How To Use Active Crossovers

[G-Difficult]

Right now I have my system on passive crossovers but I want to change it to active and i'm not sure how to do it with a four channel amp running both mids and highs. The obvious way would be to put the highs on the front channels and the mids on the back channels, or vise versa. But I want the highs on less power, so I didn't know if I could bridge three channels together for mids and one for the tweeters...that seems like it might be kinda sketchy though.

Here's what I've got:

Rockford t400-4, Front two channels are powering punch pros for the mids, power t2 tweeters and with a t2 crossover (I bought as a component set but I busted the mids, so I replaced them with the punch pros), Back two channels are powering t1 coaxials.

Rockford t1000 powering two p3 12s

[notorious97200]

Just do it the "obvious way" and lower the gain on the tweeters.

[G-Difficult]

Alright so if I had four speakers powered by the two channels, even if I turn the gain up, would they only get 100w per channel, 50w per speaker?

[MrSkippyJ]

you can't run active with that amp and all those speakers. if you are only using that one amp, then your choice for active is to run the pro mids and tweets.

[G-Difficult]

you can't run active with that amp and all those speakers. if you are only using that one amp, then your choice for active is to run the pro mids and tweets.

That's what I was afraid of. The best way I can think of would be to get another amp for just the highs? But i'm thinking in the future I want to put punch pros in the back too and just have the two tweets in the front so it would need to be a really small amp

[MrSkippyJ]

of all the things you could do, only having tweets in the front and everything else in the back is the worst idea. If it was me, I wouldn't worry about rear coaxs. Just use the 4 channel for your front stage. That is just what I would do though, not by any means the best way to do it at all.

What crossover are you using to run active?

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

I would run the tweeters high pass at around 8khz on channel 1 and 2. The pro mids high pass at around 70khz on channel 3 and 4. Because they are a pro mid, they should be able to roll off fairly high on the top end. The rear coax could be paralleled with the mids if you really wanted to but you won't be able to adjust the output independently of the front stage. This is just a starting point. It all depends on you being able to stay out of the distortion range of your amp. Then it will depend on the particular vehicle and install. No two installs are completely alike even in the same car, there are too many variables. An RTA would be ideal to see where your bumps and dips are because it will need some tweaking. This is why component sets with passive crossovers are so popular. The manufacturer already did most of the homework for you. You just plop them in and go.

[MrSkippyJ]

True, you could run the rear coaxs in parallel with the front mids. You would lose the fade adjustment and have both sets locked into the same crossover settings. Either the front mids would be crossed really high or the rears would lose the tweeter output.

[3vil]

Just buy a small 2ch to run the tweets. They don't require tons of power and you'll get to control xover while maintaining fade.

[G-Difficult]

I'm leaning towards getting another amp and doing it the right way. I haven't done research on crossovers yet, any suggestions? The main things I want to achieve is, being able to adjust slopes, and stop using my amps power up on the crossover.