Impious

When I see someone propose a plan that isn't necessarily the best route to accomplishing their goals or taking an idea down a less desirable path , I try to give suggestions on how to improve the idea in order to improve the potential success of their results. Obviously you would rather do things your way than accept suggestions that could either save you time or improve your results.....so ignore us and install away. To put things a little more literally, I believe your rear install would be classified as the "added noise" situation. Which IMO is also not beneficial, or if it is perceived as beneficial in your particular installation then it means there are significant problems elsewhere in the install/tuning. You are trying to put our two statements at odds.....when they aren't.

Here is a link to their specs which is all I can find on them. They were suggested by a member on another forum called AudioPhil who said that most SSA Sundown IA FI stuff is "off the shelf garbage" and that these at $180 each are in an entirely different class. I am a big SSA fan myself and was juct curious on others thoughts. EDIT Cant display link because it is on C. A. C. O. But if you do a search you will find the link. Pretty obvious he's pushing his own agenda rather than trying to provide you with helpful advice.

Different people... He has a DC sub listed in his sig? EDIT: I guess DC offers the same in the upper levels. My bad, I guess that's what I get for not paying attention to any of these newer brands. DC only has D1, D1.4, and D2 coils for his woofers. Your first thought was correct Brad. I guess we should ask the OP whether the .7ohm is the DCR or the stated nominal impedance.

what would the power be for each mid (1700 x1 @ 2 ohm) with 2 8ohm and 4 16ohm mids? just curious. Bromo worked it out above, but I'll walk you through the steps. First, find the voltage. sqrt(power * impedance) = voltage sqrt(1700*2) = 58.31V With parallel wiring, the voltage across the circuit is the same. So each speaker would receive 58.31V. To figure out current to each speaker, divide the voltage by the resistance. 58.31 / 8 = 7.28A 58.31 / 16 = 3.64A To find power, multiply the voltage and current: 58.31 * 7.28 = 425w 58.31 * 3.64 = 212.5w So, each 8ohm mid would receive 425w, each 16ohm mid 212.5w.

In Randy's defense with appropriate attention given to the setup, rear speakers can be a valuable addition to a stereo sound system. A bandpassed, time delayed, attenuated, L-R signal sent to the rear speakers can add things like ambiance and width ques to the sound stage in a stereo setup. Yes, the stage should be in front of you, but not everything you hear from that event comes from in front of you. You can have delayed reflections coming from behind you due to the space the event is recorded/performed in, etc. It also depends on bandwidth.....at certain frequencies (i.e midbass and subbass), your brain can't identify direction. So having the speakers in front of you or behind you is indifferent as far as your perception goes as long as the time arrival is the same. The speakers in the GN and Harry's Acura were likely lowpassed low enough that front/rear direction was indistinguishable. So then they just had to worry about time arrival (and mounting them at a proper width) to obtain a good stage. Harry's I believe were in the rear deck, Clark's GN had the in the rear quarters. Just because it isn't listed on the website that either of the systems used time alignment doesn't mean they didn't use time alignment.....there are a lot of things "unknown", in dispute or not published about Clark's GN, for example. Even today there are disputes about what speakers the vehicle used and where they were located. As far as I know, Randy's present system doesn't apply the proper processing to the rear speakers for them to function ideally as ambiance speakers. And they aren't lowpass low enough or time aligned in a manor in which they would do nothing but add to the primary midbass. So if he's happy with it, more power to him but it's not the way I would go about doing things. I tried to explain some of the issues with his center channel idea. I know he gets upset with M5, so I try to play nice and give him suggestions and explain things without being condescending......but it seems more times than not, he is already dead set on the idea or why his idea will "work" when it's not the best way to go about doing things. So, I think I'm probably done trying to help him.

He has a DC sub listed in his sig? EDIT: I guess DC offers the same in the upper levels. My bad, I guess that's what I get for not paying attention to any of these newer brands.

No, you can't turn them into Fi's. You can try to turn them into VFL motors with Fi soft parts, but that's all it will be. And you will want to make sure the resulting T/S parameters and other performance aspects of the end product are appropriate for your intended purpose.

No, .7 is the DCR. 1ohm is the nominal impedance. They are the same thing. And no, there won't be a difference. They're the same thing.

Dual .7ohm coils are dual 1ohm coils. .7ohm is the DCR of the coils, 1ohm is the nominal impedance of the coils.

You can't change them into BL's.....they are different subs. You could see if BL softparts would fit in the motor and frame (or buy a new frame) but you wouldn't have BL's then, you would have VFL's with BL softparts. Whether or not the BL softparts fit depends on the dimensions and geometry of the motor, and whether or not it's actually a good idea depends on the dimensions and geometry of the motor as well as how strong the motor is which will affect the resulting T/S parameters. If you want BL's, why don't you just sell the VFL's and buy some actual BL's?

I actually owned a pair of them for a little bit. Got them pretty cheap on ebay from Vance Dickason (he sells a lot of the equipment he tests on ebay once he's done with them). Sold them before I used them to fund other audio purchases. I did some research on them before I bought them and IIRC I read a review somewhere and the Xmax measured out at 6mm or 8mm.....still good stroke for a driver that size but short of advertised Xmax.

Are you from Florida?

Without the necessary processing, IMO it would be more of a hindrance than an aid. I know you have (had) pretty minimal processing....adding a center channel to that type of setup is probably not going to work well just based of off general acoustic principles. Or at the very least it will be very difficult to get right. For starters you would have to make sure all 3 speakers were equidistant (or very close thereto) otherwise the time arrival is going to be off. Second, from the drivers seat you are going to have left-side info coming from the center of the vehicle and far right info also coming from the center of the car.....that's going to hinder the width and proper image placement significantly. That's before we consider the possible constructive/destructive interference it could introduce into the frequency response and such. Good intentions. I just think that's the wrong method of achieving your goals....atleast without having the proper processing. Are you trying to get a more solid center after moving your mids to the doors? Easiest way to achieve that is with time alignment, which I don't think you have/had. But really it would make a world of difference. Time alignment and even FR from both sides of the vehicle (independently) will take care of a large portion of the center image ques. Ofcourse you would have a one-seater then. But that's the price of mids in the doors.

Would you be using a processor capable of processing in a true center channel? If not, I would say not a good plan to add a center. If so, I would say mmmmmaybe. Main thing to remember is that with a true center, a significant portion of the sound comes from the center speaker(s). So it's important to have the same capabilities in the center speaker as you do in the left and right fronts. Meaning don't use a smaller speaker as it will kill the midbass. Guy the lives close to me has an MS8 running Logic7 surround. I listened to the system a couple times in a couple different tunings. First time I heard it the center was way too prominent and anchored everything too much to the center, additionally he had 8" mids in the doors for left & right but only a 5.25" in the center....midbass was less than stellar (the giant 8's in the doors were doing very little to add to the midbass) and the system overall IMO sounded better in standard stereo. Later he changed the level matching between L/C/R to make the L/R more prominent and did some other retuning and it sounded and imaged much better but IIRC it wasn't significantly better than standard stereo. IIRC the stage was a lot wider in stereo but a bit deeper in L7 mode, and I'd rather have more width than a bit more depth. That was last summer, so I don't recall everything exactly other than listening to the system didn't make me crave having a center. Standard stereo seems to work just as well for me.

It would make everything a lot more complicated since you don't have the necessary xover in your headunit to run a 3-way speaker setup. For your 1st setup especially it would be significantly easier/better to just keep everything 2-way. IMO your best option is to ditch the 4's and go with something else. But that's up to you.....

When you select your xover points, make sure you select an appropriate frequency and slope to keep all of the drivers adequately protected.

You will be fine. Those Bravox are capable of pretty decent output levels.

IIRC from what I could briefly find the xover features on that EQ1000 aren't really the xover functions that you'll need. A Pioneer 880PRS would do you what need and you should be able to find them used for around $250

The d3100 will be in the back.... So the saying "keep the ground wire short as possible" does not apply if running from ground post on #1 battery to ground post on battery #2? That saying is a rule of thumb that assumes the vehicle chassis has less resistance than the wire you are using as the ground wire. This isn't always the case.

I have around 250 extra at this moment. In that case, I would go for the more expensive option. That would be to either purchase a headunit with built in active crossovers, or an external active crossover. The Sundown amp does not have the more advanced crossover networks, so you will need an active crossover (either in a headunit or an external crossover) with the ability to bandpass (both highpass and lowpass) the mids and highpass the tweeters. I won't mention the cheap route since you have the money to spend, and the more expensive route will give you the tools you need to atleast upgrade some if/when you feel the need. Are you open to purchasing a headunit other than that Eclipse? Are you open to purchasing a used headunit? Getting a headunit with the necessary xover adjustments would honestly be the easiest route.

Technically yes, you can invert a mid. Sound radiates from both sides of the cone equally, you just don't notice this most of the time because the rear of the driver is sealed off from the front by some type of enclosure or baffle. Having them inverted wouldn't affect which way the sound is "projected" or cause all of the sound to be radiated into the door, but it would affect the high(er) frequency response of the driver. The basket and motor will create reflection/interference issues at certain frequencies and probably affect dispersion patterns in the upper frequencies as well. Where you will run into problems depends on the dimensions of the motor and basket (as they are related to the wavelength of the sound wave at which issues will occur, which will ofcourse determine what frequencies you will have an issue at)......the higher you play in frequency the more problems you will run into. Not to mention you run the risk of hearing the mechanical noise from the driver (which again, is normally "trapped" inside of the enclosure or separated by the baffle so you don't hear it). So overall no, it's not a good idea. But in theory if you were using them strictly as midbass speakers it would possibly be feasible. Mids can be wired out of phase. In fact this is common practice. My midrange are out of phase with my midbass and tweeters. In my case, I had to wire them out of phase due to the phase shift inherent to the 2nd order slope of the crossovers. But often wiring one or both mids out of phase is done because of the differing distances of the mids to the other speakers and to the listening position in car audio. Higher frequencies don't radiate only from the center of the cone. They radiate from all of the cone, but at some point the wavelengths will become shorter than the diameter of the driver and beaming will begin to occur, which means there is an increasingly narrowing dispersion pattern. But below the point of beaming, the sound radiates in a relatively even pattern. Higher frequencies are more easily localized than lower (subbass) frequencies. This has little to do directly with the mounting orientation of the driver, assuming the frequency response (et al) was the same you wouldn't notice a difference between an inverted mid and a normal mid. But indirectly it can make a difference because of changes to frequency response and such. How we localize sound depends on the frequency and the dimensions of your head, among other things.

So, next question is how much are you looking to spend? There's an extremely cheap route that's not very good but will allow everything to physically "work", and a more expensive option that will work better.

Because we don't know what the xover in the Sundown is like. We were trying to save you money by waiting to see how much of your current equipment will fit your needs.

This is one of the few occasions where I would support a decision for the threads to be deleted from a manufacturers section. This sounds like bad news all the way around. No reason to keep it around, really.

Nothing wrong with that Plan it right and you might even be able to steal some of the HT/HA market with a driver like that.