Hey guys new to the forum here. I have a 1980 van and I am doing all sorts of work to it including audio. I have 2 subs, 4 tweeters and 2 mids. I had a jvc head unit that did have some sort of crossover in it. I now have in a flip up dvd/gps etc head unit and it does not have any sort of crossover and minimal output controls for my subs. Now to get any sort of decent sound out of my subs the volume needs to be high and that makes all my other speakers distort. I have done some research and found that a crossover would be my best bet. I’m looking for more control over my sub and less lows going to my mids/tweeters. What do I need?
As far as I can tell I should need separate crossovers for my tweeters/mids and another bigger one for my subs?? Any help would be great guys!
My subs are 700watts each and my amp is 1600watts.

 

Do you have amplifiers for the mids and tweets or just deck power?

 

No just off the deck the new deck has more output than the old one and it does sound way better. If I had enough room I would probably put an amp in for the tweeters and mids but I am all out of space in this van.

 

Do you have any passive crossovers on the speakers? If not, put a 100uf capacitor on each mid and a 4.7uf capacitor on each tweeter.

Your sub amp should have a crossover built in. Set it to 80hz LP. It sounds like you may need to adjust your gains too.

 

No passive crossovers on the speakers all the wiring was done in the 80's and im just adapting new technology wherever I can. Good idea on the capacitors thats easy enough, how far from the speaker should the cap be? As for the sub I don't have the ability to control the gain through my deck, my last deck I did. So would a crossover enable me to control gains, with that handy bass boost ****..

 

Okay so I'm dumb.. There is a level adjustment on the amp and the freq goes from 40hz to 250hz and setting it to 80 did make a difference as it was only at 40hz.. and the level was all the way down and after a little adjustment I got it to where it sounds great. All I need is the caps and it will be a mint system!
So new questions disregard the last post...
1. How far should the caps be from the speakers
2. Do I need caps on both +/- sides

Thanks!

 

You can put the caps anywhere between the output and the speaker. Make sure you get non-polarized capacitors (if you get them in an audio shop it is likely that they will be) Also it doesn't matter (correct me if I'm wrong here) if you put them on the + or the - side of the speaker as the power that moves the speaker is alternating current.

 

It does not matter what side of the driver the cap is on or where it is in the wiring. I like to connect it to the positive terminal of the speaker.

 

Hey guys finally got around to hooking the caps up and everything sounds great thanks for the help!