Hi. I had, what I think is a great idea, but wanted further opinions.
Most car speakers are of very low quality, have lots of distortion, and many issues that make them horrible for decent sound quality (in my opinion). I just finished building a sealed 15" subwoofer with the Dayton quatro, and am very pleased with the smooth response. It is exactly as I wanted it, i.e. not boomy, not one-note, and generally sounds good. But now that I have improved the low frequency in-car reproduction of music, I have been thinking of improving the rest of the spectrum.
I was thinking, instead of just replacing the stock "POS" 6x9's with some aftermarket, less of a "POS" speakers, why don't I put something together. I was thinking of sealed two way boxes. These would handle everything from 85hz and up, so will not have to reproduce much bass and I won't worry about excursion. I want them to be very small boxes, and to go along my rear windshield at 45 degree angle with the carpet above and behind the back seats, i.e. more like 45 from the carpet, and 90 degrees to the windshield. Since they would be handling only 85 and up I was thinking I would only need a 4" woofer, or am I mistaken?
Basically, Is this a good or bad idea, and If it is a good one, how would I go about choosing drivers and xover points? I have never designed a loudspeaker for anything about bass frequencies. Thank you for your patience.
Most car speakers are of very low quality, have lots of distortion, and many issues that make them horrible for decent sound quality (in my opinion). I just finished building a sealed 15" subwoofer with the Dayton quatro, and am very pleased with the smooth response. It is exactly as I wanted it, i.e. not boomy, not one-note, and generally sounds good. But now that I have improved the low frequency in-car reproduction of music, I have been thinking of improving the rest of the spectrum.
I was thinking, instead of just replacing the stock "POS" 6x9's with some aftermarket, less of a "POS" speakers, why don't I put something together. I was thinking of sealed two way boxes. These would handle everything from 85hz and up, so will not have to reproduce much bass and I won't worry about excursion. I want them to be very small boxes, and to go along my rear windshield at 45 degree angle with the carpet above and behind the back seats, i.e. more like 45 from the carpet, and 90 degrees to the windshield. Since they would be handling only 85 and up I was thinking I would only need a 4" woofer, or am I mistaken?
Basically, Is this a good or bad idea, and If it is a good one, how would I go about choosing drivers and xover points? I have never designed a loudspeaker for anything about bass frequencies. Thank you for your patience.
I used to run a B&W 8" kevlar speaker as a sub. It was better sounding than all of the car subs I have heard so far. On many forums SQ competitors go for custom built component systems from home audio speakers. There are many problems in a car, but the sound will be superior than the car speakers. Another problem is that if you go this way, the price will be quite expensive. I am looking for a future project and wanted to build a component system that is made of good quality speakers and optimized for the BMW 5 and 3-series specific acoustics. Most speaker kits sold to car owners are in the range of 60-100 euros, for that amount the only thing that could be built is with some MCM metal cone drivers and a Seas aluminum dome tweeter. Cones have strong breakup resonanse and will need a notch and a steep crossover, thus the crossovers becoming expensive, close to the price of a Focal Polyglass which doesn`t sound bad at all.
If you are not afraid to pay more, I think the SB acoustics line would be interesting to you. If cost`s not an issue - Scanspeaks
If you are not afraid to pay more, I think the SB acoustics line would be interesting to you. If cost`s not an issue - Scanspeaks
You are right, but you see, this would be a start. I will start with the rear of the car, as it will be easier, as an experiment. Then I could move on to the much more complicated front of the car, to figure how the hell to assemble some speakers there. I am not afraid to pay more for better sound. Hell the average coaxial car "speakers" have no xover on the woofer, and a cap on the tweeter.
If i were ever going to replace the stocks with similar aftermarkets, I would at least go for these: https://www.madisound.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=634
To mario: Yes I know what you mean. The subwoofer I am using sounds much better quality wise than any of the average car subs I have heard, with a much smoother response, which is important to me. Most car speakers are built just to withstand insane amounts of power and be very loud at a frequency or two, so that you can get behind people on the road and rattle their windows instead of just yours.
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You might want to try DIYMA.com and start doing some research there to get ideas. It's not a perfect forum by any means, but it is the most knowledgeable website on the subject of sound quality in a vehicle that is available on the net.
The community was largely based around using home audio drivers from vendors such as partsexpress, madisound, etc to get more for their money. Car audio is a completely different world and requires quite a bit more work to get great sound compared to home audio. Be prepared to spend a lot of time if you want to achieve sonic bliss.
The community was largely based around using home audio drivers from vendors such as partsexpress, madisound, etc to get more for their money. Car audio is a completely different world and requires quite a bit more work to get great sound compared to home audio. Be prepared to spend a lot of time if you want to achieve sonic bliss.
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