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?

Adding a driver dedicated to the mid and upper bass frequencies relives the component set mid driver from having to do double duty as mid-bass and mid-range.  That is the entire purpose of a 3-way system.  And in car audio where you can easily dedicate an amplifier to just the mid-bass driver, you can achieve stunning improvements in low-end punch and definition.  Adding a dedicated woofer that is capable of significant output in the 80hz to 320 hz octaves can make a dramatic improvement to your system.  ANY good quality woofer will do this; I recomend something between 6" and 8".  It does not matter what size the woofer in the component set might be as it will now handle the next frequency bands.  In my car for example I use 6.5" Seas mid-woofers in the doors and 7" Scan Speak woofers in kicks for stereo midbass.  The idea is to match the sound quality of the two woofer sets so you don't "hear" the transition from one to the other, and careful crossover settings.  You gain from the added ability of a dedicated woofer and amplifier, not from different speaker sizes.

I plan to replace my Scan Speak 18W's with Extremis speakers as soon as I can fabricate new kicks and afford the drivers.  The Extremis requires a pretty large mounting depth (gotta get all that xmax from somewhere!)  By the way I know of at least one person who is using a single Extremis ported at 30Hz as a subwoofer - they are that good.

As far as the question about what to do with the passive crossivers in the component set, you need to use them as designed.  All adding a mid-bass driver will do is relieve the woofer in the comp set from having to play those frequencies.  It does not affect the remainder of the audio spectrum and your passive crossover is required to protect the tweeter.

DYohn] wrote:

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dding a driver dedicated to the mid and upper bass frequencies relives the component set mid driver from having to do double duty as mid-bass and mid-range.  That is the entire purpose of a 3-way system.  And in car audio where you can easily dedicate an amplifier to just the mid-bass driver, you can achieve stunning improvements in low-end punch and definition.  Adding a dedicated woofer that is capable of significant output in the 80hz to 320 hz octaves can make a dramatic improvement to your system.  ANY good quality woofer will do this; I recomend something between 6" and 8".  It does not matter what size the woofer in the component set might be as it will now handle the next frequency bands. 

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Your theory is sound, pardon the pun, but the problem I'm having is that I just don't see having his existing midbass also doing vocals as taking much away from the midbass performance.  It just doesn't take much juice to do the mids.  And then creating the potential for x-over problems I think makes it more hassle than it's worth.

If it were me, I'd either seal the doors with dynamat since they're likely a sieve right now or build that kickpod for a dedicated sealed enclosure.  Either would do wonders for midbass.  Otherwise I'd use an 7-8" midbass up front to move more air than the 6", likely in a pod as well for a huge, traumatic midbass increase.

question - is it possible that your existing 6" door mount is being cancelled out by the speaker's backwave coming thru door holes?  Have you played with sealing that door up well?  Do you have odd-fitting speaker spacers?

DYohn] wrote:

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My unbiased opinion is that the Adire Extremis will outperform anything from CDT.  Period.

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