Completing a 3-Way Component Set

If you're using kick panels you can pretty much mount any size speaker you want.  I recomend at least a 6" or 7" for midbass.  Any good quality woofer will work.  The best sounding woofer I've heard in many years is the new Adire Extremis, but it is out of your price range.

You happen to be in luck, as Madisound is having a sale on Audax speakers and they have an amazing price for the VP170G woofer (at the bottom of that page.)  At $9 each this is a steal.  A good sounding woofer that will add the midbass you are missing.  I ordered 4.

And like Boulderguy above mentioned, you will need a good crossover, either electronic or passive, so that the new woofer operates in a passband between the sub (about 80Hz) and the component set woofer (about 250Hz to 400Hz) and of course sets a HP for the component set at whatever you choose for the top of the passband.

I've used those Audax woofers before (and paid $40 apiece for them.)  They sound good, IMO.  And at $9 how can you go wrong?  Like I said, I ordered 4 just to have them around.

Yes, you can use the 3-way crossovr on your HU.  A good choice.

In your current setup you have the crossover set properly for your components.  The passive crossover is designed to split the signal to the woofer and tweeter and must be used in addition to the HP on the amp.

Slap him for wasting a breath.  Here's why: 

A couple mid woofers up front will only help you get better bass response.  Even if the midbass isn't the same volume as the components, it will still be an improvement over what you had before.  That by itself really isn't even an issue either, because you could always turn the gains a hair down on one amp or the other to solve that.  The only reason brand selection would matter is if those speakers would be playing the same frequencies.  (For example: Boston Pro 6.5's up front with some MB Quartz coax's in the back.  Obviously this wouldn't sound good with the natural, warm sound of the Bostons up front combining with the tinny harshness of the Quartz's in back.)  This should not concern you because once you set up your crossover points, your woofers will only be playing sounds below your components, so they will merely complement each other.

As far as his claim of "phasing issues", if you observe proper polarity on all your connections you can't go wrong.  End of story.

I agree on smacking the local guy around.  But here's my concern - If I'm grasping this right, you're currently running 75wpc to your 6.5" components for midbass & mids and you're talking about adding a second 6-7" midbass driver up front dedicated to midbass & using the existing components just for mids - highs.  You want to cross everything over so there's no overlap - that right?  

I'm just not seeing much gained thru the whole process.  Meanwhile you're creating a fairly complex x-over setup.  You already have a respectable 6.5 driving your midbass, you're really only talking about seperating the mids from that driver which aren't really that far apart on the food chain anyhow.  I think your midbass response will be very similiar to what you have right now, so will the mids.  That's given that nothing gets screwed up with the x-overs.

I think the real advantage to a 3-way system (not that there's THAT much IMO) is having a smaller mid driver that can be mounted up higher & close to a high-mounted tweeter.  As I'm understanding this, you're still keeping your mids positioned down low(?) b/c it's a large driver.  It sounds like your best mid-bass improvement would come from running the new mid-bass & keeping the existing midbass as overlap (here come new problems).  Or installing an 8" for midbass in a 3-way system.

It'd help to know exactly what we're dealing with here - factory kicks or custom?  What's the cutout size & depth?  How's your midbass as is?  Where's the tweeter mounted?

Hey, also - what's your sub setup as well?