Hey guys,

I am trying to understand the difference between the two and what they actually do?

 

Equalizer adjusts how much signal goes out at a given frequency. This allows you to add (or better yet, cut) certain frequencies to make up for the less than ideal speaker placement in a car audio environment.

A crossover cuts the signal beyond a certain frequency. A crossover will consist of a frequency and a slope, with the slope determining how much signal is cut for every octave above or below the cutoff frequency you travel.

 

Well the Alpine imprint is not a legitimate equalizer. An equalizer is a tool with which you can control different frequency bands. With this you can adjust different types of music to how you want to listen to that music. If you like more than just rap or rock, an equalizer which contains more than three bands is necessary.

A crossover divides your frequencies, let me re-phrase. Lower frequencies (subwoofer), Mid frequencies (smaller speaker), higher frequencies (tweets). The crossover basically divides the frequencies going to all these speakers, so that each speaker does what it is meant to do. This increases the overall quality of the music.

 

Jeeze...looks like i'll be investing in more things.

Any recomendations on brands of each or which one to do first??

 

That depends on what your system is going to consist of. Are adding a sub? Are you upgrading your speakers? What kind of power are you going to be running to the sub and speakers? As for which products, for crossover three.1, four.1 etcetera. Equalizer, Clarion makes decent products for reasonable money.

 

Or most decent hu's have at least somewhat decent EQ's. If you're upgrading your hu, look for one with a parametric EQ. This will allow you to shift the frequency where you boost or cut the signal.

As for crossovers, if you're running a set of components, the comps should have a passive crossover with them. If you want, you can go with what's called an active crossover network, which means that the signal is crossed before it reaches the amplifier(s).

 

well right now I have an alpine dash and with two type R subs powered by 1200 watts. and soon upgraded speakers....either type r's with the crossover component or type s.

So if I have a crossover on my component then I don't need to get a crossover?

And the basic concept here is that an equalizer allows me to adjust the sound better and a crossover makes sure the sound is going to the right place? in short.....

 

^In short, yea. If you are getting component speakers, you are getting crossovers with them. Do you need pre-amp crossover? Well that depends on what you want out of the system, honestly i wouldn't bother (but thats just for me) i have a nice pre-amp crossover just lying around waiting till i get bored and install it. Am i fine with my sound? yes. Could it be better? Yes, most definitely. Does that bother me? Rarely.

So there you go, just do it in steps, and if step after step you are not happy with the sound, then keep going at it with line drivers eq's, even computers, until you are happy.

 

But Eq, i would definitely think about getting. Its nice to listen to something just the way you want to listen to it. Not the way it was meant to be, or how it's supposed to sound (IMO of course).

 

Basically, you have the idea of a crossover vs EQ. You're also correct that if you want to run a passive setup then there is absolutely no need for a pre-amp crossover. It will be a complete waste if you're running a passive set. Any filtering you do will be canceled out by the fact that you're running passive, and likely don't have the amp output necessary to run an active setup. In an active setup, you need 1 channel of amplification per speaker. This would mean a 4 channel amp just per component set.

Again, the EQ is not necessary. I've run setups both with them and without them, and enjoyed all of them. Hell, my Kenwood hu only has a 2 band EQ built in, but I'm still not going to add something else to ruin my sound. In theory, the fewer devises between the source and the speakers, the better the sound. The most basic setup would be a source unit, amp then speakers and you're done (see a nicely set up home audio setup). This however, does not account for speaker placement in vehicles, acoustical differences in the materials inside the vehicle and all that jazz. So that's when you add in things like EQ's, Time Alignment, active crossovers, etc. Ideally, all of these features should be in 1 unit, the head unit. This is why there are decks out there like the Alpine F1, etc with more features than you can imagine. Although, yes, SQ cars do normally run EQ's (normally in the 30+ band range) so that they can get a perfectly flat response curve from 20hz-30khz but this is the idea of those cars.