3-way active crossover - how it works practically

[Baciosa]

Hi everyone,
I’m working on a university assignment and I need to understand the signal path and cabling for a pair of active 3-way loudspeakers. The amplification/DSP I’m referencing is PowerSoft Mezzo 324A (4 channels) + Mezzo 602A (2 channels), so 6 channels total (3 per speaker).

I’d like to confirm that my understanding of the connection order is correct, and ask for best practice to keep the cabling clean in a contract installation.

My understanding (is this correct?)

1. Stereo source (L/R) →
2. Mezzo inputs →
3. Inside the Mezzo: DSP / active crossover (splits into LOW/MID/HIGH for L and R + EQ/delay/limiters) →
4. Inside the Mezzo: power amplification (6 separate amp channels, one per driver) →
5. Outputs to the speakers: 3 amplified lines per cabinet (woofer / mid / tweeter) →
6. Inside each cabinet: direct wiring to each driver (no passive crossover).

Questions

1. Is my idea of the signal flow order above correct for a fully active stereo 3-way using Mezzo units? I'm quite unexperienced so I'm not very sure...
2. For a cleaner look, is it common to run one multi-core speaker cable per cabinet (instead of 3 separate cables) and split internally? If so, which connector approach is recommended (e.g., 8-pole Speakon) and are there typical pinout conventions to avoid mistakes?

Thanks a lot, I'm trying to understand by myself but the more I read the more my doubts increase

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi everyone,
I’m working on a university assignment and I need to understand the signal path and cabling for a pair of active 3-way loudspeakers. The amplification/DSP I’m referencing is PowerSoft Mezzo 324A (4 channels) + Mezzo 602A (2 channels), so 6 channels total (3 per speaker).

I’d like to confirm that my understanding of the connection order is correct, and ask for best practice to keep the cabling clean in a contract installation.

My understanding (is this correct?)

1. Stereo source (L/R) →
2. Mezzo inputs →
3. Inside the Mezzo: DSP / active crossover (splits into LOW/MID/HIGH for L and R + EQ/delay/limiters) →
4. Inside the Mezzo: power amplification (6 separate amp channels, one per driver) →
5. Outputs to the speakers: 3 amplified lines per cabinet (woofer / mid / tweeter) →
6. Inside each cabinet: direct wiring to each driver (no passive crossover).

Questions

1. Is my idea of the signal flow order above correct for a fully active stereo 3-way using Mezzo units? I'm quite unexperienced so I'm not very sure...
2. For a cleaner look, is it common to run one multi-core speaker cable per cabinet (instead of 3 separate cables) and split internally? If so, which connector approach is recommended (e.g., 8-pole Speakon) and are there typical pinout conventions to avoid mistakes?

Thanks a lot, I'm trying to understand by myself but the more I read the more my doubts increase

The bass driver is connected to a low pass filter. The mid range driver is connected to a band pass filter, the tweeter is connected to a high pass filter.

However the trick, and its a difficult one, of designing any crossover, is matching it to the drivers. All speaker drive units have a low end roll off and a top end roll off. In addition they have resonant peaks, and other FR irregularities that the crossover has to deal with. So you need good FR data on each driver.

The next issue is that the drivers will have different sensitivities and you have to match the output of each amp to take that in consideration.

This is an immense subject and designing a speaker that sounds even close to good is not an easy task.