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What is a corner frequency?


Roc Rinaldi

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That's a crossover frequency. Was the term "corner" a typo or did you mean crossover? Do they possibly allow for corner loading a sub and have some sort of a filter that would not be used if the sub were to be on a wall? An additional "boundary" filter?

A corner frequency is used in reference to the frequency response, most often in crossovers, as you are dealing with the decay of a particular response - in other words, how a particular response 'rolls off'. And this is normally specified in terms of a 'corner frequency' and the rate or slope of decay referenced to that point.

It has nothing to do with spatial loading )placement near boundaries, be it the wall, floor or corner. That is actually defined by a ratio known as Q.

Here is a diagram to help with the concept of spatial loading. And you can get used to the use of the unit called steradians.[;)]

post-23237-13819325753822_thumb.png

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I have an A/V Controller on order. In the specs. http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/data/brochures/MX1202.28.07.pdf

I noticed under "SUBWOOFER" the statement "Low pass filtered with an 80Hz corner frequency......."

What is meant by the term "corner frequency"?

The "corner" frequency is defined as the -3dB point of the filter. When people refer to the "crossover frequency" they are just being lazy and simply referring to the "crossover corner frequency". If we wanted to, we could define the corner frequency to anything we wanted...like maybe the -6dB points or the -1dB points. The reason behind the classical -3dB is because this is where the acoustical output will sum to a flat response (provided the phases and all that are correct). So in an ideal world, the frequency where the high-pass filter is -3dB and the frequency where the low-pass filter is -3dB is going to be the same frequency. If we defined it differently (like the -6dB point), then the korner for the high-pass will be a lower frequency than the korner for the low-pass. I spelled it with a 'k' to avoid confusion with the real definition of a corner frequency.

I hope I'm not confusing the issue...it makes way more sense if you've got pictures (which I might do in the near future if someone doesn't beat me to it).

Anyways, to answer your question "Low pass filtered with an 80Hz corner frequency" is the same thing as saying "an 80Hz low pass filter" or "an 80Hz crossover point". They are all different ways of saying the same thing.

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What both Mikes have said!

This is NOT the best diagram, and there are not 'sharp' changes in frequency response as illustrated, but this illustration is the first I ran into that might help illustrate what Doc is saying.

The corner frequencies for both curves (the low pass and the high pass) are the same. In this case they are both 5000 Hz. And each curve's rate of decay (the 'rolloff') is 6 dB per octave (which means that the slope will be 6 dB lower for every halving or doubling of the frequency respectively for the high pass and low pass components).

post-23237-13819325755072_thumb.jpg

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