[beat]

Hey all,
suppose you had a ribbon tweeter and a 10 inch woofer that were both had 93dB sensitivity, Isn't the crossover going to screw that up? I'm not very familiar with differences in xovers so I will also ask for opinions on active xovers vs. passive. If it makes any difference the woofer I'm looking at using only generates sound to around 2000hz or so. which is coincidently around the cutoff point of the ribbon tweeter I'm looking at also.

[markC]

Sounds like that would be cutting it a little close. A driver rarely behaves well up to it's "only produces" sound point. I would think that if you looked @ the woof's freq. response graph it would go rather off the chart,( so to speak),  long b4 it approached it's max freq. reproduction limit. This would lead to great complications in x-over design. In general, rule of thumb says that a tweet should not come in b4 double it's fs.  I have found that going with drivers that work within the x-over parameters that your looking for are a much less difficult way to go. Just my 5 cents.

[beat]

Sure, thanks mark,
I wouldn't have it xover that low and I wasnt considering going xoverless. If I go with the woofer I'm looking at I would want to use a midrange driver also. That was not the crux of my query though. I just wanted to know to what degree a crossover network screws with the over all sensitivity of the finished speaker. I am pretty new to this and am not clear on how inductors and capacitors function in a xover. therefore, I dont know how they affect resistance and sensitivity. Sorry, I could have been more clear. In the past I have used premade ones. Is it worth it to build your own from scratch? My goal is to have finished speakers with a sensitivity above 91 or 92 db...and of course sound awesome.