Crover

Guide · Beta

Design a passive crossover automatically – from your measurements

Formulas give you starting values for ideal resistors. Real drivers have resonances, a rising impedance and break-ups. “Tune automatically” suggests a finished 2-way crossover from your FRD and ZMA files – crossover frequency, part values and a reason for every part.

What it does

First Crover reads every driver: where it plays clean, where its cone breaks up, where the tweeter's resonance sits, how large the baffle step is. That sets the window for the crossover frequency and which building blocks come into question – notch, series notch, Zobel, L-pad, baffle step network.

Then it searches proven topologies and fits the values so the on-axis sum is flat, the impedance stays above the warning threshold and the tweeter is attenuated enough at its resonance. These protection rules are hard: a suggestion that breaks them is never shown.

For transient purists there is the focus “Step-true (1st order)”: 1st-order filters only, both drivers in phase, and every card says how far the sum's phase strays from step-true.

In four steps

  1. 1

    Add drivers with measurements

    Drag an amplifier and two drivers into the editor and load an FRD (frequency response) and a ZMA (impedance) for each – ideally measured in the finished cabinet. Without measurements Crover uses curves estimated from the T/S parameters; every suggestion then says it should be tuned again after measuring.

  2. 2

    Let it check

    Open “Auto crossover” in the palette. Step ① checks what is there and what is missing: amplifier, drivers, measurements, the tweeter's resonance. Implausible files – a ZMA that does not fit the driver, say – come with three ways out.

  3. 3

    Choose drivers and goal

    Step ② shows for each driver what it can do (“plays clean up to 3.1 kHz”) and what to watch. In step ③ you pick the focus – balanced, linear, phase-true, few parts or step-true 1st order – and whether values are ideal, E12/E24 or from your parts list.

  4. 4

    Compare and adopt

    A run usually takes less than a minute. Every suggestion shows the sum, the lowest impedance, the part count, the schematic and why it looks the way it does. “Compare first” lays it dashed next to your crossover, “Adopt” replaces it in one undo step.

What it cannot do (yet)

  • It designs new 2-way crossovers. A drawn 2.5- or 3-way crossover it fine-tunes: then it changes values only, never parts.
  • It judges on axis. Dispersion, the room and power handling do not count – a suggestion is a very good starting point, not a substitute for listening.
  • It runs on the Crover server and needs a free account. Your measurements are used for the run only and are not stored.

Prefer to calculate yourself? The textbook values come from the 2-way calculator and the 3-way calculator.

No measurements yet? Create FRD and ZMA files · All the details in the manual

Try it in the editor