Crossover Design with MATLAB: Tutorial

March 24, 2007

What today is all about

By now we’ve learned a bit about how speakers work and how sound waves interact; and we want to be
able to design our own speaker system. So, it’s time to put our knowledge to good use. We’ll get acquainted
with MATLAB - a powerful program for science and math - and use it to do the nasty computations involved
with impedances. We can design filters that use resistors, inductors, and capacitors and use MATLAB to
simulate their effects on actual speaker drivers. This way, we can experiment with lots of different drivers
and filter circuits without actually having to build speakers. You’ll first learn how the system works by simu­
lating a simple 2-way speaker design, and then you’ll be able to create crossovers to go with any combination
of different woofers, midranges, and tweeters. I hope you have a good time.

Using MATLAB

On the MIT Server computing system at MIT, we have a program called MATLAB which can do lots of
calculations very quickly, even with complex numbers (which describe, for example, both a signal amplitude
and a phase shift). It also helps us make graphics to observe the results of our simulations. We will take
advantage of this to analyze the effect of crossover networks on the responses of speaker drivers.

Starting MATLAB

1. Start the MATLAB program: Start -> Math/Plotting -> MATLAB

2. Load the graphical interface: type desktop and hit enter.
3. Switch the working directory: on the list of folders in the upper left, double-
click on hsspmatlab.

I had to write the functions to simulate crossover circuits; they’re not included in MATLAB. To use
them, you will need to change the working directory (the place where MATLAB looks for data) to the folder
where I put the files, like it says in step 3 above.

You’re now all set to simulate crossover circuits... let’s give it a shot.

Tutorial crossover design

To help you get started, here are directions for simulating an actual working speaker design. Shown
below are the crossover circuit schematics and a picture of the completed product. Does the speaker look
familiar?

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Crossover Design with MATLAB Audio and Speaker-building March 24, 2007

R: 0.5 ohm
L: 1.5 mH
R1011 L1011

source
D11
C: 10 uF
Dayton RS150

C1021
6" aluminum cone midwoofer
PE# 295-362
Lowpass
Branch

C: 10 uF L-pad
R: 3 ohm Branch
C2031 R2051

source
D21
R2041

R: 5 ohm
R: 0.7 ohm Dayton DC28
R2061

L: 0.4 mH 1-1/8" soft dome tweeter

L2041

PE# 275-070

Highpass
Branch
Image by MIT OCW.

To simulate the response of the circuit, there are a few steps. Here are examples of the four main functions
you can use. Don’t enter in these exact commands... the tutorial is a couple of paragraphs down.

Example Steps for Crossover Simulation

1. Load data for each driver:
woofer = load(’rs180’);
2. Create circuit branches:
lowpass = branch(’RL’, [0.4 2.5], ’C’, 6.8);
3. Simulate their effect on each driver:
highsection = simulate(lowpass, woofer);
4. Combine networks together to form complete speaker:
result = combine(lowsection, highsection);

In the MATLAB command window, there’s a prompt (>> ) where you enter in lines of code for the inter­
preter to execute. Most of the commands you’ll use for simulating crossovers involve calling a function (such
as branch), passing that function some input data (the circuit components and their values: ’RL’, [0.4
2.5], ’C’, 6.8), and receiving its output (the resulting impedance and frequency response: lowpass).
Sometimes the code will generate a lot of numbers, which would normally go on the screen. You can enter
a semicolon (;) at the end of a line to suppress this output if you want. I like to do it this way. Also, be
careful to match up parentheses, square brackets, and quotes correctly... MATLAB can’t exactly figure out
what you meant to type.
Anyway, on to the circuit for the small 6” two-way speaker we’ve been listening to in class. This speaker
uses the Dayton DC28 1” tweeter and RS150 6” woofer. The first thing you have to do is load the driver
data. Enter each command and hit enter after the semicolon:
tweeter = load(’dc28’);
woofer = load(’rs150’);
Take a look at the information you just loaded. (When you’re done looking at a graph, you can close it,
since each plot command creates a new graph and the desktop can get crowded.)

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Crossover Design with MATLAB Audio and Speaker-building March 24, 2007
plotdriver(woofer);

While I’m thinking about it, here’s a summary of the various ways to display data.

Types of Output Plots

1. To plot the data for a raw driver:

plotdriver(woofer);
2. To plot the response of the raw driver compared to the combination of the
driver and its filter circuit:
plotresp(highsection);
3. To plot the frequency response and impedance of the driver with its filter
connected:
plotimp(highsection);
4. To plot the electrical frequency response of the filter:
plotgain(highsection);
5. To plot everything about a filter section at once:
plotall(highsection);

The woofer’s frequency response is pretty flat in the midrange, but it’s got some nasty resonances above
4 KHz that go off the charts. You wouldn’t want to listen to them, it would make music sound kind of harsh.
Anyway, just keep this in mind when you’re designing filter circuits; a steeper lowpass filter will do a better
job of removing those peaks.
The next step is to create a description of the circuit diagram in the picture on page 2. With these
functions, you can create a filter circuit of any complexity by stacking up ‘branches’ which describe a set of
components in series with the load, and a set of components in parallel (shunting) the load. In the crossover
for this speaker, the lowpass (woofer) network requires 1 branch and the highpass (tweeter) network needs 2.
That’s because you need to enter the actual filter part (inductor and capacitor) separately from the resistor

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Crossover Design with MATLAB Audio and Speaker-building March 24, 2007
network (L-pad) that reduces the tweeter’s signal level. The numbers that you put in correspond to the
values on the schematic; and when you need more than one, you have to enclose them in square brackets
so MATLAB can interpret it correctly. The first branch is 0.7 Ω in series with 1.5 mH, and then a 10 µF
capacitor connected across the load. Enter these in!
lowpass = branch(’RL’, [0.5 1.5], ’C’, 10);
highpass = branch(’C’, 10, ’RL’, [0.5 0.4]);
lpad = branch(’R’, 3, ’R’, 5);
If you want to create a branch with no components in either the series or shunt parts, use ’none’ for
the component type and 0 for the value. For example, there is a type of branch for cancelling out the rising
impedance of a driver, called a ‘zobel.’ A typical zobel branch (placed directly in front of the driver) would
look like this:
zobel = branch(’none’, 0, ’RC’, [4 30]);
And you can also make a branch with no shunt components. This is important in a 1st-order filter where
there’s nothing but an inductor in series with the woofer. Here’s an example. (Again, this command doesn’t
apply to the tutorial, though you can go back and try it if you like. Why wouldn’t this be a good filter for
the RS150 woofer?)
lp1 = branch(’L’, 2, ’none’, 0);
Now, simulate the result of wiring up those filters to the woofer and tweeter. The simulate function
produces a result containing frequency response and impedance data for each section. You can look at this
data and also combine it with other results to obtain a complete prediction for the entire speaker.
lowsection = simulate(lowpass, woofer);
highsection = simulate([highpass lpad], tweeter);
Notice how in the second command, you used both the highpass and the L-pad branches connected one
after the other, like the crossover schematic shows. If you connected them the other way around, like [lpad
highpass], the result would be different. You can try that too, if you want. Or maybe some of you can do
it each way. Let’s plot the result of the lowpass filter:
plotresp(lowsection);
plotimp(lowsection);

You can see in the frequency response that the filter has rolled off the high frequencies, supressing the
bad-sounding treble peaks. And you can also see that the impedance starts to rise quickly above 2 KHz,
since the inductor has high impedance at high frequencies (reducing the current going into the woofer at
those frequencies).

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Crossover Design with MATLAB Audio and Speaker-building March 24, 2007
The last step is to combine the results of the circuits connected to the woofer and the tweeter. The tweeter
is connected with reverse polarity (180 degree phase shift) in order to get the phase to line up correctly
between the two drivers. To simulate that, call the function reverse on the treble network response. This
function will draw a graph even if you don’t ask, because it’s a pretty important graph!
result = combine([lowsection reverse(highsection)]);

That shows you how the sounds from the woofer and tweeter add together to give you full-range audio
from about 80 Hz (the lower frequency limit of the woofer) to 20 KHz (the higher frequency limit of the
tweeter, and also the limit of your hearing). The blue lines are the frequency response and impedance from
the low frequency section; the red lines are from the high frequency section; and the black lines are the
summation of the two. Notice that at the crossover frequency of 2 KHz, the woofer and tweeter are playing
equally strong (79 dB) and the sum of the two is about double the amplitude (6 dB higher, or 85 dB). That’s
because the two drivers are in phase. If you run the simulation without reversing the phase on the tweeter,
like this:
result = combine([lowsection highsection]);
then you will get a big dip in the response at the crossover frequency, since the woofer and tweeter cancel
each other out. It is sometimes hard to arrange the circuit components so that the phase is well-matched.
That’s one of the things you get to play around with.
If you change any of the circuit branches, call simulate and combine again to re-compute the results ­
it doesn’t happen automatically.

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Crossover Design with MATLAB Audio and Speaker-building March 24, 2007
On to your own experiments!

Now that you have an idea about how this system works, it’s time to go on and simulate any circuits
you can imagine. First, pick a driver from the list below and draw out a simple filter to connect to it. Make
up any reasonable values for the components and enter the circuits in using the load, branch, simulate,
and combine functions. All of the information from these drivers came from the Parts Express web site,
http://www.parts-express.com. You can find any drivers you want (navigate on the left to “Speakers”),
view specifications, and download the FRD and ZMA data. There are more data files in the folder than
there are drivers listed here - they’ll work just as well.

Filename Model Driver Description Cost each

tm025f1 Audax TM025F1 1” fabric dome tweeter $15
pt2b Dayton PT2 5” long ribbon tweeter $32
dc28 Dayton DC28 1” fabric dome tweeter $15
xt25 Vifa XT25TG 1” dual concentric tweeter $54
dc50f Dayton DC50 2” fabric dome midrange $28
ap100z0 Audax AP100Z0 4” Kevlar/paper cone midrange $29
rs150 Dayton RS-150 6” aluminum cone woofer $29
rs225 Dayton RS-225 8” aluminum cone woofer $43
rs270 Dayton RS-270 10” aluminum cone woofer $63

Then you can get as ambitious as you want. My functions are prepared to handle as many different
circuit sections as you can come up with (except maybe the plot commands). You can design a single driver
speaker with a filter to flatten its response, a 2-way with two woofers in parallel, or a 3-way with a separate
woofer, midrange, and tweeter.

Suggestions for crossover designs

When you try a crossover circuit, first draw it on a piece of paper. I would recommend making a nice
simple diagram like the one for the example on the next page. It’s much more helpful correcting it at that
stage instead of running the crossover simulation only to find that things have gone wacko.

Starting Points for Crossover Design

The idea of creating circuits from scratch might seem daunting. Maybe this will
help.
1. Don’t be afraid to try out any random capacitor value that pops into your
head. You are not going to hurt anything by trying to put a 1,000 µF capacitor
in parallel with a virtual tweeter. In fact, maybe you’ll learn something useful.
2. Try taking a look at this web page:
http://www.apicsllc.com/apics/Misc/filter2.html
3. Enter in the “nominal” or rated impedance of each driver (usually 4 or 8 Ω)
and the desired cutoff frequency.
4. It will give you values for the capacitors and inductors in mH and µF, which
you can enter as circuit branches.

A 1st- or 2nd-order filter requires 1 branch per driver (plus an L-pad to reduce the tweeter level if
necessary). A 3rd- or 4th-order filter needs 2 branches. As a general rule of thumb, lower cutoff frequencies
require bigger component values. A 2 KHz crossover in a 2-way might use capacitors around 5-15 µF and
inductors around 1-2 mH, whereas a 500 Hz crossover in a 3-way might use capacitors around 20-60 µF and
inductors around 4-10 mH. If you’re making a 3-way speaker, try to create two different crossover points:
one between 100-500 Hz between the woofer and midrange, and one between 2-5 KHz between the midrange

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Crossover Design with MATLAB Audio and Speaker-building March 24, 2007
and tweeter. This means the midrange will have both lowpass and highpass filters attached to it (that’s
called a bandpass).
Here are a few ideas, pick any one and give it a shot! Think about what each of these speakers would
actually look like, how much it would cost, and what you would want it to sound like. Draw your imaginative
vision of what the speaker would look like on a piece of paper, or search the internet for similar designs. Try
to come up with at least one crossover design completely from scratch. If you’re able to end up with a good
looking frequency response, or you’ve got an interesting circuit... print out the results! I would love to see
them.
And, keep our class project in the back of your head. What kind of speaker do you want to build? Do
you want to focus on this crossover design stuff or on something else, such as making a good subwoofer?
1. Dayton RS-150 midwoofer and Audax TM025F1 tweeter. Try playing around with it a little. What
would you do to increase the crossover frequency to 3KHz?

2. Audax AP100Z0 and Dayton DC28. This would be a really small speaker, for example a satellite in a
home theater or multimedia system. I would try a simple first order crossover, with just one inductor
for the woofer and one capacitor for the tweeter, at a relatively high frequency like 4-6 KHz.
3. Dayton RS225, DC50F and PT2 ribbon. The thing about ribbon tweeters is that they’re fragile - you
want to prevent low frequencies from reaching them, especially if the speaker is going to play loudly.
So I’ve suggested adding a 2” midrange driver to cover the range between around 500-4,000 Hz. This is
easier to work out if you try out each section with its own circuit individually before combining them.
4. Dual RS270’s, RS150 and XT25 tweeter. This would be a big, rocking tower speaker. To simulate dual
woofers, enter the same section name side by side when combining responses.
Have fun playing around, and don’t be afraid to ask my helpful friends your questions!

How to contact me
1. Michael Price

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MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu

Audio and Speaker Electronics

Spring 2007

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