Adding piezo tweeter

[kr3w1664]

I want to add a piezo tweeter to my 2x12 with a crossover will it affect how many ohms the cabinet is?

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Piezos don't use crossovers. Reconsider and add a midrange instead. While you can get a decent result with at least four piezos one won't work well. Use the fEarful designs as a guide.

 

[delta7fred]

Hi

It depends what you want out of your rig, I replaced the 15" Goodmans (when it blew) in my Trace Elliot combo with a Eminance. It did not have as much top end and all sounded a bit dull. I added 2 cheap piezo horns (no crosover, just a couple of resistors so I don't fry them) and it sounds better than it did before. If you are after lots of midrange and hifi quality sound then go for crossovers, bass, midrange and a compression driver horn, but for a usable rig to gig with you can forget about the subtleties and whack in however many piezo horns you need to handle the power. On my rehearsal rig I have 2 horns and a volume pot as there was just a bit too much to end.

I think Bill's suggestion of 4 peizos is a bit OTT for a 2X12 cab. In my experience with them I have used a Peavey 4X10 with 2 in, that was more than adequate, in fact I had to put a pot in to shut them up a bit. I have a home built 1X12, with one in that needed a volume control. My giging combo has 2 in for a 280W output, with no pot, the less controls you have to play with on stage the better.

I play in a trio playing small venues, so tend to play with quite a lot of deep bass, not a lot of mid (as the guitarist fills that slot more than adequately) and just enough top to to cut through without sounding like breaking glass. I play either an MM SR5 (coils in series), MM SUB4 (coils in parallel), that can get too toppy very easily, or on rare occasions a 62 P bass which is not as critical on amp settings as the 2 MMs.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

I think Bill's suggestion of 4 peizos is a bit OTT for a 2X12 cab. .

This is a 1x10:

And that would be twenty piezos.
Though that's a PA configuration, I'd only use eight for bass.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

The number of piezos depends on the woofer loudness. You match 'em up. Since the OP didn't say what cab he's using, Bill's guess of 4 piezos is just as valid as any.

 

[gumtown]

A good quality horn or mid/tweeter might be better, personally i hate piezos, they sound too harsh and nazal.

 

[Greenman]

Am I correct in saying using a tweeter array as posted above narrows the gap between where the woofer leaves off and the tweeters kick in?

 

[Rick Auricchio]

Using more piezos (e.g. an array) simply makes them louder. It doesn't change the crossover point.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

It doesn't change the crossover point.

Yes, it does. That particular array is good down to 2kHz.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

The number of piezos changes the crossover point? I thought they would have a fixed low end response whether you had one or 20.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

The number of piezos changes the crossover point? I thought they would have a fixed low end response whether you had one or 20.

They're horn loaded. Most horn loaded speakers go lower as more are added to the pile, be it a tweeter or a subwoofer.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

Aha.