I am building a 3-way PA system in my car.
I am using 10" mid-woofers with a sensitivity of 94-98dB and 200w.
The tweeter will either be a 95dB/m soft dome crossed around 3-5kHz or a small horn crossed at 1,5-2kHz.
The midrange should be my biggest concern as it plays the widest bandwidth.
I need it to play from 200-500Hz to at least 2kHz but maybe 5Khz.
The driver should have good sound quality, be as small as possible and have a high sensitivity. I have 2x150W@4ohms for them, or maybe 2x80W@8 Ohm.
The best I have found is the Faital Pro 6fe200, which are about 40€ a piece here.
https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/media/catalog/product/datasheet/faital/6FE200-4.pdf
I wouldn't like paying much more than 100€ a pair for them.
Do you think these would keep up with the rest of the system or do you have other recommendations for me?
I am using 10" mid-woofers with a sensitivity of 94-98dB and 200w.
The tweeter will either be a 95dB/m soft dome crossed around 3-5kHz or a small horn crossed at 1,5-2kHz.
The midrange should be my biggest concern as it plays the widest bandwidth.
I need it to play from 200-500Hz to at least 2kHz but maybe 5Khz.
The driver should have good sound quality, be as small as possible and have a high sensitivity. I have 2x150W@4ohms for them, or maybe 2x80W@8 Ohm.
The best I have found is the Faital Pro 6fe200, which are about 40€ a piece here.
https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/media/catalog/product/datasheet/faital/6FE200-4.pdf
I wouldn't like paying much more than 100€ a pair for them.
Do you think these would keep up with the rest of the system or do you have other recommendations for me?
PA system in my car...Um, what?
I may be slow or something...but I'm envisioning a car so big you need a PA so the people in back can hear you? Or Hollywood tours of the "Homes of the Celebrities" or something?
Seriously, what are you trying to accomplish here? Hard to help without pertinent info.
Mike
I may be slow or something...but I'm envisioning a car so big you need a PA so the people in back can hear you? Or Hollywood tours of the "Homes of the Celebrities" or something?
Seriously, what are you trying to accomplish here? Hard to help without pertinent info.
Mike
Okay it sound pretty funny when you put it like that.
I have a 15" subwoofer in a ported box with 3000 watts in my trunk.
I had a component set up front with 300 watts per door, and it could not keep up with the bass.
Now I wanted to have very good sound quality, thus active 3-way.
I have an 8-channel DSP with about 30 bands of EQ and time alignment and all sorts of crossover settings for each channel. That is how I will tune it all to be flat and sound nice.
Now I was going to go the traditional way with an 8" miwoofer, a 3" midrange and a 1" dome tweeter. But then I found out the sensitivity of the best 3" midranges was around 88dB/m. I could never push enough power to them to get on the same level with the subwoofer.
I was looking for an 8" "SQ" midbass, when I found 10" midwoofers that were a lot louder and a little cheaper.
I researched and found out that PA-speakers can have very good sound quality because they don't need that much power, they have less moving mass and stronger magnets.
And why would the professionals use them if they didn't sound good?
So I bought a pair of 10s and they do sound clear and loud.
I thought that I want to try making the whole system be loud as hell and not have to play it on full tilt all the time.
Plus with having a lot of headroom, I have more freedom to EQ them the way I want to.
The tweeters will go on the sail panels. The 6" midrange under them. And the 10s are already in the doors:
I have a 15" subwoofer in a ported box with 3000 watts in my trunk.
I had a component set up front with 300 watts per door, and it could not keep up with the bass.
Now I wanted to have very good sound quality, thus active 3-way.
I have an 8-channel DSP with about 30 bands of EQ and time alignment and all sorts of crossover settings for each channel. That is how I will tune it all to be flat and sound nice.
Now I was going to go the traditional way with an 8" miwoofer, a 3" midrange and a 1" dome tweeter. But then I found out the sensitivity of the best 3" midranges was around 88dB/m. I could never push enough power to them to get on the same level with the subwoofer.
I was looking for an 8" "SQ" midbass, when I found 10" midwoofers that were a lot louder and a little cheaper.
I researched and found out that PA-speakers can have very good sound quality because they don't need that much power, they have less moving mass and stronger magnets.
And why would the professionals use them if they didn't sound good?
So I bought a pair of 10s and they do sound clear and loud.
I thought that I want to try making the whole system be loud as hell and not have to play it on full tilt all the time.
Plus with having a lot of headroom, I have more freedom to EQ them the way I want to.
The tweeters will go on the sail panels. The 6" midrange under them. And the 10s are already in the doors:
At its US price, I think this 6.5" would be quite good
LaVoce MAF061.50 6-1/2" Professional Midrange Driver 8 Ohm
That Lavoce appears only to be available as an 8 ohm version.
LaVoce MAF061.50 6-1/2" Professional Midrange Driver 8 Ohm
That Lavoce appears only to be available as an 8 ohm version.
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Well thank you for thinking about my well being.
But I have tried the 10s at full tilt already and it still sounded rather pleasant.
I like to listen loud, I've learned to. My dad is old school and has a HK 990 and CV XLS215s in his setup for example.
But the whole point as I said was to gain headroom and dynamics.
The 6nd410 does look nice, barely plays as low as I want, but they would be 220€ a pair here. That is a bit out of my budget.
Those Lavoces I found for 108€ a pair. They are still in the price range.
They do play louder according to the graph, but the impedance might cancel that out.
Btw, some say they like neo midranges. I know that neo magnets are stronger, so the speakers should be "faster", but can you really hear a difference?
And for tweeters, what do you guys think?
I know it goes in a car, but if I would build like active tower speakers(which I might do if/when I get bored of car audio), would you recommend compression drivers crossed low or dome tweeters crossed high?
The best budget cd:s with small horns are the PRV D280ti:
2x PRV Audio D280Ti-S 1" Titanium PRO Driver 320 Watts 8Ω + WG11-25 Black Horn 799928733854 | eBay
These are a clone of the well known JBL d220ti:s and the horns that come with them look to sound pretty good:
PRV Audio D280Ti Compression Driver Horns Compatibility – AmpsLab
(Look at the second graph, blue line)
I wouldn't need to use almost any power for these. The distortion should be very low. And they should play down to 1,5kHz. For about 100€ a pair.
As dome tweeters I have found these:
SB Acoustics SB29RDCN-C000-4 Neo Magnet, Ring Dome Tweeter
These are very flat and reach the 95 dB/m line very well.
In normal applications they could play down to 1,4kHz, but with 150W each I probably shouldn't go lower than 3kHz, maybe 4-5kHz.
These are a lot easier for me to get my hands on than the PRV:s, as these are sold locally here for only 80€ a pair.
I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears - pun totally intended - But...
I personally know several people in their early 50's to early 60's who all need hearing aids because they didn't think, or know that what they were doing would harm their hearing...loud sounds WILL irreversibly damage your ears.
Be careful.
Mike
I personally know several people in their early 50's to early 60's who all need hearing aids because they didn't think, or know that what they were doing would harm their hearing...loud sounds WILL irreversibly damage your ears.
Be careful.
Mike
I do have a Soundqubed HDX315 subwoofer. It's a clone of a DD audio 15" subwoofer.
It is powered by a Focus FX3000D @ 1ohm.
It's in a 104 liter ported enclosure designed by me, tuned to 29Hz.
It's designed to be as large as possible to fit and to play as low and loud as possible, without exceeding 30 m/s port air velocity.
It is in the trunk firing back, I might make a trunk wall later for better SQ.
It plays down to 24Hz flat and plays even lower.
It is powered by a Focus FX3000D @ 1ohm.
It's in a 104 liter ported enclosure designed by me, tuned to 29Hz.
It's designed to be as large as possible to fit and to play as low and loud as possible, without exceeding 30 m/s port air velocity.
It is in the trunk firing back, I might make a trunk wall later for better SQ.
It plays down to 24Hz flat and plays even lower.
Btw, how would I know when to stop with the volume?
I mean the bass should go up to 140dB or maybe more, but I've never heard of people breaking their ears from bass, it's too slow.
But the music could for sure go over 120dB, which is dangerous I know, but if it doesn't hurt my ears, how bad can it be?
I've sat in pure SPL cars with 2x12", 2x8" and a horn in each front door, with kilowatts per dor, 4x18" subs with 8kW rms each. When you sit too close to something like this I couldn't hear the music anymore, it was just noise.
But if the music stays clear and my ears don't hurt, how would I know when I'm hurting my ears?
1kHz is the most sensitive frequency to the ear, so a loud midrange should be the first thing to fuk up my hearing?
But then again, when going louder, all the frequencies come closer together in intensity.
What I see available here in Italy is the model MAN061.80
So the F stands for ferrite and the N for neodymium...
It costs 75 € and you pay for it being lighter and the magnet occupies less space, so it should be welcomed in a car environment.
Other than that, I wouldn't be concerned about 8 Ω Vs 4 Ω since you are running all the system actively. The amplifier produces less heat, so less stress
In a (hostile) environment like the car, turning up the volume raises the level of the reflected sound so it sums up alltogether creating cacophony
Okay, less space taken up is a positive, but neo driver is more expensive. I found it for 64€/piece.
And when I compare them, the ferrite version is flatter and plays lower at the same SPL.
As for impedance, I run a class AB car amp for the mids and tweeters, it does heat up, but it is rated to run @2Ohms per channel, so the lower the better in this case.
Because with 8Ohms I would only get half the amperes and half the watts, 3dB less headroom.
And when I compare them, the ferrite version is flatter and plays lower at the same SPL.
As for impedance, I run a class AB car amp for the mids and tweeters, it does heat up, but it is rated to run @2Ohms per channel, so the lower the better in this case.
Because with 8Ohms I would only get half the amperes and half the watts, 3dB less headroom.
In a (hostile) environment like the car, turning up the volume raises the level of the reflected sound so it sums up alltogether creating cacophony
Well the hostile environment is what we count on to create more sound and especially low end. Cabin gain reinforces the bass. This is very good for achieving the harman house curve, to not have to boost the low end.
As you said it is a lot worse for higher frequencies. This I will try to mitigate with good aiming and maybe some felt or other fabric on the surfaces to absorb the sound.
It is unavoidable and the most I can do after installation is EQ.
If the power device could only talk, I wouldn't be so sure
The trick is to use the gain of the amp; if it plays 3 dB quieter, just raise the volume to have the same dB, no?
Felt, real felt, is the only material in the world. You'd like to work on the geometry of the cut, thinking of triangular 1" stripes. Then making patterns by alternating to flat stripes and anything that fantasy suggests. The hardest part is the cutting (laser nowadays? )
Well most home amps are rated to play 8 Ohm speakers.
Lower impedance is harder for the amp to drive because it has to convert such high voltages as 220V to amperes insted.
Car amps run on 12V and my subwoofer amp e.g. has a 300A fuse.
Because the amp gets the power in amperes it is easier to run lower impedance speakers.
At least this is how I have understood it?
My sub amp is non-officially rated for 0,5 Ohms, and people have ran it on 0,25 Ohms.
Class AB amps usually don't do low impedance speakers just because of heat problems, class D can do anything.
I have metered the distortion on my amps wit an oscilloscope.
It gave about 25 Volts before clipping.
That is 157 Watts on 4 Ohms and 78 Watts on 8 Ohms.
Now the amp is rated 150W/ch @4 Ohms and 190W/ch @2 Ohms, so clearly the line goes there.
The gain knobs are set and forget for me, I have played around a bit and I know how fast it can fuk up.
3dB is twice as much power, so it would clip pretty hard if I just turned the knob up.
Correct me if I'm wrong about anything.
Lower impedance is harder for the amp to drive because it has to convert such high voltages as 220V to amperes insted.
Car amps run on 12V and my subwoofer amp e.g. has a 300A fuse.
Because the amp gets the power in amperes it is easier to run lower impedance speakers.
At least this is how I have understood it?
My sub amp is non-officially rated for 0,5 Ohms, and people have ran it on 0,25 Ohms.
Class AB amps usually don't do low impedance speakers just because of heat problems, class D can do anything.
I have metered the distortion on my amps wit an oscilloscope.
It gave about 25 Volts before clipping.
That is 157 Watts on 4 Ohms and 78 Watts on 8 Ohms.
Now the amp is rated 150W/ch @4 Ohms and 190W/ch @2 Ohms, so clearly the line goes there.
The gain knobs are set and forget for me, I have played around a bit and I know how fast it can fuk up.
3dB is twice as much power, so it would clip pretty hard if I just turned the knob up.
Correct me if I'm wrong about anything.
I could possibly just make pieces that cover mu dash and the upper lip of the door cards.
How would geometry help me dampen?
Or are you suggesting I make "felt" diffusers?