What Is a Crossover Capacitor?
A crossover capacitor plays a pivotal role in audio systems, directing high-frequency sounds to tweeters and low-frequency sounds to woofers or subwoofers. This selective routing ensures that each speaker operates within its optimal frequency range, enhancing the overall sound quality of the system.
The fundamental operating principle of crossover capacitors lies in their frequency-dependent reactance. The reactance of a capacitor decreases as the signal frequency increases, which means high-frequency signals encounter less resistance and are more readily passed through. This characteristic makes them ideal for filtering out low-frequency signals from reaching tweeters, which are designed to handle high frequencies.
Audio systems can employ either passive or active crossovers. Passive crossovers are directly linked to the speakers and operate without additional power, while active crossovers require an external power source and typically include signal amplification before the frequency division occurs.