1994-2002 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Alex,
I'm waiting on a call from my little brother who inherited all of my old car audio equipment. He's going to look at my old active crossover and get back to me with the frequency ranges that were available because I just can't remember what I found to sound the best in my last system.
In general though, speakers create sound by moving air and because it's a mechanical phenomenon. The more focused you can make their responsibilities (for sound reproduction of limited frequencies) the better and more accurate they will sound. If the dash speakers came with a 400 Hz capacitor I'd use it because if those little speakers are too busy trying to pound in and out with the mid bass frequencies they won't physically be able to accurately reproduce the high frequencies as they're designed to do. That's one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about skipping the 6x9's and adding a sub.
Really, if you skip the 6x9's you could apply that money towards a small active crossover (on the pre-amp side). Then you could really focus on your soundstage and tune the sound to your tastes and emphasize your speakers strong-points because it give you the ability to change your crossover points with the flick of a switch. The other reason I think you should save the 6x9's for very last last on your list is because vehicle interiors have a natural resonance in the mid-range that fakes your ears (sound and human interpretation is a very funny thing--not linear at all, a log actually). Because of that, "good sound" is normally boosted in the low and high ranges. If you can ever get the chance, go to a recording studio and ask to listen to some of your favorite music on their studio monitors with completly flat and linear response dialed-in. The sound will be mathmatically linear and equally boosted but it sounds terrible!
I've had 3 cars with a bunch of different system configurations in each (2 of those cars could flip a quarter on the roof--but that wasn't the main focus) and I've put systems in about 4 other vehicles. I didn't invent the configuration I found to sound the best, but tried other set-ups and found that the car stero fanatics are correct in their recommendations. Nothing is completely agreed upon, but generally those recommended setups go like this:
-Front Soundstage: put the best speakers you can afford here. The idea is to create a lifelike sound stage that's transparent to the point where it's difficult to pinpoint the speaker locations by listening. Higher frequencies are directional while lower frequencies are not. Old school is to install your tweeters high and the mids low, physically. Newer ideas placed the tweeters with the midrange drivers in pods, usually at the base of the door, with flexible tweeter mounts to direct the sound until you get it how you like. I haven't been in the game for the past 5 years so I can't comment on the effect that center channels with processed effects has had.
- Rear speakers: Because your soundstage is already set and the majority of accurate sound is at the front, also considering that cars tend to resonate in the midrange, the only real purpose of rear speakers is to help fill things out. To do that it dosen't take a lot of power and it's difficult to tell the difference between stock and better speakers at sane volume levels. You don't want to notice the rear speakers, or any speakers for that matter, so as long as the rears aren't being overdriven to the point of distortion you'll probably be okay with stock. Again, that's assuming you don't have a really crazy amount of power going to the front sets. Some people prefer to put mid-bass drivers here, and I've heard some pretty impressive systems set up like that. In any case matched sound is the goal and if you stick some tweeters in 6x9's in the back it messes eveything up up-front.
- Sub: The base of things. (sorry for the pun) Should be the second focus. A sub allows the other speakers to save the bother of reproducing low frequencies. Because bass is uni-directional, it dosen't matter where the acutal driver is located, and it dosen't have to be some stupid-big box with 12" drivers either. It takes the most work to drive a sub but not a whole lot of precision. Put the biggest no-frills, quality, amplifier you want to afford on one or any combination of subs that fit your size constraints. Bigger subs means potentially bigger sound but the trade off is precision and accuracy. Same goes for box type. Ported boxes are tuned to resonate at a certain frequency and are more efficient ie louder (can use a smaller amp) but have an un-natural hump in their output. You can put a small 8" in a sealed enclosure that takes-up very little space, give it way more power than the driver is rated-for (as long as it's clean power, no clipping allowed) and you won't believe the sound you'll get out of that little 8"--the box can be any shape as long as it has the correct internal volume. There is a whole science behind enclosure building, but using a sealed box eliminates a lot of that headache and provides for the tightest and most musically accurate bass response--although sealed boxes need to be slightly larger...
So anyway, hope that helps. If you're really stuck on adding better rear speakers consider adding mid-bass drivers. Or you could possibly stick with regular 6x9's and clip the wires that go to any smaller speakers other than the drivers. The main thing to do is to send the correct frequencies to the correct speakers in the correct location and to do that you really need to use an active pre-amp crossover. For a few dollars more than you planned to spend you could have a more ideal system that would sound awesome: buy 2 amps (a 4 channel and 1 channel bridgeable sub amp), a small active crossover with mid-band capacity, and a small single sub.
Send the 2 amped high-crossed over channels to the dash, the 2 amped mid-crossed over channels to the front doors, use the factory amp or head unit to power the stock rears, and then send the amped and low pass crossed-over frequencies to the sub through the second amp. Then you'd be rockin! :)
What kind of music do you listen to? It makes a difference when choosing components and balancing your potential system.
Drew
posted by 67.10.24...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
