I'm afraid I'm a bit over my head with this wiring and install. So here's the scoop as best I can describe it.
I am building custom door panels to house my 2way fronts I have 6.5" vifa drivers (PG17) and 1" tweeters (D27TG) for the fronts & then I want to have 2-8" Vifa woofers (MG22WO) in the back as rear fill. Then I will have 2 12" (right now some temp cheapo woofers until I get my JL Audio woofers) woofers in the back of my extended Pickup (91' Toyota Extended cab pickup). everything will have custom fiberglass enclosures that I'm also learning to build as I go. I've got the door panels almost done (should have started with some easier fiberglass work for my first time project). So my delimma is I can't figure out how to do all the electrical work. I have no clue what to do with the xover and amps. At first I was going to build passive xovers and I bought some of the parts to do such and discovered I needed more things to build them. So I thought about just getting some active xovers. I just don't want to break the bank doing so. But after a bunch of research on amps and xovers it seems I have some options I just don't know how to go about executing them. There are a number of amps that have built in xovers, but I don't know if they will do what I need. I am looking at some of the Orion amps or Zapco ref. amps that have built in xovers. But don't know how I could hook up the fronts alone with those amp/xover. Doesn't seem they are setup for tweeter rangers. My tweeters are for like around 5khz on up. I'm going totally nuts trying to figure this out. I could still go back to the original plan of building passive xovers if that's going to be the easiest. I just need some help figuring out exactly what to do a schematic would really help. As I'm a visual learner.
Since I couldn't figure out how to get the fronts hooked up to a 2channel system alone without an external xover I was thinking I'd get a cheap active xover and hook up the fronts 2 a 2channel xover Something like Orion Extreme 5002 or 6002. Then another 2channel amp to run the 2 - 8" woofers in the back and for that I'd could use the xover from the amp I think to get the range of that speaker something around 80-5000hz as my rear fill. Then a 3rd amp for the subs, either a 2channel bridged or just a mono amp for the 2 - 12" woofers. I'd prefer not to have to use 3 amps if I don't have too. but I don't want to spend a bundle on amps either. I've found some good deals on Orion Extreme 2channel amps. Seems like the only other option is to do 2 4channel amps 1 for the fronts and 1 for the rear & woofers but that seems less ideal for getting sufficient power to my 12's.
Or if I just figured out how to build these damn passive xovers I could get a 4channel amp to run the fronts and the rears. then a sub amp. I'm just not sure how or what exactly to build for my passive's. I had planned on making a first order due to simplicity. I've read all the stuff on building xovers on this site and I still can't figure out what I need for my setup. If I knew all the parts I needed and how they should be hooked up then I could figure out how to put them together. I already bought the caps & resisters to make the filter/xover for the tweeters, which at first is all I thought I needed.
Please help!!! I'm lost.
I have one cheapo Pioneer 4channel amp right now that I was going to use until I could afford to get some decent amps. But if I hvae to get amps in order to depend on the xovers in them then I'll have to get the amps sooner than later. I was hoping I could get buy at least for the fronts for now on this amp.
All suggestions and help are greatly appreciated.
I really love the site I've learned a lot from it. It's the best. Keep up the great info.
Thanks,
Jesse
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Neophite!!!
Frequency Response Data Consortium is where you want to go with this project. Some of these tools use the MS spreadsheet and some are stand-alone. When I design a passive network for mids-to-tweeters, I use these:
- SPL Trace copies the manufacturer's freq response and impedance curves. Vifa supplies these and you should find them online. This becomes your model for the crossover design.
- Speaker Workshop to design the crossover.
- Unibox to design the enclosure for the mids and subs.
And there are several more tools as well, as you will see, but you can pick and choose which ones you want to use. Here's a pic I took showing Speaker Workshop on the computer screen, and the almost-finalized crossover layout for the project I was working on.
There will be some time involved in learning how to use these design tools, so put into it what you want to get out of it. The values for caps, coils and resistors will most likely be different than what you already bought, since you apparently purhased the components without first designing the crossover. These parts can get pretty expensive, but when you are trying to work with values that are not quite what the program indicates is best to use (the parts you already bought), you will spend a considerable amount of time trying to get it to work out. So, when you come up with the final design, just buy the new components and stash whatever you have left over for possible future use.
Otherwise, you can use the active filters on the amps to cross over the mids to the subs.
And BTW, I learned how-to the same way you are doing.
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Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.