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use only bass in 3 way speaker?

My floor standing Isophon speakers are getting old. If I buy new good audio quality 2 way bookshelf speakers can I just cut the wires to the old midrange and tweeter speakers and use only the 10 inch woofers of the old Isophones? Is this a valid idea? Or is it just dumb? Regards Peter
petrox

Showing 2 responses by audiokinesis

audiokinesis
2,710 posts
 
I think you can drive your Isophons with a subwoofer amp, which would allow you to roll off everything above the subwoofer region. No modifications necessary, the variable low-pass filter in the amp, along with its other controls, would give you the tools needed to get a decent blend with your bookshelf speakers.

I've used bass guitar cabinets as subwoofers in a pinch, same basic idea.

Duke
audiokinesis
2,710 posts
 
If the filter topology to the midrange and/or tweeter in your old speakers is second order or higher, and if there are no damping resistors on the parallel legs of the filter, there will be a frequency or frequencies at which the load presented to the amplifier is virtually a dead short.

Also in general, you'd want an optimized blend between woofer and midrange, which means a crossover designed for the task with those specific drivers in mind, and combining the woofer section of an existing speaker with a new bookshelf speaker won't give you that.

Duke
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