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jesh4622

3 way front active system advice

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I'm also considering the Scanspeak 10F/8414G10 or Tymphany TC9. 

I've found a couple people say that when paired with a tweeter, the Peerless 830986 has more impact than the 88EX. The 88EX is only better if you run it all the way up to 20khz. 

Edited by jesh4622

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 The midbass I'm running is 5.5 inches deep.  The factory 6 x 9 is 3.5.  That's clearly just the motor, not the whole Diameter of speaker. so the motor will hang into the hole in the door already.  I cannot verify that the anarchy motor fits through the hole in the door, without measuring though. 

 As far as clearance in front of the midbass, under the grill. Match the height of the factor adapter and recess the speaker into the baffle.  Just like the pic I showed you.  If you can run a jigsaw and put together Legos,  it's a snap. ;)

I ran a paper cone fountek 3" in my last car. I did not run a tweeter.  It was a ridiculously bass heavy car,  with 12 inch mid basses in the door.  A tweeter wouldn't of been bad,  just for the sparkle and airiness.  But I rarely if every missed having one in that ride!

With that said, I would of probably run a ring radiator tweeter with said set of 3"s. As the RR will cover the top end response better than a dome. 

Bummer you can't talk her into a 4" and a tweet. That would be the perfect combo to fit on the dash in that ride. 

 

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A few pics to show you roughly how a 4" will fit. More for a visual in general, for you and the misses. Not steering you in that direction, but figured you'd appreciate the reference for what your planning!

Image may contain: car, tree, sky, outdoor and nature

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Although this setup would be stellar!!

Image result for speaker in apiller nissan

A link to the bottom pics build log. 

https://www.extremeaudio.org/nissan-audio-upgrade-for-richmond-client/#jp-carousel-3004

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5 hours ago, jesh4622 said:

I'm also considering the Scanspeak 10F/8414G10 or Tymphany TC9. 

I've found a couple people say that when paired with a tweeter, the Peerless 830986 has more impact than the 88EX. The 88EX is only better if you run it all the way up to 20khz. 

The TC9 is a bit lackluster, I have no experience with the 830986 but assume it is just fine.  As you also stated the 88 on axis won't require a tweet.  That could simplify your processing and amplification...

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Hey dude, you might want to troll the Specials section. I found this GEM that is VERY tunable among other great specs!! I run this drivers sister as my mid, so can verify they fit beautfully. They are hard to beat at that price, and you could even justify picking up 4 of them pretty easily at that price too. ;);)

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@j-roadtattsOh wow nice find. I didn't even know Madisound had specials.

That is super tempting! The reed material seems like it wouldn't do too well in a car door. I'm still considering it anyway.

Thank you for the pictures of the 4" cutout. I showed those to the wife and she said up to that size is fine, after seeing it on the dash. 

I just bought the head unit and tablet so the DSP is required at this point. If I have a DSP may as well do a 3 way. According to Zaph, the 88EX could use a tweeter: 

Quote

The only negative is a slightly ragged top end that may take some filter work if used full range, but I'd generally recommend a cheap and small neo tweeter placed close and crossed over high.

 

Another midrange driver that has caught my attention, (now that I can go 4"), is the Tangband W4-1337SD. It has class-leading smoothness according to Zaph and great reviews. Apparently it's gaining popularity in high-end home theater boutique speakers. 

There's also the replacement for the W4 in the Statements II - the Tymphany NE123W. Jim Holtz, the designer of that speaker, says he prefers the NE123 to SS Revelators - for music. 

Edited by jesh4622

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You said you can't fit a 4" driver....the W4 you linked is a great driver.  I am listening to a pair of them right now, but they are far from trivial to tame full range with a crossover.  The breakup and overtones are rough.  Once done though they are stellar.  I built mine as on axis near field ported monitors and supplement them with a 10" passive radiator sub and they seriously kick butt as an office setup.

As for worrying about the ER in the door.  Don't.  It is an amazing driver and for around $50 THE choice if I were to be generic in recommending things for a 2 way setup.  They are a little bit thinner on the midbass than the CA version, but make up for it in the midrange.  That all being said if you are doing a 3 way the midrange benefits are useless and you could use more on the bottom end.  An XBL based mid will do better for you in that regard.

One other thing, you can read too much on the internet.  Just because Jim Holtz (no disrespect to him at all here) likes them mated with two completely different drivers, in a completely different alignment than you are using basically means jack shit.  What you should be interested in are only designs that are run full range.  Normally like I have in my office this would mean a ported enclosure or supplemented with a sub (or both) but you are looking for on axis mid range performance.  Even then recommendations may be weak since you are in a very reflective environment and not truly 100% on axis due to these reflections.  Much more of a mess in a car than any other listening environment.

 

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I didn't read your description saying that the size of the 4" is fine...but you forgot one other thing.  The 4" driver will take a WAY bigger enclosure.  My W4's are in an enclosure that is 14" x 12" x 6"

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Unfortunately the Seas ER on sale are actually a little different than the guy I confused it with. the sale one lacks motor strength. This is the ONE I confused it with, and would of been a steal at the sale price. anyways.

A TRUE Midbass is an easy one though. Motor strength all the way to the end of the throw and Sd pretty much win. Give me a few days and I will check if the Anarchy will fit, as I would like to know also. :) 

Here's another full ranger to check out . I would think the the impedance curve would be worth looking at for a car application? Correct Sean?

Same with the enclosure, Wouldn't the size be less important in a car application Sean? Being its not going to play as low as on your desk...

 

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:Doh: I had no idea they had a funky 5ohm ER.  :(  The ER18 is a helluva driver and what my comments were referring to not the bastardized 5ohm thing.

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5 hours ago, j-roadtatts said:

 

Here's another full ranger to check out . I would think the the impedance curve would be worth looking at for a car application? Correct Sean?

Same with the enclosure, Wouldn't the size be less important in a car application Sean? Being its not going to play as low as on your desk...

 

I had the previous version of that driver for a while.  I liked the Fountek better, but not by a large margin.

Enclosure can surely be a lot smaller.  I am trying to have mine play down to 80Hz or so so they need a large ported enclosure.  It will still be damn near impossible to build a 4" enclosure on the dash though.  I'd have to model the driver to figure out what could make sense, but if you constrict it too much you will gain no midbass over the 3" and the 3 will definitely play nicer up high.

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Please correct me if I'm wrong. With a tweeter covering the top and a midbass covering the bottom, the 4" would not be restricted on either end in a small pod correct??? 

*Sealed and/or ported with fill depending on modeling

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@j-roadtatts

@///M5

Thank you both for all of the time you have put into replying to me. I do appreciate it.

That being said, I have a two way active system in my vehicle currently and want to try a 3 way. I really want to see what a good midrange driver can do with the vocal range when everything is tuned properly. I also want to play with a DSP. I currently only have experience playing with my 80prs and DSP software in the Windows environment. I've read tons of topics on using REW and understand the concepts behind filter creation etc. I think you're beginning to notice that reading is kind of a problem for me. Your comment on Jim Holtz made me laugh out loud. So yeah I'm not too concerned about HF breakup. For sure I will have a small tweeter with whatever midrange driver I decide to go with. From what I've read, that particular W4 is remarkable in the way that it suffers from no breakup until after 11khz. Of course, that's from damping on the cone, which also means less detail and results in their smooth response. I'm OK with that since my wife will not be playing FLAC files off a Zen player or have vinyl and a turn table. This is all mid-fi, as far as snobbery is concerned, haha.

I also completely understand about comparing the vastly different listening environments. There's pretty limited material online about raw drivers in car audio, though. I did find a subjective review on DIYMA where they rated the Vifa as "tier 3",whatever that means. But the only drivers rated higher were expensive boutique drivers, Alpine scan speaks, and real scan speaks. So yeah I'll take whatever little tidbits I can find on interesting drivers, haha. I'll feel better if I feel that my decision making process wasn't completely random.

As for 4" drivers - I know in home theater you only need the large enclosure to extend low end rolloff. You model as a woofer but shoot for a Q of .57 or even a little lower. I'm not worried about extending response. I just want to avoid creating a hump in the FR with too small of an enclosure. And in the car most of what matters is just combating reflections, bad seating position, etc. I'll have the DSP for that. I haven't chosen a driver yet, so I haven't given more than a cursory glance at most of the T/S parameters for these.


Oh also on the sale driver - I did notice it's a one-off bastard, but the FR looks good for 60-100hz and the impedance curve supports that by showing it doesn't rise till quite low for a 6.5 driver. Combine that with known good build quality from seas and a somewhat exotic cone material, and I figured it was definitely worth $40.

The main thing I am concerned about with the anarchy is people saying that they are super clean with near 0 distortion. I'm thinking they may be a little clinical for my wife. She is no hi-fi snob and I'm sure would enjoy something with more presence. But I am almost certain at this point that I won't find that for under $150/driver.

So I think my plan is to shoe-horn the anarchy in, even if it fights me tooth and nail.

Edited by jesh4622

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I'm all for you doing a 3-way brother. I would hope to see the end results if not a build log too.

I have no problem measuring the fit of the anarchy for you as would love to pick a set up soon for myself. 

As far as full rangers, all that have been discussed will sound good. Each will have a slight advantage. You have done your homework, now go pick the one that has the advantage you care about most. There will always be a trade off. 

tweeters are my weak point. BUT I would do a RR for a 3-way if it were me. By design they should be more linear on the top end and reach waaaaaay farther. Just my two cents.

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I have you to thank for the 4" mids but I also have you to thank for the new enclosure plans. She saw the pictures of those custom pillars and must have them now, haha.

I can't promise when, but when it's done, I plan on distributing the plans for free. That should be useful to a lot of frontier/xterra owners. All you'll need is access to a 3d printer.

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I knew you guys would like that A-pillar design! Its kinda sexy an shit. :D 

The wood template I posted in my ride is for a large format tweeter, but was the same size so figured why not post it. lol

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I talked to the wife and tried to explain what I knew about the drivers. She wants to go ahead with the Peerless NE123W for the mids. 

So at this point we have decided on the following:

subwoofer: ???

midbass: Exodus Anarchy

midrange: Peerless NE123W

tweeter: ???

head unit: Kenwood Excelion X501 (chosen for aptX bluetooth, multiple simultaneous bluetooth connection, good preamp and DAC sections)

DSP: Rockford DSR1 (chosen for Android tunability - there will always be a tablet in the car, and we don't have a laptop)

tablet: Samsung Tab Pro 10.1 (chosen for large, bright screen and aptX)

enclosure: A pillar as pictured by @j-roadtatts earlier in this thread - although I can definitely make them more on-axis or larger volume.

 

According to reviews, the NE123W is natural sounding and transparent with a touch of warmth. I'd like to tweeter to match this sound signature to make the experience more cohesive. 

@///M5 I know you half-recommended the Dayton ND20 tweeter. It seems like a good pairing, but I'm a little concerned about power handling. I have seen a lot of complaints on break up and power handling at higher SPLs and also people online blow out ND16s one after another. There is a 5w increase in power handling stepping up to the ND20. Would it be safer to step up further to the 1" version? I'm really leaning towards the ND25 right now.

I also found one person who used the NE123W in a 2 way speaker with a sub and chose this tweeter. (some more details here)
I would feel a little safer with a more expensive tweeter just because I know that variance will be lower between the left and right channels. I have seen people compare the measurements on the Dayton ND20 and they are acceptable, but could be a lot better. 

Hmm. I could also get the SSA evil tweets. 

 

On the subs, I mentioned earlier two different options: the Dayton LS10-44 and the Infinity Reference REF1000S. The Dayton I picked myself because it's 10", not tons of money, and fits into the 4.375" mounting depth of the thicker custom box. The Infinity I found through a bit of research through searching for budget SQ options. There aren't many subs recommended that are that low of a profile. I'm game for a more expensive subwoofer, but I would like there to be a marked increase in sound quality. Do you guys have any other suggestions? 

Edited by jesh4622

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 The Dayton looks like a promising choice for a shallow subwoofer.  I can't see a major sq gain that would justify the cost difference of the namebrand ones.  Paying for a lot of advertisement there,  and them banking on naïve customers.

 Perhaps model the subs you have parameters for in winisd, against the anarchy and see how the outputs Match. 

 The evil tweet was designed by Aaron for discerning listeners like us and would be a very solid choice for its price point.  They also have a coupon going still I believe. I just got a pair in the mail and will be listening to them today! 

Worst case is you have to change one of your drivers after listening. Not something I would shot myself over.

 Good choice on both mids btw, it shows you did your homework! ;)

 

 

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Are you sure you want a 4" driver?  I would model it in a little enclosure and compare it to the 3" before doing anything else.  Once you've done that we can discuss the rest...

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@///M5

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Qtc is a little high but that will just improve the effeciency of the driver. It only results in a small slope. At my crossover frequency of 300hz, there is less than a 1.5db gain. I think this is workable. Converting to imperial units, 0.7L works out to a cube of 3.5" per side. Considering the front face of the enclosure will be 4" or more, I think this is completely workable. If I can make the enclosure larger without obstructing dashboard view or causing too much mass to hang off of the A pillar, I will. I'll get a little more damping on the cone for any gains in volume that I make. Unfortunately a Qtc of .57 is just a monstrous box that would never work. (3.5L) However, a smaller enclosure seems completely doable. 

@j-roadtatts That's awesome news! Definitely let me know what you think of them. There is not nearly enough information about them online.

 

 

EDIT
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I just actually calculated how large the enclosure will be to accommodate the driver. This seems reasonable. It's much flatter. To arrive at this volume I assumed a 5" front face circular in shape and an overall depth of 4.5". In reality, the enclosure will not be a perfect cylinder and will extend farther on the side close to the dash, and outwards from the driver as it gets closer to the A pillar. I think this is a reasonable assumption for what will work within my wife's vehicle.

Edited by jesh4622

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@///M5

I have been reading more of these forums and watching what you tell other members.  I've noticed that you usually ask for what other drivers people have listened to. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with hearing drivers in a car. Most of the different ones I've heard I've been in home theater, with passive crossovers. What I can tell you is that in the two-way build in my old vehicle, I used the Synergy audio 6.5 s sold here on SSA.  I didn't have much experience with tuning at that point, and I posted up a 5-star review before I had figured out that these drivers just would not do what I was looking for. No matter what crossover slope or frequency I chose, they were never able to play any complicated instrumentation. So for jazz and classical, they were just unusable. The same goes for any form of rock. Frequencies after 2000hz sounded very thin and artificial.  It probably didn't help matters that I had a radiating ring tweeter up on the dash reflecting against the windshield. (peerless xt25)

Since then, I would like to think I have become a little wiser. I don't think PA drivers are going to give me the sound that I want from my vehicle. The closest thing that I have heard to perfect sound is a full-range near-field monitor setup that I made for my wife's PC. Everything comes out of one 3-inch driver by Fostex. There are no crossovers of any type.  I spent a lot of time designing the enclosure, and it's as dead as they come. The sound, at least at low volume, is a religious experience. The soundstage is at least double the distance between the two speakers and is incredibly detailed, without being too revealing. Online sources of music are still definitely enjoyable. The main thing that I love about the speakers is how natural they sound, especially when playing conventional instruments. That natural sound is what I'm after with the mid-range in this setup we have been discussing. I would like to make the crossover frequencies as smooth and natural of a transition as possible. I know that it's unlikely that it will ever sound as good as my wife's monitors, but I would like to get as close as possible. The main thing I didn't like about running a full-range speaker is the obvious. The volume that you can get out of such a system is very limited, as are the frequencies below 125hz or so.  If you look at the FR for this driver, you'll see that it measures almost ruler straight. The upper frequencies are not sibilant at all. Perfect. My wife appreciates their sound as much as I do.

 

As for bass, the most high quality bass I've been exposed to was in my old two-way setup. I ran a scanspeak discovery 10 inch sub, which I will be re-using in my current car. (not my wife's Frontier) It was put into a .75 cubic foot sealed enclosure. I made sure that it was well-sealed using silicone caulk. I had it crossed over at 24db slope on the 80prs at 57hz. I had no issues with the sound of that driver at all. I suppose outout could be higher. I did do some research on upgrading at some point. I would probably go with a gcon or xcon from SSA. But that's low on the list. It makes more than enough bass for sane levels of music enjoyment.

 

Hopefully this gives hopefully this gives you a better idea of what I'm after.

Edited by jesh4622

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I really just wanted you to compare the low frequency roll off of what you could achieve with the 4 vs the 3.  That is all you can possibly gain and normally the small dash pod squashes it.  If you can gain, then by all means but if not then I wanted you to draw the conclusion that works best in your car.  Figure I could have just answered but thought that helping you think about it would be helpful.

The FF85 is a great little driver.  I run the TB W4-1337 as my near field setup at my desk for nearly the same reason.  The W4 though requires a ridiculous passive crossover to tame it full range however (IIRC the crossovers were around $250 in passive components alone).  Anything off axis and they would still need a tweeter.

The other aspect of the 4" driver is the trade off of higher frequency.  I know you see that people blow the little ND's, but IMO that is solely due to complete lack of experience.  They can take plenty, but when you are looking at a driver that is only playing 6k+ you shouldn't expect that it makes your ears bleed and of course the beauty of the 3 way is that you can control that.  Do realize that most people want loud setups.  In fact in any blind testing with almost any quality of product the louder one is chosen.  Exactly why blind testing is so hard.  Obviously drivers that are horribly different in FR can toss the statement out the window.  The second sad fact is that most people don't find loud clean setups to sound loud.  In other words most people on any audio forum would want to drive their poor tweeter into oblivion so it sounds good to them.  This is how you blow a tweeter.  Outside of that the other largest reason for blowing a tweeter is not being diligent in checking your crossover settings before turning them up.  How you tune has an effect on this as well.  You should tune the mids first and get them to do everything you want.  Then add the tweets only for filling in what the mids cannot.  Expect it to take 30+ hours of listening and adjusting to really dial it in and then you are in the right mindset.

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As for your statement that I always ask about drivers, indeed a good preference is helpful in narrowing things down but you are on a budget, doing a three way, and surely have goals that seem well thought out.  As always the install (including tuning) is more important than the driver choice so as long as they have the capability to blend together you are fine.

So yes, personally I would spend your money first on the mid, second on the beefiest XBL midbass you can get and then forego spending much on the tweeter.

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image.jpeg.c1e06a842733c58ca2af1f3474027972.jpeg

No automatic alt text available.

Since we are on the subject. Is there a theory why some combo's are set up as to where the tweeter fires across the midrange, with the mid pointed up? Or is it just a product of endless hrs of testing in that particular car?

 

 

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Cosmetics, space, luck, and perhaps some testing in said vehicle.  I'd bet more the first three than the latter.

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