car-speakers-2way-crossover-design

Car 2way crossover design

by Russell Storey

" Peerless Vifa & Swan Combo "

Car cabin acoustics
The car cabin interior is probably one of the most challenging and variable acoustic environments to model and design a good speaker system. Apart from the interior shape size and seating position and several other factors listed below we have engine and road noise that reduce the over all dynamic range of the car speaker system .The best way to hear how dynamic and detailed a car speaker system is can be when the vehicle is stationary with the engine turned off and located in a quite car park or garage. Also you will notice as you gradually increase the speed of the vehicle then you increase the noise induced into the cabin from the tyres engine and car body wind turbulence and one usually starts increasing the master volume level to compensate for the masking effect of the external noise until you suddenly reach the amplifier and speaker( dynamic) limits. That is the car sound system ( distortion + noise ) begins to irritate your ears at a certain (volume level+ car speed) so usually you either reduce the volume level and or reduce the speed and volume level to make the sound less distorted and more coherent .
Car crossover design process
Aim : To design a Stones custom Car sound system based on say a peerless -Vifa logic (tweeter module) and a pair of Hi-Vi (swan speaker) 6.5” woofer with a 3” full range woofers for the rear parcel shelf. We ask the client what they require from their car system and how much dollars they intend to spend so this then enables us to make educated recommendations on the equipment and component options to ensure the best sound from the car sound system .
During your custom Car Crossover design Stones take into account the speaker size ,T/S parameters , frequency response and the effect the car has on these ,Also driver location , baffle shape , size ,type of driver mount, vertical mount ( ceiling firing) , side mounted ( side firing ) , dash tweeter ( 45,0 deg firing) , door mounted , dash and window shape , cabin volume & shape dependent on vehicle type ( sedan , station wagon, sports , 4wd ), rear location , distance from listener to front and rear speakers ,speaker panel type, raised enclosure thickness rear subwoofer volume and panel damping compounds .

What does this all mean
The Car speaker crossover design works as a closed loop system in conjunction with all of the above parameters to determine the car cabin sound quality when the vehicle is stationary or at speed .

Car Audio Amplifier type, Subwoofer , Bass Mid & tweeter
We also need to know the Car System amplifier type ,number of channels ,power rating ,does it have Individual ch level matching controls, Subwoofer type , ch level matching control ,size ,location and lp filter frequency used on sub, sub phase sw control, so we can recommend the optimum integration of the subwoofer sound to match to the rears and front speakers to achieve not just good but excellent fast dynamic detailed sound over the whole bandwidth

To be continued>>>>>>>>>..........