Designing a 3-way is tricky because the midrange has two crossover points (Low-pass for bass, High-pass for treble).
Today, this "story" continues in every high-end home theater and studio monitor, ensuring the music sounds like a single, seamless source rather than a collection of separate boxes. Are you planning to build a passive crossover for a speaker cabinet, or are you setting up an active digital crossover for a car or home theater? Linkwitz-Riley Crossover | ASCENDO IMMERSIVE AUDIO
While a simple (like the one on ElectroSmash or DIY Audio Projects ) is great for quick parts ordering, serious designers use simulation software: Linkwitz-Riley Crossover Calculator
): The nominal resistance of the drivers, usually 4, 8, or 16 ohms.
The midrange driver now has two filters attached. A passive LR-4 Low-pass (L1, C1) plus a passive LR-4 High-pass (C2, L2). This is called a "bandpass" filter, and it will load the amplifier heavily near the center frequency. An active LR calculator is vastly superior for 3-way designs for this reason. Designing a 3-way is tricky because the midrange
Never use a Linkwitz-Riley low-pass with a Butterworth high-pass. The phase will be 45 degrees off, creating a massive dip at the crossover point. The calculator forces symmetry.
The calculator only handles voltage division. If your tweeter is 94dB efficient and your woofer is 88dB efficient, you need an (two resistors) on the tweeter. Calculate the L-pad first, then calculate the LR filter assuming the tweeter now looks like a constant 8Ω load. Linkwitz-Riley Crossover | ASCENDO IMMERSIVE AUDIO While a
Let’s assume you are building a classic two-way bookshelf speaker. You have a tweeter rated for 40 watts and a woofer that plays beautifully up to 3,000 Hz. You decide on (F_c = 2,500 \text Hz), ( \textImpedance = 8 \Omega). We will use an slope.