Level adjusting speaker drivers


Sometimes when I listen to various things it would be nice to turn up mid and Tweeter levels, and also bass too.

The speaker gets the signal and then it's split between the drivers by the crossover's, but what about the individual levels hitting these drivers. Would it be worthwhile to have a means to increase or reduce these levels?

Anyone ever done this and what tool did you use?

emergingsoul

Showing 3 responses by erik_squires

OP:

The problem you describe and the way you think you want to fix it are not lining up.

Sometimes when I listen to various things it would be nice to turn up mid and Tweeter levels, and also bass too.

The simple and best solution for what you described is a tone control like the Loki which will give you more control than driver adjustment.

The issue with adjusting driver levels is that they may or may not be at the musical boundaries. That is, if you want more bass from 100 Hz down but your woofer goes to 300 Hz you can’t fix it by adjusting driver levels.

The same for the tweeter.

OTOH, if you feel like getting into speaker making and crossover design, then yeah, get a crossover like a miniDSP and some drivers in a cabinet and go have fun or get an active line level crossover and multi-amp your speaker, but again, you will find based on your stated problem, that none of these solutions give you the level of control and ease of use you are seeking.

If you want to bi-amplify and the amps don’t have the same gain then you need to put a volume control on the higher gain amp.

Otherwise, have fun on your learning journey. 

 

Hey OP,

 

It's as we discussed, a tone control, so it changes the levels of the sound but not directly the sound of each driver, which is a really good thing. :)

Based on what you described, an actual equalizer, with 10 bands or more, is probably too much for your needs. If you don’t have a pre/integrated with built in tone controls already then a Schiit Loki is a middle of the road alternative:

 

https://amzn.to/43nmD5A

 

Like any EQ though, you have to have a place in your audio chain to insert it.