BillAce

iTrader: (2)

Unless you have used an RTA on your system, overlapping x-over frequencies is probably giving you a bad peak in those areas. Having a not so smooth transition kills a smooth frequency response and in turn kills sound quality. There is no reason to overlap. The highest a sub should be crossed over at is around 80Hz, unless you like your bass to sound like sloppy ***.

No matter how "good" a pair of 6.5's are they will never give you sub base. To get sub base you need to move air and the amount of air a 6.5 moves doesn’t cut it.

Ideally, unless you care about your rear passengers, you shouldn’t run rear speakers if you want true sound quality. Tell me, when is the last time you went to a concert and sat backwards to the stage?

I would NOT run any sub in the rear deck. Free air subs sound like hammered sh*t. Your best bet is to get a nice 6.5 component set (Diamond, MB Quart, Focal, and Dynaudio) cross them over somewhere in the 63-80 Hz range. Get a sub 10-12, have a box built or better yet have a custom made fiberglass enclosure built for it. A custom fiberglass box will take up less space in the trunk and they look sick if built correctly.

If you drop $300 on a nice component set don’t go cheaping out on an amp. Make sure it’s from a quality manufacture. Your system is only as strong as your weakest link.
Free Air subs sound excellent if properly executed. Free air subs have much better suspensions and are normally much more efficient and dont need really cool huge magnets or tons of power. These are afew reasons why they fell out of favor. there really is no better way to get low end response like a freeair sub unless you can tow a huge ported enclosure behind you and you won't get the accuracy. You also dont get the hump in response around 60-80Hz so this would be another reason why people don't like them. I've built thousnads of systems and never had great response down at 19Hz without freeair subs. It is a much more difficult install to completely seal a trunk off from the interior cabin of a car than to glue 6 pieces of wood together.

I used the Illusion Audio in my car because it was light weight, accurate sounding and I built it myself. There are some really nice Pro Audio subs from JBL that I've used that work awesome too.

TogueMonster

iTrader: (14)

I agree with that 100%! No one wants sloppy *** bass. But I would have a slight overlap in frequency response to have a seamless transition between each speaker. You don't want to hear the sound transitioning from one speaker to another. Don't sound too nice.

deffro

iTrader: (3)

You're saying amplify the factory speakers? I'm sure that would sound great and last long.


I was thinking that if you want to save weight and sound good, you won't need a sub with decent speakers (he did say he wanted to avoid using a sub). You won't be boomin lots of bass, but the 6.5" MBQ's have a really good low sound. That is certainly what I plan to do, no sub and a good set of components. What is better for the money???

DontRevMe

iTrader: (2)

Im an authorized MB quart dealer. Believe what you wish. Speakers blow from distortion, not power. And even 05+ alpine R's have more midbass than Qseries.

Im going to run an arc signature 4200 to my factory high's and 2 8"s..thats 440RMS to my FACTORY high's. We do it all the time. It saves people money, they cant believe we didnt swap their speakers.

In our shop speakers are always LAST in the chain.

www.caraudiodepot.com

icedomin8r

Wow, I’ve never heard anyone say speakers should be last in the chain. How do you figure you are going to reproduce accurate sound with a flimsy paper cone that is designed to be powered of the factory deck?

And hitting the factory tweeters with more power to boot? I know that distortion kills speakers, but powering the factories isn’t going to do anything good either. Sure it will be louder, but there is no SQ setup in the world that has done anything with factory speakers.

Saying speakers are last in the chain is like saying a tune is optional after installing an aftermarket intake and VTA BOV.

An 8 sounding like a 12? Hmm, ok. I'd be hard pressed to find an installer local that has the ability to design a correctly specd porter enclosure to make an 8 shine. And no JL 8W3 will sound anywhere near a quality 12. Maybe an 8W7 juiced hard. Just for the record, exactly how many more DB's you gain with a ported enclosure over sealed? Ported setups are much less forgiving than a sealed box.


BillAce:
Of course the door locations are not ideal, kicks are usually best. I don’t think this guy wants to go all out with his setup. Losing the dead pedal has made me not want to go with kicks, and sometimes I have less than careful passengers. If one put his/her foot on my mids I would have to put my foot on their throat.

I get pretty good response below 70Hz with my Diamonds. I sealed off the cavity of the door pretty well with Dynamat.

Again, sure there are good free air subs, lack of easy setup probably puts them out of this guys range.


TogueMonster:
Don’t want a box in the trunk so do a deck sub with an enclosure behind it? Isn’t that still a box in the trunk? His sub doesn’t need to be a JL, there are plenty of brands that sound as good if not better.

Just because you didn’t like the Diamonds doesn’t mean they aren’t good. They are just not as harsh as the MB's and Focals. I ran Q-series for years and just went with Diamonds because I enjoy the more natural sound. That and the MB tweets on the A-pillar would have to be cut 6dbs or more to keep my ears from bleeding.

Speaker choice can be varied depending on musical taste.

And just because the xover point is the same for sub/mid or mid/tweet doesn’t mean you can hear the transition. If the xover point for the mid starts to attenuate at 80Hz and down and the sub starts to attenuate at 80Hz and up, where is the gap?

deffro

iTrader: (3)

The only reason I suggested MBQ's is because I own some and they sound great. I'm not saying they are the best speakers in the world. I don't care where you work though, crappy speakers aren't going to sound as good as high quality speakers. So you are saying I can put as much power as I want to any speaker (utilizing that power) and what will blow them is distortion? So I can run 1000 watts to each of my factory speakers and there is a way for them to take all that power with no distortion?

icedomin8r

I think what our friend is saying is that in most cases speakers are blown by clipping. Clipping or distortion basically destroys a speaker by having it stop traveling for a split second at the top and bottom of its stroke. When this happens heat is built up in the voice coil, eventually leading to failure of the adhesive holding the windings of the coil together.

BUT there are still limits to what a speaker can take. Can you run 600 watts to a 400 watt sub? Sure. Will it blow under normal operating conditions? Probably not.

Can you run 200 watts off an old school PPI PC class amp to factory speakers? Sure, all day long baybe! Will they hold up? Hell no.

You can’t hide behind "distortion only blows speakers", because it isn’t true all the time.

I just can’t believe someone in the car audio industry is actually NOT recommending aftermarket speakers. Not only do they sound infinitely better, but you make more money from selling them. Maybe his business isn’t so red hot.

FJF

iTrader: (18)

No offence to anyone, but this isn't your crowd.

BTW, I agree. If quality is the goal, speakers come last. It all starts at the source. Going for quantity and a system that "hits hard" (as its theme) is an entirely different matter.

icedomin8r

How do you equate quality with "speakers come last"?

What do you think takes that "quality" and transforms it into sound?

What’s the point of having a 16V balanced pre-out only receiver, high quality RCA's, reference quality amps, only to deliver all that to sh*t stock speakers?

If speakers are so last link in the chain, why are there more choices in speakers than any other component?

Would you people please do yourselves a favor take a class, do some research, or pull your head out before you start spreading misinformation to people that are looking for advice.

deffro

iTrader: (3)

Well i'm going to test it. I have a PPI Power class amp in the garage. I am soon putting in my new speakers, and before I do i am going to hook the stockers up to the PPI and give em the juice

FJF

iTrader: (18)

I've been involved with the high-end audio industry for more than two decades and have heard/tested more gear than you have ever seen in magazines. Please feel free to continue taking the Mickey Mouse path to fidelity, as evidenced by the (ahem) limited approach posted above. I certainly have no problem with leaving such dealings to others. There's a reason why I don't spend a lot of time on this board and I have no desire to teach SQ101. I bid you well.

DontRevMe

iTrader: (2)

roughly 3db on average. Like i said, in the right box, an 8" can sound like a 12". Hell ive done an 8w3 ported that people thought had to have been MULTIPLE 12"s.

Speakers LAST doesnt mean dont replace them. And a "tune" in the audio world is more like a processor, not speakers...speakers would be like your block. Work around it to give it as much potential as possible, then when its time, upgrade the sum *****

DontRevMe

iTrader: (2)

BillAce

iTrader: (2)

I have used OEM speakers in competition cars before and won IASCA SQ that way. IT was not a decision made because it was a better option, it was purely finaincial. Building kicks and using some high end components is expensive. We would often tune a setup with OEM speakes and get great results until the finances permitted the system to be completed. OEM speakers are more efficient and will need less power and if properly crossed over will sound good. i keep seeing MB Quart thrown around here and in reality they are a mid fi brand at best. They dis make a pretty good mid in the early 90's that had a paper cone though. DLS has a Kevlar cone in the Ultimate Reference line and the more expensive and better performing Iridium Line is a similar driver with a paper cone. I am amazed how much time and money is spent making speakers attractive when you usually dont look at them. its always the crappiest coax with the biggest, cool looking grille, magnet cover, lighting and colored cone. Speakers should be compared with your eyes closed...

deffro

iTrader: (3)

Once again, I only said MB Quart because he specified that he wanted to spend 300 or less per pair, I never said they were the greatest out there. They fit in his price range. Either way, I really don't care. I gave my two cents and thats that. The DLS's that you speak of range from like 600-1200 per set.