms, max, just to be safe. I've got my tweeter gain on my amp turned down to about 1/4 of it's turning radius, and my tweeters scream nicely when I want them to.

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

If you have a DMM, you can set how much output you want based on the gain setting.

There are some good write-ups around here. Or click the link in my sig....I explain passive biamping, which is going to be the exact same process for setting the gains when going active (obviously with the exception of the passive crossovers).

 

[Echo42987 10+ year member]

Taking your passives and going active won't immediately make things sound better. Ideally you now have the ability to tweak xover settings, hopefully more EQ'ing, and TA to get the most out of what you have.
Front/Rear RCA's out of the HU to the 4 channel amp, then 2 channels to the tweets, and 2 go to the mids.

I also run a 2 channel for rear fill and it's daisy chained off the front amp.

What Focals do you run? I have sigs/avatars blocked since I mostly read at work. I heard the K2P's in a demo room and they sounded pretty nice.

We should meet up sometime as I'm in Beach Park, so only like 30min away....

I would love to meet up sometime! PM your phone number or something and we could. Especially if you know how to do active installs lol you could help me out //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif!

I don't know where beach park is though?

But I am running the Focal 165K2P's in the front and 165V2's in the rears.

-Nick-

 

[Echo42987 10+ year member]

Look in the manual again under the crossover section. It gives a couple of options. If I remember right it's something like 4.2 and 2.2. It gives a detailed description of what each mode does. I'm pretty sure you set it to 2.2. I can't tell you right now as the manual is in my wife's car, and she's at work.
Anyway, when you enter that mode, the system automatically defaults to 80 hz high pass on the mid, 4khz low pass on the mid, and 4khz high pass on the tweeter. I really liked that as it protects your tweeters when initially powering up the system.

I dropped my mid to 63 hz @ 24db and 3.2khz @ 12db respectively. The tweeter I left at 4k. It's really quite simple once you decipher the manual.

I read all of that. But thats not a switch its an internal adjustment.

Curious though how do you know where set the the frequencies at? All per ear or what?

Thank you very much for the help so far!

-Nick-

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

ICurious though how do you know where set the the frequencies at? All per ear or what?

It going to be based on the limitations and capabilities of the speakers themselves as well as you finding what sounds good within those limitations and capabilities.

Think of your speaker as a car: (the mid, for this analogy) you know it handles well up to 100mph (2600 Hz), but you don't want to go over that even though you could. And you might feel the best results are to stay at 80mph (2080 Hz).

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

I've got an Alpine 7998 that I'm running a set of components 2 way active, with a single 12" sub in a sealed box. The 7998 has a small selector switch on the right side of the chassis that allows you to choose either a passive control set, or an active control set from the HU.
I'm using the active crossover controls on the HU to run my setup. Here's how I currently have my crossover settings set to:

High(tweets): 4.0 kHz, 12db/oct

Mid-Hi: 3.2kHz, 12db/oct

Mid-Lo: 80Hz, 12db/oct

Low(sub): 80Hz, slope set to OFF

For the kind of music I generally listen to, I really like this configuration. I played around with the settings for about two weeks or so before I settled in on where they're at now.

You know if your slope is OFF, then your sub is seeing a full range signal.....

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

I read all of that. But thats not a switch its an internal adjustment.
Curious though how do you know where set the the frequencies at? All per ear or what?

Thank you very much for the help so far!

-Nick-

There is a SWITCH on the bottom of the headunit or the top of hte headunit, on the chassis itself.

 

[mikey7182 10+ year member]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as your tweeters go, most tweeters (Not sure about the Focals) are either 6 or 8 ohms, which means if you amp is putting out 80w@4ohms, they'll realistically see 40-60w max depending on their impedance. Still want to keep an eye on your gains but you should be fine.

 

[ngsm13 5,000+ posts]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as your tweeters go, most tweeters (Not sure about the Focals) are either 6 or 8 ohms, which means if you amp is putting out 80w@4ohms, they'll realistically see 40-60w max depending on their impedance. Still want to keep an eye on your gains but you should be fine.

Depends on the tweeters, meter them...

nG

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

Even if they are it doesn't matter. Most tweeters are VERY efficient and will only require minimal amplification to get going.

 

[Troydb 10+ year member]

Even if they are it doesn't matter. Most tweeters are VERY efficient and will only require minimal amplification to get going.

Which brings up this question //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

Let's say you wanna run active. If you have an amp that will do 150x4, which would be a nice amount of power for the mids, but it seems like it would be total over kill on the tweeters. For example, if you are setting the gains on the amp with the headunit at 75% then even with the gain to the tweeters at zero you are still sending a shit ton of power to them.

I really want to get a 4 channel amp and run active, but I am worried that if I get something that has enough power for my mids that it might be overpowering to the tweeters. Any thoughts?