Let's say we have a tweeter impedance of 6 Ohms, a woofer impedance of 4 Ohms, and a crossover frequency between the two of 3000 Hz. You would then calculate each component as:

The solution is to have two or three (maybe more, but these are less common) specialist speakers inside each speaker unit. A speaker that outputs high frequencies is called a tweeter, and one that produces low frequencies is called a woofer. Choose the number of speakers in your design, which you'll find at the top of the crossover calculator. For crossover designs, choose either two (tweeter and woofer) or three (tweeter, midrange speaker and woofer) speakers. One solution to this problem is to split up the signal coming from the amplifier according to the signal frequency. Then, for example, low-frequency signals will go to the woofer and high-frequency signals to the tweeter. A combination of the right capacitors and inductors creates filters that only allow the right range of frequencies to go to the correct speaker (or driver). Another solution you may come across is an active crossover design, which involves splitting up the signal before amplification, with each specialist speaker having an amplifier, requiring the speakers to be powered. Note that this calculator is only applicable to passive crossover designs.

In the 2-way mode, the calculator uses the impedance of your tweeter and woofer to produce a 2-way speaker crossover design. By choosing three speakers, it becomes a 3-way crossover calculator, in case you also want to incorporate a midrange speaker into your design.

capacitor 1 = 0.1125 tweeter impedance × crossover frequency capacitor 2 = 0.1125 woofer impedance × crossover frequency inductor 1 = 0.2251 × tweeter impedance crossoverfrequency inductor 1 = 0.2251 × woofer impedance crossoverfrequency \small This speaker crossover calculator will help you design a set of amazing sounding speakers. It'll tell you what capacitors and inductors you need to create a passive crossover design for either two speakers (a 2-way passive crossover) or three speakers (a 3-way passive crossover).

If you are new to the field of hi-fi speaker design, you might be wondering, why we can't just use one speaker? After all, you will probably find devices around your home that only have a single speaker, such as a small portable radio or your mobile phone. But do they sound great at all frequencies?

Enter the impedance of each of your speakers, which you should find on their respective specifications sheet. You can learn more about this property from the acoustic impedance calculator. Enter the crossover frequency(s). For a two-speaker setup, look up the frequency response ranges of the speakers and choose a frequency that is covered by both speakers.When two speakers are involved, this is known as a 2-way passive crossover design. For three drivers, it's known as a 3-way passive crossover. It is called "passive" as there is no additional power source required by the speaker. For a 2-way crossover design, you have a low-pass crossover filter and a high-pass crossover filter. A low-pass filter lets through frequencies less than a certain amount, while a high-pass filter only lets higher frequencies through. The crossover frequency is where the low-pass filter starts to fade, and the high-pass filter starts to increase the amplitude of the signal. A typical value for a 2-way crossover frequency is 2000-3000 Hz. However, it still allows signals to go to the wrong speaker (due to the low filter slope value), so the damage could yet be done to the tweeter if it receives a significant signal with a lower frequency than it can handle. For a couple of additional circuits (Zobel and L-pad), choose one speaker. See below for more details about Zobel and L-pad circuits. For a three-speaker setup, you would also have a midrange speaker to cover a range of frequencies between higher quality tweeter and woofer speakers.

capacitor 1 = 0.1125 6 × 3000 = 6.25 × 1 0 − 6 F = 6.25 μF \text{capacitor}_1 = \frac{0.1125}{6 \times 3000} = 6.25 \times 10 When designing for three speakers, you'll need to set a low and a high crossover frequency using the same method. Note that you can only choose a spread between these frequencies of either 3 or 3.4 octaves. There are also a couple of additional circuits for a single speaker. One to help stabilize the speaker's impedance as frequency changes (Zobel) and another that attenuates the volume (L-pad). Has a wide choice of filter characteristics, including Butterwork, Bessel, Linkwitz, and Chebyshev.