About Paul McGowan
Paul McGowan is the co-founder of PS Audio (The 'P' ) and has been designing, building and enjoying high end audio since 1974. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his four sons: Lon, Sean, Scott and Rob. His hobbies include hiking, skiing, cooking, artisan bread baking. His current big project, other than playing with stereos, is writing a book series called the Carbon Chronicles. Book One, the Lost Chronicle, is a work in progress. You can view his efforts at http://www.paulmcgowan.com
Thanks for mentioning the Q of crossovers. I never hear it and it tells you something about ringing around the crossover which can have a big affect on reproduction.
Agreed! Started out very simply and then we came complicated. I understood it but I think it just muddy the water for lots of other people
It was really straight forward. It’s just that most only think of the Q for the roll off of a bass driver because that’s what is mentioned almost all of the time. But every time there is frequency roll of there is a Q associated with it. Q is very important because it tells you how much ringing there is at that frequency and ringing is bad. It is analogous to a car with poor shock absorbers trying to drive over a bumpy road.
Things were going so well in the first minute and then……….
I am familiar with The Story of O so thanks for moving me forward to “Q”.
You could have titled this post “Q-tips”
Excellent point!
Thanks Chris. That was interesting!
I don’t think we can distinguish between different filter shapes simply by specifying the Q. I agree that a second-order Butterworth filter has a Q of 0.7071, but a higher order filter is not so easily described. For example, a fourth-order Butterworth filter has second-order section with Q of 0.54 and one second-order section at the same frequency, but with Q of 1.31.
If I remember correctly, A Linkwitz Riley filter is made by cascading two identical Butterworth filters.
To me the interesting point is that Q can describe a crossover, a driver, a box, and the proximity of the box to a wall. A sealed box woofer might have a Q of 0.5; put it near a wall and it might have a Q of 1.0.
My favorite Star Trek character.
What a rabbit hole I’ve gone down watching these interesting things after merely buying a Sprout!