Midbass suggestions

[Kybasshead75]

So some of you may be familiar with my setup since I've asked 500 questions on it, but this omes about midbass and upper midbass. Currently I have component JBL 6.5s in the front doors and focal 5.25s in the rear. Pioneer 8 inch sub in the rear deck. The lows hit hard, but I feel the music is still a little too bright for my taste, so I'd like to add some more midbass.

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These are my front door panels. The area circled is a door pocket. I believe I could cut that out and glass it. I used to repair all the fiberglass truck body parts for Peterbuilt, so I'm pretty good with glass. I'm not sure if I could fit an 8 there, how is say a 6x9 for midbass? Other size suggestions? And suggestions for 8 inch midbass or 6x9 midbass speakers please in the 50-70 watt RMS range. My amp outputs 50 rms @ 4 ohm and 70 RMS @ 2 ohm. I plan on running the rears off the head unit and using the rear sub channels to power the new midbass drivers.

After doing a whole lot of research recently I have decided to go with four SSA evil 6.5s and four of their tweeters. They are extraordinarily helpful with any questions and I like how they have instructions for tuning the 6.5s in a sealed or ported alignment to midbass frequencies in great detail so anyone can follow.

For your sound stage I would not recommend using different sizes and voices ( brands or models) together. Definitely avoid having them facing different directions ( as in the doors pointing toward each other and in rear deck facing up bouncing off of glass all at same time) as it will distort imaging badly and be out of phase. I would use only the doors for the 6.5s with them turned to where the very center of each cone hits you in a line from both sides, 2is good 4 is better lol . Since you can glass just make the enclosure to SSA specs and aim the MDF rings that you would mount the 6.5's on angled to point them at you directly and not toward each other like factory has them.
For your tweeters, I would recommend cutting a section out on both a pillars and glassing in a little MDF ring to mount those on to as well, you'll have no problem angling those toward you in the same way and send it smooth and finish to your liking.
You sound like you really want to get down so don't be afraid to spend a little on another amp so you can run your tweeters and mids separately. Get an active 3way crossover as it allows you to get a much better preamp voltage resulting in a stronger cleaner signal to your sub, mids and tweeters, it makes a huge difference.
Again I cannot recommend Aaron and SSA enough over there.

 

[LsGuy]

I had a thought this morning. My amp has a speaker level input on the sub channel. I could run my front outs from the HU to the sub input on the amp, that channel outputs 300 watts. Turn lpf off and run both comps from that to see if they will give me what I want. That would give me 150 rpm per speaker. If that works I could order some better tweeters and pillar mount them, run either 70 rpm or 150 bridged rms depending what they need. If they only want 70 that leaves the rear channel open so I could still power the rears. Then pick up a little 250 watt for the sub, or possibly a 500w and throw a second sub in with it. Thinking I might be able to get that sub under my seat. Have to do some trial next weekend. This would at least let me test some stuff before I buy more equipment.

 

[LsGuy]

I had another idea as well. I know you arent supposed to mix subwoofers, but I have a couple of these laying around:

Kicker CompRT 43CWRT671

CompRT shallow-mount 6-3/4" subwoofer with dual 1-ohm voice coils

www.crutchfield.com

These are said to be able to run free air. If I mounted these as rear speakers in a nicely sealed door, and set them up to run say 80 ish to 200-300 with a dedicated crossover, then set the 8 inch sup to handle the low end. Do you think that would produce decent sound? The kickers are rated for 30-500 hz, so filtering them for midbass would be perfectly in their range.

 

[LsGuy]

Has anybody used the Dsp-408? Seems like a lot of function for a small price. Would let me go active it looks like. Amazon has it for $159.

 

[Firewalker]

Lots of people have with success, but some have also complained of noise issues with them though but that was over at DIYMA and from some of the professional installers...think Skiezer was one of them? Could be very wrong though on that. I just remember seeing those comments on it.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Has anybody used the Dsp-408? Seems like a lot of function for a small price. Would let me go active it looks like. Amazon has it for $159.

this is the best idea you had this whole thread lol.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Lots of people have with success, but some have also complained of noise issues with them though but that was over at DIYMA and from some of the professional installers...think Skiezer was one of them? Could be very wrong though on that. I just remember seeing those comments on it.

i've installed 7, never had any noise issues in any of the installs.

 

[Firewalker]

Idk I just remember seeing the posts over there on it and Skizer was one of them saying it. Know he runs a business and all but not sure.

It as an option I am considering as well if I decide to go to a double din in the spring as I want something newer that works with my S20+ phone.

 

[LsGuy]

I may pick one of those up. Seems pretty decent after researching. I wish it had 6 inputs so that I could retain my fade/balance on my head unit. I suppose it would make the most sense to run the sub hi outputs into one channel and my fronts output into the second channel. This would let me retain the ability to turn off the sub or adjust its volume seperately via the head unit. The front hu output could be programmed to the the input for the other 3 output channels on the dsp. One for front comps, one for rears, and one for tweets. Then I could set a custom eq and crossover for those channels individually.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I had another idea as well. I know you arent supposed to mix subwoofers, but I have a couple of these laying around:

Kicker CompRT 43CWRT671

CompRT shallow-mount 6-3/4" subwoofer with dual 1-ohm voice coils

www.crutchfield.com

These are said to be able to run free air. If I mounted these as rear speakers in a nicely sealed door, and set them up to run say 80 ish to 200-300 with a dedicated crossover, then set the 8 inch sup to handle the low end. Do you think that would produce decent sound? The kickers are rated for 30-500 hz, so filtering them for midbass would be perfectly in their range.

horrible idea. Subs are subs, they arent midbass. It'll cause phase cancellation even with crossovers and the midbass will be extremely muddy. Stick with actual midbass drivers.

For your setup. Leave the rears on head unit power. Add the dayton dsp, Get rid of the passive crossovers on your front comps and Run the focals on active with your current 4 channel amp. Add a cheap 4 channel amp and bridge the amp to a pair of crescendo pwx 8s (they'll handle all the power and more and 4 channels bridged is cheaper and more powerful than a big 2 channel amp.) So dsp channels 1/2 is tweeters, channel 3/4 is the 5.25 inch mids, 5/6 is the 8 inch midbass, 7/8 is the subs or you can leave the subs connected to the head unit rca outputs, either way works.

Again no power should be wasted on the rear speakers ever other than head unit power.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I may pick one of those up. Seems pretty decent after researching. I wish it had 6 inputs so that I could retain my fade/balance on my head unit. I suppose it would make the most sense to run the sub hi outputs into one channel and my fronts output into the second channel. This would let me retain the ability to turn off the sub or adjust its volume seperately via the head unit. The front hu output could be programmed to the the input for the other 3 output channels on the dsp. One for front comps, one for rears, and one for tweets. Then I could set a custom eq and crossover for those channels individually.

you literally only need one pair of RCA outputs connected to the dayton dsp. You dont need to use all of it. For example you hook up the front RCA of the head unit to the dayton. Turn off all EQ and all crossovers for the front. Thats it, you have a full range signal to work with in the dsp and thats all you need, you dont need to use all the inputs. leave the sub connected to the head unit output. Now you have full sub control and front/rear fader.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Idk I just remember seeing the posts over there on it and Skizer was one of them saying it. Know he runs a business and all but not sure.

It as an option I am considering as well if I decide to go to a double din in the spring as I want something newer that works with my S20+ phone.

those guys find anything to trash on cheap equipment over there at diyma They cant wrap their heads around not spending 600 bucks for a dsp.

 

[LsGuy]

horrible idea. Subs are subs, they arent midbass. It'll cause phase cancellation even with crossovers and the midbass will be extremely muddy. Stick with actual midbass drivers.

For your setup. Leave the rears on head unit power. Add the dayton dsp, Get rid of the passive crossovers on your front comps and Run the focals on active with your current 4 channel amp. Add a cheap 4 channel amp and bridge the amp to a pair of crescendo pwx 8s (they'll handle all the power and more and 4 channels bridged is cheaper and more powerful than a big 2 channel amp.) So dsp channels 1/2 is tweeters, channel 3/4 is the 5.25 inch mids, 5/6 is the 8 inch midbass, 7/8 is the subs or you can leave the subs connected to the head unit rca outputs, either way works.

Again no power should be wasted on the rear speakers ever other than head unit power.

I believe I see what you are saying, though the focal 5 1/4s are in the rear, front are 6.5 jbl gx components. So you say glass the front panels and add 8s with the 6.5's? My only issue with that is the I'm not sure what ohms my tweeters are or the power they can handle, but I have an idea they can't handle what the amp would send them on their own. What is the rule of thumb on amp size vs power wire size? My current amp requires 2 power wires, they are small, likely 10 gauge or so. I ran a fused 4 gauge to the amp and used a block to split that into 2 connections. Trying to figure out if I really need to run another large power wire back to run a second small amp.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I believe I see what you are saying, though the focal 5 1/4s are in the rear, front are 6.5 jbl gx components. So you say glass the front panels and add 8s with the 6.5's? My only issue with that is the I'm not sure what ohms my tweeters are or the power they can handle, but I have an idea they can't handle what the amp would send them on their own. What is the rule of thumb on amp size vs power wire size? My current amp requires 2 power wires, they are small, likely 10 gauge or so. I ran a fused 4 gauge to the amp and used a block to split that into 2 connections. Trying to figure out if I really need to run another large power wire back to run a second small amp.

oh my bad then you'll be doing what i said with the front JBL comps. Always have more power than you need because if you dont have enough power and you try to get loud, you'll be clipping the signal and blowing up the drivers from a dirty signal. What you think is the driver's limits right now is actually your amp's clean power capability limit. Just for reference my tweeters are 80 rms, i'm using 145 rms to them and they love every bit of it because I never get close to clipping and i get the output/SQ i want.

you can get away with a 4 gauge to two 8 gauge distribution block if you get a pretty weak amp. I'd always recommend more and by going thin on the wire you'll be reducing some output and performance of the amp so its your choice if you want to make that compromise. If you do go 1/0 you can recycle your current 4 gauge run for that. You can also add a small battery in the back and have that as your distribution block as well if you want to go all out.
btw this is my midbass with the crescendos. They are pure midbass drivers, not really good for anything above 2000hz, can reach 28hz if you remove the high pass filter.

 

[LsGuy]

oh my bad then you'll be doing what i said with the front JBL comps. Always have more power than you need because if you dont have enough power and you try to get loud, you'll be clipping the signal and blowing up the drivers from a dirty signal. What you think is the driver's limits right now is actually your amp's clean power capability limit. Just for reference my tweeters are 80 rms, i'm using 145 rms to them and they love every bit of it because I never get close to clipping and i get the output/SQ i want.

you can get away with a 4 gauge to two 8 gauge distribution block if you get a pretty weak amp. I'd always recommend more and by going thin on the wire you'll be reducing some output and performance of the amp so its your choice if you want to make that compromise. If you do go 1/0 you can recycle your current 4 gauge run for that. You can also add a small battery in the back and have that as your distribution block as well if you want to go all out.
btw this is my midbass with the crescendos. They are pure midbass drivers, not really good for anything above 2000hz, can reach 28hz if you remove the high pass filter.

Those sound excellent, I will keep them in mind if I decide to run 8 inch midbass, or if I blow these jbl 6.5s up. Im sure I could carve the door panel out a little bit to squeeze 8s in there if I tried hard enough. Factory grills would be a limiting factor though. Alright. What amp would you suggest to run these 6.5 comps, keeping in mine that down the road I may upgrade to those 8s. Also, how do I setup my comps with the additional power? Going by the rms rating of 70 watts, its easy to pair a 70 watt rms amp to them and call it good. Basically, how do I ensure I don't overpower them too much? Next question. Since these are my midbass drivers, do I leave the full range? My head unit and amp only have options for a high pass filter on the front lines, but running that dsp I could limit the upper frequencies and let the tweeters fill those in, or I could do a bandpass I guess and cut out the low bass and the high frequencies. Whats your suggestion there? And finally. New amp to the 6.5s, current amp will power the sub on the 300 rms channel, and the tweeters on one of the 50-70 rms channels, but that leaves 2 amp outputs open. Do I power the rears or what would you suggest I do with those?