Jovan StosicAudio crossovers are a type of electronic filter circuitry used in a range of audio applications, to split up an audio signal into two or more frequency ranges, so that the signals can be sent to drivers or tweeters that are designed for different frequency ranges. Crossovers are often described as “two-way” or “three-way”, which indicate, respectively, that the crossover splits a given signal into two frequency ranges or three frequency ranges. Crossovers are used in loudspeaker cabinets,power amplifiers in consumer electronics (hi-fi, home cinema sound and car audio) and pro audio and musical instrument amplifier products. For the latter two markets, crossovers are used in bass amplifiers, keyboard amplifiers, bass and keyboard speaker enclosures and sound reinforcement system equipment (PA speakers, monitor speakers, subwoofer systems, etc.).
Crossovers are used because most individual loudspeaker drivers are incapable of covering the entire audio spectrum from low frequencies to high frequencies with acceptable relative volume and absence of distortion. Most hi-fi speaker systems and sound reinforcement system speaker cabinets combination of multiple loudspeaker drivers, each catering to a different frequency band. A standard simple example is hi-fi and PA system cabinets that contain a woofer for low and mid frequencies and a tweeter for high frequencies. Since a sound signal source, be it recorded music from a CD player or a live band’s mix from an audio console has all of the low, mid and high frequencies combined, a crossover circuit is used to split the audio signal into separate frequency bands that can be separately routed to loudspeakers, tweeters or horns optimized for those frequency bands.
Active crossovers are distinguished from passive crossovers in that whereas passive crossovers split up an amplified signal coming from one power amplifier so that it can be sent to two or more drivers (e.g., a woofer and a very low frequency subwoofer, or a woofer and a tweeter), an active crossover splits up audio signal prior to amplification, so that it can be sent to two or more power amplifiers, each of which is connected to a separate driver type. Home cinema 5.1 surround sound audio systems use a crossover which separates out the low-frequency signal, so that it can be sent to a subwoofer, and then sends the mid- and high-range frequencies to five speakers which are placed around the listener; in a typical application, the signals sent to the surround speaker cabinets are further split up with a passive crossover into a low/mid-range woofer and a high range tweeter. Active crossovers come in both digital and analog varieties.
Digital active crossovers often include additional signal processing, such as limiting, delay, and equalization. Signal crossovers allow the audio signal to be split into bands that are processed separately before they are mixed together again. Some examples are: multiband dynamics (compression, limiting, de-essing), multiband distortion, bass enhancement, high frequency exciters, and noise reduction such as Dolby A noise reduction.