Silvershads Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Hi Folks We're using Peavey SP118 subwoofers for our band application, with Peavey SP3 cabs on the top. We currently have the crossover set to 90Hz but I'm not sure that's the correct setting for this speaker. A little advice would be gratefully received on this if possible. Also, Peavey say, in there specifications sheet:As the SP 118 does not include a passive subwoofer crossover, input should be electronically filtered for subwoofer applications. In addition, for high power operation, a high-pass filter set at 35 to 40 Hz and 12 to 24 dB Butterworth should be used to improve performance and reliability. I have absolutely NO idea what this means! :) Can some kind soul put me out of my misery? The spec sheet in full is HERE if anyone wants to have a read. CheersChris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMitchell Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Forget about 90hz, it won't help you, buddy. The best setting for all the P****y cabs I've had the misfortune of hearing over the years, is suspended 90 degrees over one of these... then dropped from between 6 & 8 ft. :) That final sound will be the closest to "musical" the P****y box has ever come. http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/content/images/2007/04/25/skip5_240407_470x350.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Okay, I'll give this a try: As the SP 118 does not include a passive subwoofer crossover, input should be electronically filtered for subwoofer applications. Okay, this just means that you need to use an external crossover as you're already doing. In answer to you question about the crossover frequency, this can be a bit of a "suck it and see". However, I'd probably experiment with raising the frequency a bit...maybe to around 125 Hz. This should still be fine for your subs but could also improve the performance of your tops a bit by having them use a bit less energy at the low end of their range. You'll lose nothing by experimenting with frequencies up to even around 150 or 200Hz and back down and just listening to what works best. In addition, for high power operation, a high-pass filter set at 35 to 40 Hz and 12 to 24 dB Butterworth should be used to improve performance and reliability. This is saying that, to improve efficiency of your subs, you should also filter the low end of the feed to them to remove information below 35-40Hz...the speakers useful range ends just above this but they might still be wasting energy trying to reproduce lower than they can handle effectively. "Butterworth" refers to a type of filter (one with a particularly smooth response) and the "12 to 24dB" means you want to roll off at between 12 and 24 dB per octave. If I were to guess, use of the extra filter would probably be a subtle improvement, probably tightening up the bass just a bit and perhaps increasing the output slightly--but this is only a guess and maybe the improvement will be more noticeable than that. Hope this helps, Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ross Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 And now for some more useful comments (not directed at you Bobbsy but the poster above you), From looking at the spec sheets of both cabs I would say you are not far off setting them at 90hz, you might get away with bumping that 10hz either way depending on the amps you have driving each speaker i.e. if your sub amps are working flat out but your top amps still have some headroom then lower the crossover point to shift some of the load to the top cabs. The 2nd point they are going on about is setting a highpass filter on the subs. What this does is stop them trying to produce some of the sub sonic junk that is in some types of music. If you look at the frequency response graph it starts to fall off steeply at 50hz or so. What they are saying is to put a filter on to reduce the amount of those frequencies that get through to the sub. On a similar system we run (not peavey) I have a high pass of 40hz on the subs. Sometimes on the crossover it is labelled up as low cut or subsonic filter or if you are using a digital LMS then you can set another filter up on the outputs that go to the sub, if you post up what model crossover you have I can point you in the right direction Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djmatthill Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djmatthill Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Forget about 90hz, it won't help you, buddy. The best setting for all the P****y cabs I've had the misfortune of hearing over the years, is suspended 90 degrees over one of these... then dropped from between 6 & 8 ft. B-) That final sound will be the closest to "musical" the P****y box has ever come. http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/content/images/2007/04/25/skip5_240407_470x350.jpg I ll never understand why Peavey cabs get so much stick ? Ok they re not the worlds best speakers BUT , very reliable cabs... Just have a think how many Old peavey speaks you see still in operation , Im talking about cabs that were built in the late 70`s and 80`s...Nearly every social club , school , Theatre , Pub ,, have a pair of old Peavey Cabs stuck on the wall - still working... A quick look on Ebays shows 100`s of very Very old Peavey gear still going strong... So for reliability its a thumbs up.. Plus Peavey in corby keep a huge back catalouge of spares and recone kits for products past and present... Iv been a happy own of peavey stuff.. Had 2 sets of Hi-sys2 `s and Pair of Hi sys 215`s and 118xt`s. Also owned a pair of Hi-sys 3`s... I can say I had many years of faultless service from them ,, Only replace 2 horns and 1 mid speaker in about 5yrs .... Peavey stuff is fine for Music Playback and band use etc...... Its not Hi Fi but for £649 they re not bad really .... Some of JBL`s newer stuff is by far much worse in my opinion , Such as the TR range and Marquis series they deserve to be in that skip of yours ,, ** laughs out loud ** :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johndenim Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 As I see it the SP range are very good.Not to be confused with the 'pro' range aimed at the budget user. Peavey cabs are certainly reliable, I have had a pair of impulse 200's for about 8 years with no new baskets.Sure they have not improved since the late '90's but you could do worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvershads Posted March 25, 2009 Author Share Posted March 25, 2009 Okay, this just means that you need to use an external crossover as you're already doing. In answer to you question about the crossover frequency, this can be a bit of a "suck it and see". However, I'd probably experiment with raising the frequency a bit...maybe to around 125 Hz. This should still be fine for your subs but could also improve the performance of your tops a bit by having them use a bit less energy at the low end of their range. You'll lose nothing by experimenting with frequencies up to even around 150 or 200Hz and back down and just listening to what works best.Thanks for the useful comments, Bobbsy. Comments like "throw them in a skip" certainly don't help and only serve to show up the poster as arrogant and unhelpful. I've been using Peavey equipment in various guises since 1971 and, in every case, been happy with the result and the reliability of the product. No-one said it was the best but, at the end of the day, one has to go with the budget. For my own budget I wanted the best input/output I could get for the money and chose the brand I know. As they say.... "Simples!" :D We are going to start by bringing the crossover point to 120Hz and see what the difference is. Of course that will affect our original gain stage settings so we will have to do that again, but no big deal. It'll be interesting to see what difference it will make, taking some of the low end out of the SP3s and giving them to the SP118s to handle. I'll certainly post the results once we've done that. In addition, for high power operation, a high-pass filter set at 35 to 40 Hz and 12 to 24 dB Butterworth should be used to improve performance and reliability.This is saying that, to improve efficiency of your subs, you should also filter the low end of the feed to them to remove information below 35-40Hz...the speakers useful range ends just above this but they might still be wasting energy trying to reproduce lower than they can handle effectively. "Butterworth" refers to a type of filter (one with a particularly smooth response) and the "12 to 24dB" means you want to roll off at between 12 and 24 dB per octave. If I were to guess, use of the extra filter would probably be a subtle improvement, probably tightening up the bass just a bit and perhaps increasing the output slightly--but this is only a guess and maybe the improvement will be more noticeable than that.OK - here, I'm not at all sure what to do to actually activate these filters. Is this something that we do on our desk or is it something we need to buy and insert into the loop somewhere? Some pointers here would be gratefully accepted. RegardsChris A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on. Hi Kevin From looking at the spec sheets of both cabs I would say you are not far off setting them at 90hz, you might get away with bumping that 10hz either way depending on the amps you have driving each speaker i.e. if your sub amps are working flat out but your top amps still have some headroom then lower the crossover point to shift some of the load to the top cabs. Sometimes on the crossover it is labelled up as low cut or subsonic filter or if you are using a digital LMS then you can set another filter up on the outputs that go to the sub, if you post up what model crossover you have I can point you in the right directionAHA! This is useful stuff - thanks! OK - As I said, we'll probably take it up to 120Hz but, now that you've suggested that 90Hz is around the right spot, perhaps we'll take it up 10Hz at a time and note the differences. The top speakers I'm using are Peavey SP3 (three-way) with a really nice Black Widow 15" woofer but I was thinking that if we took some of the stuff that the SP3 is trying to do down the bottom end and shove it downwards to the subs, somehow we might get a more punchy sound. The tops are grand and sound especially good for our vocals, but I was worrying about the tops trying to do too much and steal some of the work from the bass bins. Does that make sense? We are using the little DBX 223XL crossover unit. Will that help with the High Pass filters etc.? Cheers for the response.Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 We are using the little DBX 223XL crossover unit. Will that help with the High Pass filters etc.? From distant memory, I think your DBX crossover has a switched low cut filter (which is another way of saying high pass filter just to confuse the world!) at around 40Hz. If I'm right, this is just a button on the front panel and would do the job for you. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ross Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 We are using the little DBX 223XL crossover unit. Will that help with the High Pass filters etc.? From distant memory, I think your DBX crossover has a switched low cut filter (which is another way of saying high pass filter just to confuse the world!) at around 40Hz. If I'm right, this is just a button on the front panel and would do the job for you. Bob The winds of your memory have blown you onto the shores of truth, or in other words your memory is right. The DBX unit has a button on the front called “Low Cut” and that places a 40hz filter using a 12db/octave Butterworth slope You might want to try different crossover points, 120hz is well within the range of both speakers and so it will come down to which sounds the best and which “Balances” the load the best. Also if you are using AUX fed subs it will change how things sound when not sent to the subs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 From distant memory, I think your DBX crossover has a switched low cut filter Manual Here Bob's memory is still working correctly! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.