advice on micro speakers and enclosures

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Hello,
I recently installed Polk db6500 front and db690 rear speakers. with a Kicker 354xi amp and a kenwood sw1 powered sub.

The front speakers sound ok. The rear speakers sound REALLY bad, I installed them in the factory positon in the rear shelf. The speakers are very close to the rear window which slants over them. I suspect it is the position of them that make them sound bad.

I would like to build some very small enclosed speakers that I will mount next to the rear head rests pointing forward. I'm thinking something the size of a Bose acustimass sattelite...

Any recommendations on a driver and enclosure design would be greatly appreciated!! I will probably replace the db6900's with some kind of woofers so not much bass is needed on the sattelites.
Thank you!
 
alphakenny1 said:
drop the rear speakers, they are not needed to have music sound good.

Amen to that. Rear speakers destroy the sound. Get rid of them. You're not listening to quadrophonic sound. Even worse, that sub sitting in the trunk will, with each bass note, push and pull those tiny little midranges all over the place. Say goodbye to sound quality from the rear.

My recommendation: leave the holes open, let the bass through from the trunk. Put the biggest mid/woofer you can fit in the front doors/kickpanels, and be free with all manner of sound damping in the door. Active crossover for the HP filter on the fronts, active LP filter for the sub, and you will be golden.

Personally, I am no fan of Bose or its methods, so I can't encourage you on the headrest idea. From my exerience, a good set of separates up front is all that is needed. A head unit with programmable delay helps with stereo imaging, though you're only going to get so much with a car environment anyway.

Good Luck
 
Thanks for the advice. I'm new to car audio, I've been fooled by the car companies bragging about 12 speakers in their cars etc.

I don't care about the sound in the passeneger seats anyway since I mostly drive alone.

Maybe I should return the front and rear speakers and get some better front component speakers instead?

Thanks.
 
yea its all an marketing scheme. i remember on the lexus sc430 or something they marketed the car having 19 speakers. i was lol.

zigzagflux has it correct. just get a good pair of components (probably a mid and tweet) and get an hu with good processing capability (i can help you in both areas if you want) and then that should be a good start. again deadening your doors with a quality deadener, i suggest raammat. deadening will do wonders as it will not only reduce how much the door resonates but it also helps some what with road noise. but actually i like to use some closed cell foam to block out road noise.
 
geom_tol said:
alphakenny1:
What is a good HU with built in crossover and mp3 capability that is readily available?
Thanks!

well there are plenty of good hu's that have mp3 capability and have great processing to boot. if you ever think about going active (meaning not using passive crossovers and using an external crossover to do everything) then again there are plenty of good HU's out there. these are the ones to my knowledge that have a 3 way crossover built into the HU:

alpine 7998,9813,9815,9833,9835,9853,9855
eclipse 8053, 8443,8455,cd7000, cd7100
pioneer 860mp, 880prs
clarion drz9255

I think that'll cover HUs that have a basic 3 way crossover built in
but what is your plan on your setup?
 
Thanks for the list of HU's!

Right now I'm planning to use the HU as crossover for a front component speaker set. I'll try it like that first. Then later I can add an active crossover if I'm unhappy with the passive.

Do you think the crossover in the HU's is better than the external passive crossovers that come with most component speakers?
I'm assuming it is, since it's probably done digitally in the HU.

Thanks!
 
The head unit crossover is line level and active, so it's a lot better than passive, in theory and all things being equal. However, you do need an amp channel for each drive unit that way. Also, depending on the quality of the component set, the passive crossover may have been optimised beyond what you can achieve with a rudimentary active crossover.
 
geom_tol said:
Thanks for the list of HU's!

Right now I'm planning to use the HU as crossover for a front component speaker set. I'll try it like that first. Then later I can add an active crossover if I'm unhappy with the passive.

Do you think the crossover in the HU's is better than the external passive crossovers that come with most component speakers?
I'm assuming it is, since it's probably done digitally in the HU.

Thanks!

aah i forgot you wanted an hu with mp3 capability as well, i just listed all the available HUs that have a 3 way crossover. the alpine 7998, eclipse 8053,8443 and clarion drz9255 do not support mp3.

like i said before the HUs i listed have a built in 3 way crossover meaning you have the ability to lowpass your sub, bandpass your mid (both highpass on the lowend and lowpass on the highend) and highpass your tweeters. there is no need to buy another external crossover with your setup.

the huge advantage about going active is tuning to the environment of your car. you can read this very basic write up i wrote, http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146726. it just goes through the basics of active vs passive.
 
geom_tol said:
Do you think the crossover in the HU's is better than the external passive crossovers that come with most component speakers?
I'm assuming it is, since it's probably done digitally in the HU.


This can be a mixed bag. There are a few issues to consider:

1) Regardless if you use the passive crossovers or not, you will still want to set up the HU to provide a HP output for the front components. There is no reason to give them low bass; those little 5 or 6 inch woofers can't play it anyway. The passive crossovers provided with the component set do NOT provide this HP filter (if they do, it would be an electrolytic, which you would want to bypass with a jumper anyway). So, you must use the 80Hz or so HP output from the head unit.

2) As a general rule, the passive crossovers are designed for the speakers involved, and do a pretty good job. No doubt some manufacturers place more emphasis on the crossovers (a/d/s did a pretty good job), but as a rule you will get good performance. They hopefully have done the frequency response tests, etc to choose the right frequency and slope for the driver. And each slope may not be the same, which you might not be aware of when setting your active xover. There may also be some impedance compensation networks (in the better crossovers) that help your amp. It can be very difficult to get a similar result with using all active, especially when using amplifiers with pot-adjustable crossovers. If the head unit gives the actual crossover frequency, tho, you are doing pretty well. Not too much chance of error there.

3) Should any type of error occur with your crossover settings in the HU, you would run the risk of smoking your tweeters. It only takes a slip of the finger to give them a full range signal.

My preference, when you have all these options available to you, is to set your active crossovers to match the passive, with an additional spread of one or two octaves. This will eliminate phase shift errors from the active crossover, letting the passive do the work. It gives the additional benefit of releasing the amplifier of playing any music outside the range of the speaker. Helps the amp run cooler and with lower distortion. Why pump a bunch of music into a passive, only to have it be shunted around the speakers, or see a high impedance? Don't bother passing it into the amp. Just my $0.02.
 
geom_tol said:
What happens with the HU crossover settings if if the battery is disconnected?
Do they default to some safe range?


Good question; couldn't answer without experimenting; I don't use a HU with xovers built in.

The only 'safe' range, however, would be your as programmed values. Anything else is likely destructive. I would think (hope) the manufacturer would put this program in nonvolatile memory.
 
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