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Lifting the soundstage

Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=75511
Printed Date: May 14, 2025 at 4:55 PM


Topic: Lifting the soundstage

Posted By: boulderguy
Subject: Lifting the soundstage
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 5:46 PM

'06 Subaru Outback - Focal K2P 6.5" in front doors.  Sound is immaculate but the soundstage is low, looking for ideas to lift it up like a push-up bra on grandma...

(sorry for that visual...)

Possibilities include a second set of tweeters in the A-pillars firing in/up to glass, or just moving them above the mid about halfway up the door.  Why not use the stock tweeter location?  Tried that, the offset distance was too much & the sound was bizarre & totally in-your-face.  this threatened to turn my brain to oatmeal, so I moved them down low - much better but not yet ideal.  I think the problem up high was tweeter was only half the distance of the mid to my ears.

I know I should audition them in different locations to find what's best, just trying to find some theory & experience on what works best.  If I move these tweeters around will I have the same lobing problems, or is it more about keeping things equidistant?  What about just angling them from their present position?  What happens when I put them in a different plane?  Speaker gurus?  Kephart?  Others?

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Replies:

Posted By: forbidden
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 5:48 PM
Ok, before I go any further, that visual is just wrong. I have had a real crappy day and now I read something like that. Dude, AAAAHHHHH!!!!! back to reading the rest of it now.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.




Posted By: geepherder
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 6:18 PM

I prefer dash mounted tweets, as far forward as I can put them (not far from the bottom of the windshield).  Even though the location is far from the door speakers, the distance is roughly the same, and the glass seems to cause the highs to disperse so it's not as apparent where they're coming from.



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My ex once told me I have a perfect face for radio.




Posted By: Steven Kephart
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 7:04 PM
Mounting the tweeters under the midranges will raise the soundstage.  Try attaching double sided tape to the tweeters and try different locations.   Select the one that sounds best to you.




Posted By: boulderguy
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 9:27 PM

^^ Under the mids?  ^^^  I don't follow.

I've always liked tweeters on the dash sound too - is the key to seperating the mid & tweet just keeping them equidistant from my ears?  Was that the problem with the stock tweeter spot?

Sory for the obnoxious picture size, that just didn't work out well.





Posted By: Steven Kephart
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 9:53 PM

I mean mounting the tweeters below the midrange locations if possible. 

Seperating the speakers creates what is called lobing.  The tweeter and midrange produce the same frequencies around the crossover frequency, which becomes reduced as you move away from that frequency.  But since you have two speakers producing the same frequencies, you get interference that gets worse the further apart the speakers are.   Generally you don't want to seperate the tweeter from the midrange more than the wavelength of the crossover frequency.  Steeper acoustic slopes will be more leanient to this problem.





Posted By: boulderguy
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 11:02 PM

I see.  So a 18db Xover would be more accomodating of seperating the drivers than a 12db slope.  interesting that lowering the tweeter would raise the staging. 

What about just angling the tweeter more towards my ears - could I expect much difference with that approach and are there any inherent problems with mid & tweeter being in different planes?

As always Steven you're a wealth of info, thanks.





Posted By: Steven Kephart
Date Posted: April 01, 2006 at 11:20 PM

Exactly. 

Angling the tweeter probably won't make too much of a difference.  Speakers aren't like lasers where they beam the sound forward.  But they are more like lightbulbs.  Only at the upper frequencies do they start to beam too bad and benifit from aiming. 






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