licto wrote:
I of course have been doing some reading since..... trying to find more knowledge on this mid tweet crazyness...... |
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It can be daunting... I wasn't sure for the LONGEST time what to do or how to do it... Until I located my Alto EQs, I didn't see anything out there that was going to do what *I* wanted it to do. I wanted three ways in the doors, and I still wanted a really flexible subwoofer section.
licto wrote:
Read some good tips by speakermaker..... very technical point of view on midrange, power, phase, etc...... |
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I do agree with some of his stuff, but not all of it. 'Nuff said...
licto wrote:
One of his comments would be that if your passive crossover is at 2.5 or so for the highs, you can mount tweeters and midrange higher on the door or up on an A pillar. But at 4k or so, its just not a good idea to mount the tweeter too far away from the midrange. I have my midrange and tweet together in the rear doors and tweet of course is behind the factory grill. Up front they are seperate by about a foot, and the tweeter is face value right on the plastic of the door. The mid is behind the factory grill. |
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My opinion in this case... The center of the tweeter shouldn't ever be more than one wavelength of the crossover point from the center of the mid. What I mean by this: (example crossover point 1130Hz for ease of calculation, i.e. none!
) That wavelength is 12". If your crossover point happens to be 1130Hz (a ridiculous frequency, to be sure), then your tweeter to mid center points shouldn't EVER be more than 12" apart. As your frequency goes up, your centers get closer. 2260Hz is 6". 3390Hz?
A mere three inches... Pretty close to 3.5K, isn't it...?
licto wrote:
To your points..... Thanks for the compliment!!!! And also glad this is in the right place. |
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licto wrote:
I dont understand this part: Alpine 1242 Type R Sealed in 1.2 Cubic .75 with a little poly. Is your box .75 cubes or is it 1.2 cubes? |
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licto wrote:
The above means that the alpine sub is in a sealed enclosure, total box volume was 1.27 cubes minus driver left me with 1.2 cubes. It is built with .75 inch MDF. I Had just a little bit of poly laying around, so I threw it in the box. Just finished it last night and it sounds better than any sub enclosure I have had up to date. Happy with that part or the system. 40hz test tone at .75 volume on the deck and flat settings just rocks the truck. |
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Gotcha. I do love a sealed enclosure as well... I currently have an Eclipse Ti 10" in a sealed enclosure in my trunk. (The TL is still in there, it's just not connected, currently.) A proper sealed enclosure can be a thing of beauty, can't it?
licto wrote:
Define Crap....... I am a drummer and have been for 20 some years. I play a beautiful yamaha recording custom kit made of birch from 1984. I waited 20 years to get this kit and it just sings. The mids that I get out of my car doors sound nothing close to what a drum should. The drummer for Dave Mathews has the same kit and it sounds just awesome on my home system. Two 12" 250 watt subs on the floor, box speaker on top of that with an 8 and tweet in it. The home system is just effortless in reproducing the whole spectrum, bass, guitar, toms, some bass drum, etc...... all are full bodied and sound as though you are there. |
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I envy you. Seriously. I've never had music within me. I appreciate it, I love to listen to it, I've just never been able to MAKE it. I tried band in school, never happened.
LOVED to hang in the quad in high school, especially on Fridays before a football game, because the drum squad would march through and around... Percussion is likely my single favorite part of nearly any type of music. Female voices trump it, but as far as instruments, drums have it. When I listen to a system, well recorded drums are the first thing I try to pick out.
Midbass is the hardest portion of the spectrum to reproduce faithfully. My absolute of all time favorite midbass in my car was my Morel MW-162, (third order passively crossed over to an Infinity true ribbon tweeter at 3500, bi-wired on a pair of Nakamichi 160 watt monoblock amps... O-M-G... It was fantastic, and it is still what I hold as my car audio reference yardstick. It felt like you were being kicked in the chest.
Voice coil inductance is vitally important here. The Morels are known for their very low inductance, where the Focals are not. The lower the inductance, the "faster" a driver will "sound".
licto wrote:
Mid from the truck is truncated, has no attack, sounds like you have a sponge in the speaker grill. Snare hits have no bottom, just a nasty attack from the tweeters and nothing that follows along to complete the note played. This is the best I can do in explaining sounds like "Crap" The mids are almost non existant...... that it sounds like I have a sub with some tweeters in the truck..... |
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Ow... I've been there, too. It's tough to go from the previously mentioned system to an OEM Honda Civic system... LOL Problem was, I sold most of my old system to improve my down on the new car... Had to start all over!
licto wrote:
I have been coming to the same conclusion you have on this entry line of focals.... they suck, and as a great politician by the name of Ross Perot said once...... Saturday night live version.... If you paint a pig with purple spots, you aint necessarily going to get peanut butter..... Ha!!!!! |
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Never heard that one... I like it! :) The entire line of the Focals have always had that character to me. Flat, flabby midbass, sucked-out midrange, and piercing, excessively sibilant highs. Even separately sold Focal titanium tweeters follow that character to me. I have always been a big fan of ribbon tweeters, with a nice silk or other textile dome following close behind. My home system is a 52" ribbon - two-way, active, 48dB/octave at 125Hz, 1300W on tap... Nice. It is the sound I wanted in my car, when it was time to set up the new one.
licto wrote:
These speakers sounded so much better in the wall at the store...... buyers remorse, two years later..... who would have thought. |
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They always do. No, seriously. You are much more "on-axis", so the mids will sound better. They are generally closer to each other, as well. All these add to the sound quality of the system.
licto wrote:
I have listened to some morels, Focal K2P, etc and they all sound so much more full bodied in the vehicles they were in. |
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Hmmm.... Odd that you would find ANY Focals that sound good to you... I know for certain I never have. The Morels, on the other hand... mmmmm... Best sounding "off-the-shelf" system I've ever heard.
licto wrote:
Question, do you think I should try moving my tweets down into the door with the mids in the front. It will take them a bit more off axis and put them behind the factory grill. This is just as an experiment until I get some silk and good mids. Possible the ones that you recommended. More on that later. |
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It certainly couldn't hurt, especially in respect to the sibilance issue. You may or may not improve your midrange response with this move.
licto wrote:
Question...... with my power gear...... If I went with your mids, some silk tweets of some kind, use the PDX in an active setup..... without doing a ton of RTA, can I get a sound that is just absolutly far superior to what is going on right now without too much trouble?? |
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ALMOST assuredly. (OK, completely off topic... Is Wanda Sykes attractive to anybody else, if you don't have to listen to her speak...?) With careful crossover selection, and selective driver aiming, I can almost promise you an improvement in your front stage response.
licto wrote:
Just as a second guess here...... One of the guys in the forums by the name Speakermaker seems to be a big fan of Focal and has commented that the 165 polyglass and the focal tweeters are some of the best made. Curious about his experiences and how he came to those comments....... just curious as though I must be missing something from my install or done something incorrect. |
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As I mentioned earlier, speakermakers and I don't necessarily see eye-to-eye. Sound appreciation is VERY subjective and in really no small way, "value" related. What do I mean by this...? Well, the price tag on a system can emotionally (an possibly mentally) "affect" the way it sounds. I know people personally that think Bose sounds good.
NObody thinks Bose sounds good... But that 500 dollar alarm clock... Man, doesn't that sound AWESOME?!?! No.
licto wrote:
On to your speakers you have for sale. I am interested. Have not heard about Mpyre before. Can you send me some details on them?? Maybe a personal email to demonracing@gmail.com on what you would like to get out of a pair if you dont like sharing in forums for $$. I guess I am kind of in the 500.00 range for the front stage at this point. Spent 460.00 on all the focals..... |
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AWESOME drivers. As I said, they are based on the Adire Audio 6.8. They are 4 ohm woofers, carbon fiber cones. They are deep. Really deep. From mounting gasket to the end of the magnet is 3.5 inches. Neo magnet structure, I'll try to dig up some specs. Found 'em...
Patented XBL^2 Motor
Fs: 35 Hz
Qms: 2.8
Qes: 0.48
Qts: 0.41
Vas: 23 liters
Re: 3.50 Ohms
Le: .005 mH
BL: 6.13
Mms: 23 grams
Sd: 140 cm^2
Cms: 0.5 mm/N
XMAX: 13mm
XMECH: 15mm
Depth: 3 1/2"
Power Handling: 150WRMS
$125.00 each, shipped. I think I remember paying $100.00 each, plus shipping. (Gotta make a couple bucks!
)
licto wrote:
Oh ya,,,,, if you go active, do you need to put some kind of resistor or limiting/safety device in line to ensure you dont blow tweeters. Another dumb question..... if you turn something down by say -12db...... are you limiting power by doing this. As in, kind of turning them down so lower wattage. |
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I don't see why you couldn't do so... *IF* you decide to do so, don't get the big square, white, compressed-sand style resistors. They are wirewound, and inductive. Get a good quality 10 to 20 watt carbon-pile resistor, of (as close as possible to) equal DC resistance. (If your tweeter's DCR is 3-ohms, then you need a 3-ohm resistor.) They'll be expensive, and possibly difficult to find, but they'll affect the response FAR less than the other type. Yes, to attenuate means to reduce the power going into it therefore reducing the output from the device. For every halving of input power, you reduce the output by 3dB. If you start with your gains all the way down, you shouldn't have any problems. I've never put any resistor inline in my systems, and I've never had any issue.
licto wrote:
Please recommend some tweeters. I have of course been drooling over the Morel Supremo....... It sounds like tweeters designed with some type of chamber behind them are the way to go. They have a lower Fs and this allows you to cross them over at say 2k rather than 3 or 4k. Double the Fs is said to be ok...... as I have read. |
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MMmmmmm... Supremos.... That just warms the cookles of my heart! :) The Morel MDT12 would be a REALLY good choice. $32.00 each at madisound.com 1kHz Fs (for a nice, low 2kHz crossover point), and 80 watts power handling. The MDT22 has a 650Hz Fs, and still 80 watts... Either of those would be a PERFECT choice for your power capacity. Those, with the Mpyres, actively crossed over at 2kHz (or 1.5kHz for the MDT22) and 24dB per octave, with 400 watts from the PDX amp... (Probably a little better than 400W, actually...) GOLDEN, dude! Get rid of those rears altogether...
licto wrote:
Thanks again for your help..... |
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Not a problem at all... I love this stuff! LOL Ask anything, and I'll try to do what I can!
It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."