Crossovers

Different types of loudspeakers, such as subwoofers, woofers and tweeters are designed to handle different parts of the frequency spectrum. However, often signals from devices such as mixing consoles are full range audio, meaning that the signal may contain frequency information from across the whole audible spectrum, 20Hz-20kHz. When a particular combination of speakers, for example, a subwoofer and a 2-way front of house speaker (top), are presented with the same full range audio signal, both speakers will try to reproduce the whole full range signal. By using a crossover to separate the signal into lows for the sub and mids and highs for the top, the clarity will improve dramatically. When a speaker system is "tuned" correctly, it will sound balanced, loud and clear. Bass content will be punchy and full and mid-heavy vocals and instruments will sound focused, detailed and defined.