SR6500 active

I've been doing a lot of searching but can't seem to find a solid answer.

I'm planning on going active with my sr6500's next weekend.
I was wondering how much power I can safely send to each woofer and tweeter individually. I'll be using an oscilloscope, multimeter, and 1khz test tone to set my gains. I will be powering them with a Zapco DC reference 1000.4 amp so it can put out about 150 watts per channel at 4 ohms. I know that's very high, so I would like to know much I'll need to detune them so I don't melt anything. I will start my crossover at around 4khz -12db/

Set your deck to 3/4 volume with just the mids playing. Turn your gain until you start to hear it struggle. I usually use a heavier bass song. Then level match the tweeter to the mid.

Youll have to use common sense with the volume. If you listen to your music at a "musical" level you should be fine. Now if you want to blow your windows out youre gonna fry em. That being said, generally speaking anybody using Zapco amps isnt going to be much into being the loudest kid in the high school parking lot. ;)

One little aside tho, Ive found the SR mids can be bottomed out easier than you would think in the sub-63 Hz range especially with big power so if you can, tweak your high pass on the mids up to 63 at least with around an 18 db slope.

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Originally Posted by MacLeod

Youll have to use common sense with the volume. If you listen to your music at a "musical" level you should be fine. Now if you want to blow your windows out youre gonna fry em. That being said, generally speaking anybody using Zapco amps isnt going to be much into being the loudest kid in the high school parking lot. ;)

One little aside tho, Ive found the SR mids can be bottomed out easier than you would think in the sub-63 Hz range especially with big power so if you can, tweak your high pass on the mids up to 63 at least with around an 18 db slope.

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Mac my imprint processor, put my SR6500s at 40hz, but sounds very good, and there is no distortion, i dont know whats the EQ imprint dont let you see

do you think this is still dangerous for my speakers? I also have my passive crossover on

Youll know it if it is cause youll hear them bottoming out. May not do it at all, just keep an eye on it.

I'm looking for a more technical answer. I don't set my volume to 3/4 to set the gains. I set it to 60 out of 62 because my headunit starts to clip at 61. I measured this with an oscilloscope. I'm wondering how many watts each woofer and tweeter can handle on a continuous basis so I can properly set the voltage.

^^ good question. i wondered the same thing when i did active...

at once time i put it on a 200WRMS channel ... sounded great. but i didn't know if it really got 200WRMS.

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Originally Posted by tk421

^^ good question. i wondered the same thing when i did active...

at once time i put it on a 200WRMS channel ... sounded great. but i didn't know if it really got 200WRMS.

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WOW! your tweeters didn't melt? lol

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Originally Posted by keith89

I'm looking for a more technical answer. I don't set my volume to 3/4 to set the gains. I set it to 60 out of 62 because my headunit starts to clip at 61. I measured this with an oscilloscope. I'm wondering how many watts each woofer and tweeter can handle on a continuous basis so I can properly set the voltage.

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If you set your gain by ear and you're happy with the output why does it matter how many watts they can take? You should know they can't take anymore if they're bottoming out.

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Originally Posted by dirthog

If you set your gain by ear and you're happy with the output why does it matter how many watts they can take? You should know they can't take anymore if they're bottoming out.

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I spent all this money so I'm not going to do a half assed job turning my source unit to 3/4 volume and setting gains by ear as you suggested. I have the equipment to properly set up my gains. I want to be absolutely sure they won't be overpowered. I made that clear twice now in this thread.

Forget it. I'm just going to contact polk customer service because with the answers I'm getting here I wouldn't trust any numbers given out.

/thread

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Originally Posted by keith89

I spent all this money so I'm not going to do a half assed job turning my source unit to 3/4 volume and setting gains by ear as you suggested. I have the equipment to properly set up my gains. I want to be absolutely sure they won't be overpowered. I made that clear twice now in this thread.

Forget it. I'm just going to contact polk customer service because with the answers I'm getting here I wouldn't trust any numbers given out.

/thread

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I didn't know you had an oscilloscope, and without one setting your gain with the volume at 3/4 is the safest way to do it.

I can understand not wanting to overpower them. When I first got mine I asked polk the same question and customer service told me 150 mid and 50 tweeter. I felt that was way too high and didn't want to mention it here. So I just did it by ear.

If you would like I can test my settings with a DMM to see how many volts I'm running.

i used a Carver m-4120 amp with 120 watts x 4 @ 12v. i sent 120 watts to the mids and detuned the tweeters to 50 watts. i also used an oscope and a 1kz test tone with 5db gain overlap. they handled this with no problems. i wouldnt send anymore than 50 watts to the tweets.

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Originally Posted by keith89

WOW! your tweeters didn't melt? lol

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no. the setup was as follows. simple setup:

- two alpine pdx 4.100 amps
- one amp played left channel only, the other only played right channel (parallel bi-amping)

- tweeter ran off one channel but level was reduced at x-over while maintaining the 4v pre-out
- 3" midrange from hybrid ran off another channel
- 6" midbass from sr6500 was then bridged across the remaining two channels and level set using a fluke multimeter in AC mode. can't remember the AC formula for calculating what AC voltage gives what watts rms.

played clean, loud. didnt like the freq response of the 3" compare to the SRs by themselves. i think i mounted them poorly. installer error plays a bigger part than equipment in my honest opinion. and that was my downfall of running full active 3way

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Originally Posted by tk421

- tweeter ran off one channel but level was reduced at x-over while maintaining the 4v pre-out

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someone pls clarify me on this as i am now learning proper level setting. previously i did it by ear.

my HU is an alpine 9887. it's 4v out.. but if i set the level on the crossover to -3db, will the pre-out voltage be lowered?

admittedly, i never measured the actual pre-out voltage.

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Originally Posted by killerb

i used a Carver m-4120 amp with 120 watts x 4 @ 12v. i sent 120 watts to the mids and detuned the tweeters to 50 watts. i also used an oscope and a 1kz test tone with 5db gain overlap. they handled this with no problems. i wouldnt send anymore than 50 watts to the tweets.

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i think that's a great formula that's spot-on for the speakers.

note: when connected to the sr6500 x-over, the bulb will light if u are sending distorted or overly high output to the speakers/tweeters.

hey, remember guys.. u can call polk. those guys on the phone are REALLY helpful and willing to give u tips from their vast experience in car audio. some have competed in IASCA and some know the products like its their child! i speak from experience. i called them and chatted.

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Originally Posted by tk421

someone pls clarify me on this as i am now learning proper level setting. previously i did it by ear.

my HU is an alpine 9887. it's 4v out.. but if i set the level on the crossover to -3db, will the pre-out voltage be lowered?

admittedly, i never measured the actual pre-out voltage.

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What crossover? The one built into the radio or the one for your components?
-Cody

on the head unit

keith89, what number did Polk give you?

Here is the answer I got from Kim and exactly what I was asking for when I started this thread.

Use a 18 or 24 dB active crossover. The crossover frequency is centered at 3100 Hertz. I would suggest setting the low pass crossover to 2000 to 2500 Hertz and set the high pass crossover to 4 kHz. This would be a good starting point. The drivers will be able to handle 125 to 150 Watts and the tweeter can safely handle 50 to 75 Watts.

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Originally Posted by keith89

Use a 18 or 24 dB active crossover. The crossover frequency is centered at 3100 Hertz. I would suggest setting the low pass crossover to 2000 to 2500 Hertz and set the high pass crossover to 4 kHz. This would be a good starting point. The drivers will be able to handle 125 to 150 Watts and the tweeter can safely handle 50 to 75 Watts.

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Kim, you sir are a super master tuning genius! I never even thought of staggering the cut off points. After reading this last night I tried it on my current setting on the way to work this morning ( 2K @ 18db / 4K @ 18 dB) and it had a lot of potential! It dried up the sound a ton. It was a little too much but thats because I hadnt tuned to those crossover settings. I have some response problems in the 1.6-3.2 Hz range especially from the right mid so Im heading out to the garage now to see if I can do anything with it.

LOL if u win MECA this year im giving KIM the credit.

Well after spending several hours out in my garage, I never really could get it to work. I experimented with different frequencies and slopes and never did like the overall sound. The best result I got was with the mid cut off at 2 KHz @ 18 db/octave and the tweeter at 4 KHz @ 18 db/oct. It did focus up the imaging tho but the midrange was too "stuffy" sounding.

After 3 years, 2 different cars and 4 different tweeter locations I keep coming back to both mid and tweeter cut off at 4 KHz @ 24 db/octave so ya might want to try that setting as well dude.