placement of speakers

[ncc74656 2]

I am working through my front stage as time allows and have some questions. i was told "told" that a mid range speaker should not be placed more than the radial distance of its counter part's (high range) cone diameter apart. if it is then the phase should be reversed.

is this not a situation that one would use time alignment and perhaps a bit of phase adjustment (not just flip it 180) to compensate for any audio impurities with a tweeter and mid range placed a good deal apart?

secondly:

I just got my new Hertz 25 tweeters today, they sound very nice outside of the truck. tomorrow i intend to hook them up and this will leave only mid bass to contend with. at present the tweets will be in the factory A pillar location with a slight mod to direct them more at the driver. the mid range are fountek 3" neos that are in sealed fiber glass pods just below the window opening of the doors, they are angled to face the driver respectively. the mid bass are still the 10" crescendos as i have not selected - nor do i know exactly what i need to select as of yet for a replacement. what amp would you all recommend for a 110W ish output at 8ohm? i was looking at kenwoods 4 channel bridged, anyone ever use the exalon series? my thought was given that its doing bass the lower spec and higher thd might not matter to much? save a few bucks?

[///M5 2,833]

Yikes, no. Sure they should be close together, but when not you can't just assume you flip the phase. Hell I don't think I've ever owned a vehicle where all the drivers were wired in phase....never that lucky.

You seriously should NOT use the Fountek and that Tweeter. You aren't ready for an active 2 way more or less a 3 way. Seriously STOP. Everyone that is helping you elsewhere is going to net you a really expensive 3 way that won't sound as good as a set of $100 IA components run passive. And YES it can easily be that bad.

[ncc74656 2]

i didnt think it was as simple as reversing phase, that just didnt make sense to me...

right now the founteks are nearly running solo as the crachendos are crossed over for very limited mid bass, they still sound muddy but im getting quite a bit of off phase sounds that are coming from behind the speaker. im throwing some sound absorption behind them tomorrow to see how that changes things. im still leaning towards replacing them as they are just to large... also its a nightmare trying to do ANY install improvements on those things...

the founteks sound great as they are but they beam the higher frequencies (makes sense) and i have not tried them in pair with the hertz. one of my old tweets were blown and the other is on its last leg. i picked the hertz up after a great deal of research on line and looking at phase/frequency graphs other had published on them. they appeared to be a good driver from what i had read.

could you give a short synopsis as to the reasoning behind the mismatch of tweet/mid please?

[///M5 2,833]

right now the founteks are nearly running solo as the crachendos are crossed over for very limited mid bass, they still sound muddy but im getting quite a bit of off phase sounds that are coming from behind the speaker.

Umm, that isn't what you are hearing. Wrong conclusion. Perhaps describing what you hear would make more sense. And yes, if someone at work helped gues what? That's right, they are idiots ignore them.

could you give a short synopsis as to the reasoning behind the mismatch of tweet/mid please?

Again, stop using terminology you don't understand. How exactly are you hearing this beaming? Or what is it that you are hearing that makes you think that?

could you give a short synopsis as to the reasoning behind the mismatch of tweet/mid please?

Because you can't handle a 2 way. 3 way is going to be a complete fuck show.

As for drivers specifically? The 25 is a piece of crap, sounds like ass, and it is absurd to mate a 107db tweet with a very inefficient mid. Florida bad in fact. If you happen to have bought the HT instead of the ST, well good for you, you just wasted a ton of money as well. Missing the whole point of a 3 way which is to buy a dedicated driver that is GOOD at the frequency range you will have it play. Buying a compromised car audio driver that is meant to work with a sloppy passive crossover in a 2way set is about as far from ideal as you could have for a 3 way. Could do better with a $20 Dayton.

Either way, it is not going to work out nice. Seriously. The more you post the more I really think you NEED to buy a passive set. You are getting so confused at work and ignoring any and all advice given here it's absurd. If you made $200k/yr then fine you could deal without the $, but considering where you work I doubt that is a reality.

[ncc74656 2]

its quite difficult to explain exactly what they sound like. if i cross the crachendos over any higher than about 500hz i get piercing from the speakers that sound quite distorted. it sounds very much like a mid range that is playing free air and you are sitting on a horizontal plane with it. so you hear everything coming from both the front and back of the speaker.

the HT25 is what i bought after a great deal of research at work and on my own accord on websites. the speaker is listed as 93db, not 107.

the beaming that i hear is from high vocals out of the founteks. presently i have no high range xover on them as i removed my broken tweeters. if i sit in the passenger seat i hear less robustness than if i sit in the driver side. from what i understand any frequency being produced with a wave length shorter than 3" will be directional.

edit: i should point out that the doors are covered with sound deadener so all the holes are "covered" there is no additional sealing in the doors. this is more of a moot point i feel however as the speakers themselves have a 3" thick doubled up plate of wood acting as the baffle to the 10". these are screwed to the door and sound deadedner is covering them and the gaps between the wood and door. the window track is also spaced back 2 inches to allow clearance to the speakers. I do not know where to begin trying to "fix" this install aside from just buying smaller speakers..... the install is original from about a year ago when i bought the speakers.

Edited May 7, 2014 by ncc74656

[///M5 2,833]

Why would you buy a car audio driver and run it active? Crazy waste.

Either way, seriously DO NOT RUN A 3 WAY. It is as bad of an idea as screwing a chancre ridden pussy. Seriously, bad.

[ncc74656 2]

the HT25 is just a tweeter is it not? designed i suppose for car audio more than home audio but isnt the term "car audio" rather subjective in its own right?

can not some car audio speakers be used in an active setup when not paired with a passive cross over? just as some pro audio speakers are well suited to active systems or specifically and properly built passive cross overs?

i bought these tweeters with the following thoughts. they have a very linear response curve with in the frequencies of intended use, they are decently efficient so as to not require a massive amp to power them, they are inexpensive compared to others, they are a silk dome wich is the sound type i was going for, they are the proper size for the setup i have, they have very good reviews and the hertz speakers i have heard sounded excellent to me.

[lithium 358]

practically every reason you've listed for purchasing the tweeter is incorrect. not all tweeters are created equal. the performance of a driver is objective, it can be measured. it's a pretty safe assumption that any car audio driver is at the very least a bad value if not complete garbage. of course there are plenty of good reason to get a car audio passive set. 

 

[ncc74656 2]

im going to install them tomorrow and do what i can with them. once thats done i will figure out what i feel is missing and look at dayton audio tweeters for what i think is the correct driver and post up on here to get your input. perhaps i will install these and be pleased with the sound? are we thinking the tweeters them selves are so poor in build/design that they will not do what i am expecting regardless of install or are we saying its assumed that due to the install method paired with the build of the tweeter will result in a poor audio experience?

[lithium 358]

you're installing random drivers with no understanding of how evaluate their performance. 

[ncc74656 2]

this driver was not random, the wrong driver perhaps but it was selected after reading spec sheets, recommendations of other installers, reviews on line, and what i thought was a good pairing to the mid range wich i had picked up that also had very good reviews and mostly for the same reasons i listed above.

the mid range speakers are worlds clearer than the 10" crachendos so i do not feel that was a bad purchase in and of itself. if for no other reason than simply to take up less space in the doors... at the least by the end of hte day i will know exactly what a poor mix of drivers sounds like. worst case ill sell the product i dont need and buy new stuff.

i have a pair of headphones now so i intend to compare from those to the trucks system while playing an array of music.

[///M5 2,833]

A good driver for a 2 way does not make a good driver for a 3 way.

And again, you ignore the whole process here which is to start with a 2 way. You really, really, really, really need to.

I am about to write you off as a troll. You take no advice, don't listen, and just do what you think anyways. If you are going to continue to fail perhaps you should do it on your own. If you were in FL I'd understand, but this is the land of education. Open your ears once and listen, please.

[///M5 2,833]

And no, the Dayton driver is not at all what I'd choose, not even close, but it'd be better than what you chose.

[SpeakerBoy 64]

He must be a troll.

Edited May 7, 2014 by SpeakerBoy

[ncc74656 2]

I have found a good deal of people who have written detailed reviews of the founteks in 2 and 3 way system - some even on this forum. that is a large part of what made me choose those for the mid range. their response curve charts also show very stable performance through out the frequencies i had intended to cross them over at.  while researching those speakers it dawned on me why what i was told about choosing cross over points based on dead zones in the vehicle would not work - just as you said it would not.

 

the published specs on the hertz tweeters is primarily what i used to determine if those would work with the founteks and it was my belief that they would based on their frequency/phase curve.

 

I do not know where it is atm but a user on here had posted a phase graph of my crachendos a few months back and it showed what looked more like mountain ranges than a response curve. when searching for drivers i looked for drivers that had good feedback, decently flat response curves, lower price points, higher efficiency, and for mid range a smaller cone size.

 

I have a set of alpine R component's as well but have not installed them yet. i wanted to compare the two systems. 

 

I am reading what you guys are saying and trying to build off your advice as much as possible. the purpose here is not to say i know better, its not to say that your advice is not respected. it is to say that i wish to learn more about 2 and 3 way systems and am choosing to use my vehicle as that test platform.

[Fi 4 life 0]

You should install the type R's

[///M5 2,833]

Definitely. Make them work first. Anything else leads to failure.

Not sure why you think you can engineer a skyscraper when you haven't made a one story building work yet.

[ncc74656 2]

after having things installed for about a week I absoutly love the sound of the founteks but the tweets are very lack luster. I expected more out of them considering what I had read and was told. I also now realize that they have a built in cross over at 1.8Khz? I do not understand why a manufacture would sell a raw tweeter with a cross over in it? suppose that goes more towards what you were saying with them not being intended for the application.

 

the system sounds worlds better than it did before but it still has a ways to go to be sure. the Mini DSP remote turn on power board came in the mail not long ago and I must say that I greatly prefer the mini dsp over the Deh 80's functions. I actually prefer configuring from a large GUI on a laptop vs the single din screen in the dash.

 

the crachendos actually don't do a bad job at mid bass but their install is so jacked that being able to gauge there potential is next to impossible.

[Randal Johnson 544]

[ncc74656 2]

ill pull it in and get some pics but its just thrown together atm. still waiting on a recone from FI so ive got my computer speakers sub hooked up in there and I have not done anything to my 10" door speaker install from when I installed them in the menards parking lot over a year ago...