DIY Crossover basics

[Dotay]

I have been browsing this forum for a couple months now and I have become really intrigued with building a set of speakers from the ground up (right now I'm interested in the M8a MTM's). Of course this would include assembling my own crossovers but I don't really know much (well anything really) about what the different components in the crossovers do. So are there any good beginner guides that talk about the different components?

I did a search but I came up empty.

I'm also very interested in the thread talking about using the new 8" PE drivers instead of the M8a's in case anyone cares. There is a ton of DIY info on this site and I feel a little overwhelmed at times, but I love learning new things so keep up the good work guys.

Thanks.

[Hank]

Dotay, welcome to the world of D-I-Y. Once you do a project you will be hooked! Okay, you've been warned. Designing crossovers is very difficult and requires lots of knowledge and experience, so my recommendation would be to read up on the subject and build a pre-designed speaker kit to get hands on construction experience and to see the crossover components live and in action. Lots of people recommend The Loudspeaker Cookbook" by Vance Dickason, but I recommend the Radio Shack books to start with. I forget the name of the original book and don't know if it's still in print, but the second one is titled "Advanced Speaker Systems", RS #62-2317. Ray Alden packs a lot of knowledge into that little 124-page book with real economy of words.
Then, there's software. Shareware and boughtware, just do some searches.

[ThomasW]

This will get you started

http://www.fact-index.com/e/el/electronic_filter.html

[Dennis H]

Try this tutorial. While it's a bit pompous - he uses a lot of ten-dollar words when a ten-cent word would be easier to understand - there's a lot of good info there.

http://www.passivecrossovers.com/index.htm

[Dotay]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm pretty handy and I like to tinker around with stuff so that's why assembling crossovers is pretty intriguing. I don't expect to actually design my own right away so I am planning on using the plans that Jon and Thomas have designed for the m8a MTM's. But it seems the more threads I read the more I hear about the different materials that the various components are made of so I'm just trying to get a basic understanding of what's involved (I'm probably getting way over my head in actuality, but hey I like to learn).

Anyway, I'm still quite a ways away from actually building and I'm still in the information gathering stage. Thanks again. Now I'm gonna stop writing because I have a lot of reading to do.