Crossover Calculator — Passive Speaker Crossover Design

It depends on the drivers. Typical values: woofer to midrange 300-800 Hz, midrange to tweeter 2-5 kHz. The crossover point should be where both drivers operate comfortably — well within their usable frequency range, not at their limits.

Per driver leg: 1st order uses 1 component (one capacitor on the high-pass leg, one inductor on the low-pass leg). 2nd order uses 2 components per leg, 3rd order uses 3, and 4th order uses 4. So a 2-way 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley network has 8 components in total. Higher orders give steeper slopes (better driver protection) but cost more and have more complex phase behaviour.

A 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley (LR4) crossover is two cascaded 2nd-order Butterworth sections ("Butterworth squared"). At the crossover point both drivers are 6 dB down and in phase, so the acoustic outputs sum flat with no peak. The steep 24 dB/octave slope also gives excellent tweeter protection. This is why LR4 is the de-facto standard for studio monitors and PA crossovers.

Crossover component values are calculated from the nominal impedance of the driver. Real driver impedance varies with frequency (it rises at resonance and at high frequency due to voice-coil inductance), so the actual crossover point shifts away from the nominal calculation. Serious passive designs use impedance-compensation (Zobel) networks and measured impedance curves rather than the nominal figure alone — treat these results as a starting point.

Active crossovers (before amplification) offer more precise control, adjustable slopes and frequencies, no power loss, and better driver protection. Passive crossovers are simpler (no extra amplifiers needed) and are standard in most consumer and many PA speakers.