# Focal PS 165 FX Active Tweeter crossover



## Amgclk65 (Dec 8, 2015)

Hello to everyone. 
Im trying to figure out the lowest crossover setting i can run my focal tweeters.
Reading the parameters spec sheet for the tnf tweeters show a fs of 1370Hz.
So going by rule of double the fs. Im thinking i can play them down to 2.7hz.
Would that be correct? Looking for advise from the experts.
http://i.imgur.com/c5QTKKQ.png


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## Ziggyrama (Jan 17, 2016)

Bump for this thread. I am also looking to set up my focal 165fx tweets by going to active setup. The problem is, I don't know what the passing xovers are setup to do and what is safe.

One idea that I had is to mute the tweets, run a sweep, record it using a calibrated mic and see where the mid falls off. Technically, that will give me the acoustic xover but it should be close.

Any thoughts on this?


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## Ziggyrama (Jan 17, 2016)

Found this info on crutchfield:

Crossover Slopes: The crossover uses 12 dB per octave low-pass and 18 dB per octave high-pass filters. The crossover point for both is 3.6 kHz.

So there you have it. The mids are crossed with a 2nd order xover while the tweets get a 3rd order xover.


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## Amgclk65 (Dec 8, 2015)

Ive got a little more info on the tweeters. I contacted focal. They stated 3800khz at 12db. But he didn't seem to confident. Here's the spec sheet via focal website. 
They state a fs of 1370. I've been playing my at 3600khz at 6db. They sound really good to me.
I also asked Mitsu1grn, aka focal rep. He stated 3.2khz at 18db would be the lowest.


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## Ziggyrama (Jan 17, 2016)

Cool. Based on the spec, looks like you in the right ball park.

I am thinking about going active and I was in the same boat, trying to determine how to set them up. Sounds you already did it, so I have a coupe of questions:

- once you dropped the passive cover, did you drop the gain on the tweets? Did you make any changes there? I am already biamped so the active change should be pretty straightforward.

- my tweets are currently installed in sail panels, off axis, basically stock location. I find them to be harsh, working on tuning the system. How do you have yours configured? I am considering changing to the pod that came with them, and aiming them towards me. I have an STI and acoustics ate tough in this car. I also think I am sensitive to high freq sounds so they sound more piercing to me than they should.

Any thought on your setup would be helpful. If you have pics, post them up. Thanks in advance!


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## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

Ziggyrama said:


> Cool. Based on the spec, looks like you in the right ball park.
> 
> I am thinking about going active and I was in the same boat, trying to determine how to set them up. Sounds you already did it, so I have a coupe of questions:
> 
> ...


If you find them harsh off axis, you'll likely find them very harsh on axis. What are you using for processing? Focal is notorious for harsh tweeters, but if you have the processing/EQ you can probably tame them fairly well.


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## Ziggyrama (Jan 17, 2016)

gijoe said:


> If you find them harsh off axis, you'll likely find them very harsh on axis. What are you using for processing? Focal is notorious for harsh tweeters, but if you have the processing/EQ you can probably tame them fairly well.


What you're saying is in line with what I read about setting up tweeters. Going off axis tends to cut down on the harshness but I figured I'd give it a try and see what I get.

I am running Zapco Z8 DSP for eq and other processing. I am aware EQ may fix some of the harshness although I am trying to set up phasing before I start addressing specific frequency range issue with EQ. This is what is leading down the path of going active. Currently, I think my setup has a number of problems and I need to get full control over it to address it:

- I am bi-amping the focals using passive crossover which is making phase tuning very difficult, especially between mid and tweeter. I think I need to ditch them and use the DSP to get the phasing right.

- I am running the mids and tweeters off a 4 channel amp and I have the rears hooked up to HU power. The problem is that tweeters are tied to rear channels so if I use the fader to control the rear fill, I am also attenuating the tweeters. I realize now that this was a mistake so I am planning to run both tweeters and mids from the front channels by splitting the pre-amps from 2 to 4 channels and then use the fader to limit rear fill independently. But, I think the lack of control over rear fill is messing with the staging.

- My current HU, Clarion NX603, although fairly decent, has a non-defeatable low pass filter. This sucks as I cannot turn it off so I end up setting it to highest frequency and use the DSP to set the actual LPF the way I want. This feels like a workaround, not an ideal situation.

As you can see, I currently have 3 xovers in play: LPF on the HU which I cannot turn off, the DSP and the passive xovers for the focals. Each one of them introduces phase shifts which I suspect is messing with the sound and is making it very hard to tune. If I can go active, I can eliminate 1 of them, then if I upgrade the HU, I can get to a point where I have everything dialed through the DSP. It's been a learning experience. I am fairly new to this but I am pretty technical and I am learning quickly. I also splurged on the UMIC1 and got a handle on REW and how to take measurements which has been helpful in tuning but I still have work to do.


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