adding a litte SQ sound to my BL madness

[jonbearsmt 919]

alright calm down.. i know the SQ guys are all worked up with sand in thair clams right about now....

i want better sound in my car.. i have some highs and mids but not enough.. i wanna get a cleaner sound.

i have 2 bl 15's on a saz 3000d. and then i have 2 sets of 5x7 alpine typr R comps in the doors and in the rear deck.

it sounds good at mid to low volume, but when i turn it up to higher volumes the tweeters are steal sounding and the word are ran over a bit by the subs.. its not THAT bad.. if you watch some of my vids you can see that some songs are better then others ...... some sound good.. and then other songs are just blah...

i know 5x7s are junk.. and i know that alpine type R comps are not the best....

tell me what ya think i should run.... im not sure on depth in the front.

and i listen to rap...... but i want to be able to throw in what ever i want and have it sound decent.

[johnecon2001 82]

Are you amped right now or are they ran off of the Head Unit?

[MKader17 332]

Keeping up with 15's are far as true SQ is concerned is, of course, impossible, but you could definitely lose some of the muddy sound and get much much better sound out of a lot of things.

I run DLS R6A's and they have been a great set of speakers for me. It worked great for what I normally listened to and for heavy rap with my ported L7.

You will definitely need to amp what ever speakers you choice. The speakers you choice will depend heavily on what you listen to (rap), how far you are willing to go (simple passive 6.5"s, to 2 way active), and most importantly, how much you are willing to spend.

[jonbearsmt 919]

i currenty have a jl 300/4... soon i plan to get a 400/4 sundown.

umm i donno ill spend say..... 500 for inside speakers.

[subwoofery 0]

For $500, I'd recommend either HSK165 (Hertz Car Audio), believe some had it for $300 authorized.

Power handling is more than 125rms and good efficiency of: 92 1w/1m.

or

Focal K2P 165, impressive midbass, sweet midrange, clear tweeter (maybe too bright lol) overal, a good rounder.

or

Mbquart PVF 216, haven't heard those but they have received a really good review in a german magazine, been ranked with Utopia be's, Rainbow platinium, Brax Matrix and the likes (REFERENZKLASSE)

Those are what I'd recommend for rap. Then again, you can go DIY but I'm not really familiar with those.

[ragnaroksq 0]

you should check into zapco i force speakers. they offer 5.25 and 6.5 component sets. all of the above look to be great speakers, but no matter what speaker you get, make sure that you set your crossover points correctly. not setting them up properly will cause stress on your speakers and ears

[B_Campbell 0]

ditch the rear fill, do a nice set of 8's in the doors and some big boy tweeters or horns. Woot Woot!

[JimJ 11]

Keeping up with 15's are far as true SQ is concerned is, of course, impossible,

It's not the cone area so much as the "keeping up" part You can have 8 15's and have it perfectly musical (assuming a flat FR), in fact there's benefits to that arrangement, but as soon as soon as the woofers come before the rest of the system you've lost the chance to have "SQ".

As far as the original poster's question, I'd second the horn recommendation. Some good 8's or 7's and a pair of HLCD's (real HLCD's, Image Dynamics or USD's instead of these Florida-style PA messes) would provide more volume than is tolerable, and might even have a chance at a decent soundstage if set up properly because you wouldn't have the same frequencies coming from different places at once

[the727kid 1]

Yea I'd say horns and 7s.... I run CD1pros with a pair of 7s in each door with my 15" BLs

[shizzzon 461]

i have a question about this-

IF you were to run let's say CD1pros, or CD2s and give them their recommended power, would the tweeters in the doors be audibly non-existent?

You know? If i were to replace my 2way components with some 150w components, let's say Image Dynamics and replace by rear speakers with 6.5" mid basses and the bass was still drowning out the music, would installing horns drown out the front tweeters?

I have never used horns before and wonder how loud they get. I notice their outrageous efficiency but still, is it literally deafening? Enough to fit in a vehicle equipped with 4Kw of bass?

[///M5 2,833]

With 4kw your only hope is horns. You really don't need another tweeter along with them, in fact it will hurt more than help. Just do the horns in your case. The hard part for you to have keep up then is going to be the midbass, not a trivial task.

[Dave Brooks 0]

alright calm down.. i know the SQ guys are all worked up with sand in thair clams right about now....

Now that's friggin' funny as hell! <says Brooksie as he builds an elaborate sand castle from his clam...>

I'm with M5 on this one, lay in some horns for the midrange and get loud with 'em. And also like M5, I'd also be concerned with your midbass. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head would be to go big on the midbass driver. Maybe use a couple of true woofers (not subs) in the 10 to 12 inch range that can take a serious beating to keep up with the subs and horns. I've used a pair of 10 inch Morel MW1077 woofers with a couple hundred watts on them (@ 8ohms)... they wanted to rip the doors off the hinges. So I'm thinking you could go with a pair of those in eash door? Or something along those lines...

I'm going with ten Hybrid Audio L8's in the doors for this season, I haven't got them running yet, but I'll be sure and let you know... LOL

[shizzzon 461]

Ok, that sounds interesting.

Now, i've never used horns before so does it actually sound like the information coming from the horns is really under me rather than around me since the horns are under the dash?

Because that would sound weird.

Oh, and i would only be able to use large woofers like that in the rear quarter panels.

So, you think it should be-

subs in the rear, large midbass drivers in the rear quarter panels and nothing but horns up front?

Just thought of somethin.

Instead of fabricating custom brackets for larger woofers, if i ran all 6.5 midbass in all 4 locations, that's 800wrms of potential right there because a lot of 6.5 midbass drivers i look at should be able to take 200w per driver.

That should definitely be enough.

And then the horns are so efficient they would carry out the rest of the frequency range on their own.

Edited March 3, 2008 by shizzzon

[Dave Brooks 0]

Shizzzon, if you get the horns setup correctly (read - experiment with aiming), they will sound like they are up high and centered.

In my SQ sandcastle, there wouldn't be any speakers behind the B-pillars. Soooo... If you only had room for whopper woofers in the rear, then the best bet would be to go as big as possible in the door instead. That's purely from an SQ perspective though. If you just wanted to get loud and have killer impact? I'd go big anywhere on the monster midbass drivers, keep'em crossed around 45-150 Hz feed them all the wattage they can handle and watch the panties melt... except I'm an old guy... so the panties would be granny panties... but the principle is the same... LOL

edit - Shizzzon, just saw your edit... Yep, you're on the right track. Super fast attack on the 6.5's and the more the merrier for midbass spl purposes.

Me? I just like big speakers.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Dave Brooks

[shizzzon 461]

well get ready to laugh then.

Of course you guys may already know i'm not doin this for SQ, i'm interested in doing this to prevent from losing the detail of music while the bass is going. Unlike other people who cut corners, i like to retain the ratio of highs to lows as the output power increases to a certain extent(thats the key) rather than 90% bass and 10% mids n highs.

This is what i was going to do, this is why i said go ahead and laugh,

I'm assuming this would work in terms of getting the mids and highs loud enough to hear what i'm listening too-

4Kw of bass. X-overed at 60hz.

all 4 midbasses - bandpassed starting from 55-65hz and going up to the point at which the CD1pros can take over which is up in the 700s.

I see that you dont run your mids higher than 150 or at least thats what u want me to do so where oh where would my lost frequencies be played from, 150-700?

[Dave Brooks 0]

No laughter here Shizzzon. You got it set up just right. That sucker is gonna be loud and clear something fierce. Matter of fact, I like your crossover settings! It just won't be "SQ" in the purest sense. Rather, it'll kick butt and sound good doing it

I just got you sidetracked with my sandcastle. LOL

edit - when I say SQ in the purest sense, I'm talking about staging and imaging along with the tonality and blend you are looking for. Near as I can tell, you are looking for what I call a good blend of music that can keep up with the subs in terms of their loudness. Am I close? Because, holy crap, SQ is a science just like SPL and that gets deep!

Edited March 3, 2008 by Dave Brooks

[shizzzon 461]

yes, you are right, that's what i'm after. Man, good thing you were here when i was thinkin about this, i would of had a heck of a time sleepin tonight. I'm not kiddin. When i start thinkin, it's like the end of the world... hehe. Gotta find those answers and gotta do that research, hehe.

Thanks again, man.

And about SQ, yes, you are right, it is VERY in depth. But what people got to realize (not you, just in general) is it also depends on the music you listen to. If the music i listened to did not have heavy bass lines in every song then i wouldnt be venturing into the heavy bass that i do. However, if i only listened to that music also, i wouldnt venture into total SQ either knowing that i can get louder the way i am now.

I believe the variety of music one listens to determines the project, SQ or SPL-ish. I wont say SPL because SPL simply, to me, means competition one note wonders and that obviously isn't musical.

Well, this has helped me out a lot and hopefully the Original Poster as well.

[Dave Brooks 0]

Sweet! There you have it; SQ and SPL: Two pure forms of competitive sound that nobody in their right minds would want to do on a daily basis.

The happy medium? LSQ! It ain't SPL and it ain't SQ, it's just impressive and attainable for everyone.

Hows that sound for a definition? LOL I'm so stupid.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Dave Brooks

[Dave Brooks 0]

WEll I tried to edit LSQ to be LSQ but it wouldn't take...

I'm sure its the beers...

wait a minute... LSQ

You mean to tell me they've got a filter on S.Q.L that makes it LSQ?

Cool!

Edited March 3, 2008 by Dave Brooks

[brent338 0]

BigJon,

I went to every stereo store in town... a few times... to compare brands.

top choices, were Focal, and MB Quart.

I liked the sound of the MB's and went with them....and after almost a year, still love them!

I'm running two sets of MB Quart QSD 216; 6.5" comp. set. off an orion 8004 amp.

I have not heard anything that can closely compare in SQ and loudness, but I dont have much competition in my town. Most people who sit in it, cant handle 1/2 power for to long

and they still sound great crank to full tilt.

the X-overs are great, and tweets have 5 or 6 different cut off points to custom tune to your liking.

they might be a little more than your budget, but only by $100 or so, if you look around enough.

Ive seen 299 a set.