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Audio Systems/Crossover Phase Shift

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Expert: - 7/23/2009


Question
Hi, I am looking to construct a 3way 2nd order audio crossover for a speaker with tweeter, midrange and midbass drivers. I am wondering if there are any problems I should be worried about due to phase shift of the signals going to different drivers, and if so how I can deal with/compensate for them.(there is only the one speaker in the system as i described above so there are no issues with phase shift between a different chanel, or separate woofer or anything like that.)
Hope that was clear enough,
thanks,
Matt

Answer

Technics SB-7000
Normally audio engineers don't worry about phase shift so much; yes, they try to keep it at a minimum, but zero-phase shift circuits are very expensive and difficult to design and manufacture.

Normal phase shift in standard design crossover networks.

Waveform fidelity will not be preserved, but most speaker systems don't anyway.  Time-aligned or phase corrected speaker systems can come close to producing accurate waveforms, but it requires separate speakers that are physically displaced to compensate for delays from the networks and the acoustic location differences of the voice coils.

A speaker system that produced a fairly good acoustic square wave and sounded very good was the Technics SB-7000.  I will attach a picture of it for your information.

But, back to your question, I think conventional crossover design will do you just fine for a typical loudspeaker application.

C  

Cleggsan

Expertise

Audio Design Engineer; systems, loudspeakers, cd/dvd players, etc. I am knowledgeable in all high end audio equipment and installations. MAKE SURE YOU GIVE A MAKE AND MODEL NUMBER AND CAR IF IT IS AN AUTO QUESTION. Note: I am getting some who ask good questions that take a lot of time to research but then the questioner fails to read the answer. Please don't ask questions unless you are seriously looking for an answer. If you find an answer to your question otherwise then let me know with your reply. Thank you.

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Have been associated with audio design, standards, testing and component systems for over 40 years.

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Life Fellow Member of Audio Engineering Society Life Senior Member of Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers

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Review technical manuscripts for IEEE Spectrum Write occasionally for high-end audio publications

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BSEE/MSCS/MBA

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Past Employee/advisor to several well known audio products manufacturers

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