What is the purpose of: Equalizers and Crossovers

[solomon 10+ year member]

My friend has 2 L5s hooked up to the Kicker 04KX1200.1 and the store manager said he was gonna need an equalizer or his subs weren't gonna last long. He also said since his Amp didn't have a built-in crossover that he wasn't gonna be able to play high bass songs without sounding like sh*t.

Jes sort of asking y he would say such things.....?

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[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

since your car has all kinds of stuff to mess with your sound basically if you look at a graph of the frequencies you'll see a bunch of peaks and dips. the point of an equalizer is to flatten out these dips and peaks. you want a nice flat sound rather than a fluctuating sound.

the point of a crossover is its ability to control what speaker sees what frequencies. i mean do you want your sub to see frequencies of 1kz when its only supposed to see 63-100hz? nope, it'll sound like crap. and vice versa you don't want your tweets to see 100hz because the tweets will die. with an active crossover you can actually choose what each speaker sees. i'll just show you mine settings and then you could //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/search.gif.e79a63b2b580b39b282dff402646b704.gif because this is a pretty general question.

sub: low passed at 100hz with 18db/oct

mids: hi passed at 100hz and low passed at 3.15khz with 18db/oct

tweets: hi passed at 3.15 khz with 24db/oct.

so my sub will not see anything more than 100hz. my mids will only see 100hz-3.15khz. and my tweets will see 3.15 khz and above.

 

[solomon 10+ year member]

whats the point of searching...you pretty much answered the question dead on...i think.

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

yea i guess but if you wanted a more in depth analysis then yea search. i guess you wanted a general idea of each. which i attempted to do.

 

[Chevyaudio 5,000+ posts]

My friend has 2 L5s hooked up to the Kicker 04KX1200.1 and the store manager said he was gonna need an equalizer or his subs weren't gonna last long. He also said since his Amp didn't have a built-in crossover that he wasn't gonna be able to play high bass songs without sounding like sh*t.
Jes sort of asking y he would say such things.....?

The salesman was wrong. I wasnt sure, but i checked, that amp does have a crossover, So you probably want your friend to cross his subs at around 80Hz. Also an EQ is not needed but it helps alot. And now alot of aftermarket HU's have Some sort of equilizers wether it is graphic or parametric. In short a crossover is like a filter, it only alows certain components of an audio system to play certain frequencies. Equilizers alow you to adjust the levels that each frequency is played, and parametic equilizers will allow you to adjust the slope, of how quickly each frequency "falls off".

 

[bikejunkie223 10+ year member]

Most amps have an internal crossover anyway, but many decks have them now too, which is nice as it gives you flexibility to fiddle from the listening position. I run my subs low passed @ 63hz w 18db/oct. slope, and high pass my components @ 63hz w/ 12 db/oct slope. Also, the only way to accurately set up an EQ is with a real-time analyzer, and if the shop guy said he would blow up his speakers without an equalizer, he probably doesn't even know what one looks like. They can be set up by ear, but it is a very tedious process. Also, when equalizing you need to have the car running,as most vehicles exhaust gives you a nice bulge in the 200hz area.

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

wow i didn't read your whole post but the kicker should have an internal crossover no doubt about it. that guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[solomon 10+ year member]

so if you got a pretty good HU you don't need the seperate equalizer unit?

 

[solomon 10+ year member]

wow i didn't read your whole post but the kicker should have an internal crossover no doubt about it. that guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

I gotta let him know before he starts spending bills. Thanks on that call you guys,

 

[rocky 59 5,000+ posts]

HIGH JACK--

okay i have a 7 band clarion eq, do i need to go with a crossover if i wanna upgrade my speakers to mids with tweets and some new subs. cause i have some infinity 6.1 perfect ready to put in. and i want to go form W0's to W3v2's whit a 600.2 kicker amp. do you think i need a crossover in short?

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

so if you got a pretty good HU you don't need the seperate equalizer unit?

yup. I am fortunate enough to purchase an eclipse 8455 and it has all that equalizer crossover stuff for yah to play with.

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

HIGH JACK--

okay i have a 7 band clarion eq, do i need to go with a crossover if i wanna upgrade my speakers to mids with tweets and some new subs. cause i have some infinity 6.1 perfect ready to put in. and i want to go form W0's to W3v2's whit a 600.2 kicker amp. do you think i need a crossover in short?

the infinitys should come with its own passive crossover. and to crossover your subs use the kicker amp.

 

[bikejunkie223 10+ year member]

You will need a crossover if your clarion doesnt do it for you. The signal MUST be divided to make things sound right. A crossover is one of the most important parts of a system. A ton of decks have a basic crossover and eq built in. If anyone needs a crossover I have a new-in-box Precision Power 2/3way active crossover I will sell for $55 shipped. I was gonna use it, but my deck has a nice flexible crossover built in. Again, most amps have a built in crossover, but usually you are fairly limited at what frequency that occurs, with an outboard crossover you can set it exactly where you want.

 

[Chevyaudio 5,000+ posts]

HIGH JACK--

okay i have a 7 band clarion eq, do i need to go with a crossover if i wanna upgrade my speakers to mids with tweets and some new subs. cause i have some infinity 6.1 perfect ready to put in. and i want to go form W0's to W3v2's whit a 600.2 kicker amp. do you think i need a crossover in short?

you just confused me, are you upgrading to components, If so most component sets come with Crossovers. Or are you going to buy a set of Mid range drivers and a set of tweeters, and do a kind of custom component set. And as stated most amps have internal crossovers, so all you have to do is set the crossovers on the amp and then you subs are fine. Or if you have a higher end Head Unint (I have an Alpine CDA 9853, with a built in 3-way cross over) with a built in cross over, you can set the amps crossovers to full pass/off, and you can run the crossovers in you HU that way you can adjust them better. But crossovers are needed

 

[bikejunkie223 10+ year member]

the infinitys should come with its own passive crossover. and to crossover your subs use the kicker amp.

The downside to the passive crossovers with the infinities, is that it simply divides the signal between the mid and the tweet, it's best if you can lose the low freq. the mid will struggle mightly to reproduce prior to it getting there. The crossover in your sub amp will be fine. Are you amping your Infinity's or runnin' deck power to them? If deck power, high passing them first is a moot point unless it's built into your deck.