3 way active door setup help

[Bobby.b.]

Hey all new member. Skip to 2nd paragraph for the short version. My last set up was 2 15" incriminator woofers sealed about 4.5' with an orion xtrpro 2400 and 4 silver flute 8s in the doors with some vifa silk domes all active in a single cab chevy. Its a good set up but theres just no bass in the doors. I did everything to treat them got tired of it and even fiberglassed an enclosure for them, better but not great. Tried goldwood woofers, same bass much worse sounding voice. Before this setup Ive done 6.5 components and then double 6.5 mtm. So that's my experience so far with door speaker set ups and imo they all completely lack substance from 60-150hz, which matters!

Anyways I'm working on a new setup for my 05 chevy van and the door panels got plenty of room and depth to put an 8" SUBWOOFER in the door. I'm hoping putting some actual bass in the front stage will allow me to use a simple sub set up like 1 big ported 18 that wont reach very high. Where I'm utterly confused is what kind of midrange speaker I should use for a 3 way front stage. I'm planning on using the same 1" horn loaded timpathy tweeters again unless someone has a better suggestion. I can make anything happen as far as fitment if I have to hack the doors up make fiberglass pods ect I can do it. So what are most people using for midrange speakers, 5", 4.5"?? Also open to suggestions on some 8 woofers with good xmax that work ok for a door install, I'd rather not have to make a box for them but if I have to I can.

Any input on midrange and woofers appreciated.

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[djdilliodon!]

Hey all new member. Skip to 2nd paragraph for the short version. My last set up was 2 15" incriminator woofers sealed about 4.5' with an orion xtrpro 2400 and 4 silver flute 8s in the doors with some vifa silk domes all active in a single cab chevy. Its a good set up but theres just no bass in the doors. I did everything to treat them got tired of it and even fiberglassed an enclosure for them, better but not great. Tried goldwood woofers, same bass much worse sounding voice. Before this setup Ive done 6.5 components and then double 6.5 mtm. So that's my experience so far with door speaker set ups and imo they all completely lack substance from 60-150hz, which matters!

Anyways I'm working on a new setup for my 05 chevy van and the door panels got plenty of room and depth to put an 8" SUBWOOFER in the door. I'm hoping putting some actual bass in the front stage will allow me to use a simple sub set up like 1 big ported 18 that wont reach very high. Where I'm utterly confused is what kind of midrange speaker I should use for a 3 way front stage. I'm planning on using the same 1" horn loaded timpathy tweeters again unless someone has a better suggestion. I can make anything happen as far as fitment if I have to hack the doors up make fiberglass pods ect I can do it. So what are most people using for midrange speakers, 5", 4.5"?? Also open to suggestions on some 8 woofers with good xmax that work ok for a door install, I'd rather not have to make a box for them but if I have to I can.

Any input on midrange and woofers appreciated.

couple of questions. Are you open to doing dual 6.5/7” in each door or does it have to be 8”? How much power will you have and at what ohm load? If you already have an amp(s) in mind, can you list the power specs at all ohm loads? Lastly, how much do you want to spend?

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

Subwoofers in doors is not a great idea as you will not stop all the rattles. Some people place a single subwoofer up front in a properly designed enclosure, but the doors or kick panels have midbass woofers. If you're already determined to build the interior to suit this is better.

Pick one of the dozens of ready-made 3-way component sets. Audiofrog, Focal and Hertz are great options that often get used in "SQL" setups to support a lot of bass.

 

[Bobby.b.]

I was planning on using a hifonics 1600.4 thats advertised 400rms at 2ohm per channel, it's a few years old it been collecting dust. Was gonna do the woofers at 2 ohm then make up a passive crossover for the mid and tweet at 4 ohm on the other 2 channels, or find a small 2 channel for the tweets and run a seperate crossover, whatevers more cost effective. I dont really want to spend more then 300 on drivers if possible, but if theres a particular driver that's proven to work in a door I'll consider any price.

 

[Bobby.b.]

Btw I cant find any 3 way pre made set ups with bigger then a 6.5, what's the point? I dont need great sound quality I just want to hear a reasonable frequency response range from the front stage, I've never heard a 6.5 that even plays 100hz with any authority, then u gotta pick between making your sub play dirty high to where you can tell its behind you or work your doors down low and then you cant crank em up or the midrange sound like ****, and they dont hit hard anyways. So... small subwoofers up front seem like the solution.

 

[djdilliodon!]

I was planning on using a hifonics 1600.4 thats advertised 400rms at 2ohm per channel, it's a few years old it been collecting dust. Was gonna do the woofers at 2 ohm then make up a passive crossover for the mid and tweet at 4 ohm on the other 2 channels, or find a small 2 channel for the tweets and run a seperate crossover, whatevers more cost effective. I dont really want to spend more then 300 on drivers if possible, but if theres a particular driver that's proven to work in a door I'll consider any price.

that amp will do around 250w rms per channel at 2 ohm (at least from dyno tests I’ve seen). That is still a good amount of power! Since they will be run in a door infinite baffle, it’s gotta be a driver that can work in that application. Drivers that need an enclosure to perform will in many cases (not all of course) have nearly no bass output when run infinite baffle. With the power you have and from the kind of output you are looking for, building an enclosure on the door is a must IMO. With a sealed or small ported setup you open the door to a ton of options. Most of the raw drivers are lower Q meant to perform in either a sealed or ported enclosure. I’ve managed to get a few raw drivers to work IB but it varied in each vehicle. If you are willing to do an enclosure seas has some nice choices. They also have excellent midrange drivers as well.

 

[Bobby.b.]

250rms sounds about right I think it had 3 30a fuses or maybe 4 25s, its blown many tweeters crossovers and midbass woofers lol.

I was hoping to avoid it, but it looks very doable to get at least .25ft in there. the van door is so tall the bottom section where the factory speaker goes is completely clear of the window regulator, and the panel itself is like 4" off the door at the bottom. If the enclosure ends up small what do you think about jamming it up hard with fiberfill and adding a vent in the back, I've tried this with 2 silver flute 8s in about .2ft and it helped get A LITTLE low end extension but didnt really make up for the lack of box size.

 

[Bobby.b.]

I just checked the pile and its actually a zxx2000.4. I also have a mb quart ref 640.4, I could use that for the tweeters if I had to, maybe use the extra channels for some bass shakers or something

 

[djdilliodon!]

250rms sounds about right I think it had 3 30a fuses or maybe 4 25s, its blown many tweeters crossovers and midbass woofers lol.

I was hoping to avoid it, but it looks very doable to get at least .25ft in there. the van door is so tall the bottom section where the factory speaker goes is completely clear of the window regulator, and the panel itself is like 4" off the door at the bottom. If the enclosure ends up small what do you think about jamming it up hard with fiberfill and adding a vent in the back, I've tried this with 2 silver flute 8s in about .2ft and it helped get A LITTLE low end extension but didnt really make up for the lack of box size.

when you say .25 cubic feet are we talking about making something behind the door skin or we talking custom door panel enclosures here? Answer this for me so I know what I’m trying to see here lol.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

There is no reason an 18" subwoofer wouldn't be able to play above 60hz and if you're trying to get say 140dB at 60hz out of your front doors you're going to have to get very creative.

 

[Bobby.b.]

Alright, heres some pics of what were working with.

The red line is about how low the window glass goes

The verticle sharpie lines on the door skin correspond to the open part of the panel where the speaker goes, horizontal lines are where I could cut the door sheetmetal and have the pod slip under the window glass.

The plan would be to top mount some 1/2 MDF outside the door panel for the speaker to front mount nothing fancy in the looks dept, then make the pod in the back out of 2 or 3 layers of 24oz woven roving.

Can you picture it? Its gonna be a hack job lots of sheet metal missing ect. This is my work truck btw guys looks dont matter at all it's just a white van with my company logo on it no one ever rides in here but me and an occasional helper so no need for a full custom door panel or nice looking pods, just flat mdf screwed to the outside is fine.

 

[Bobby.b.]

The woofer is some goldwood thing just for test fitting

 

[djdilliodon!]

Alright, heres some pics of what were working with.

The red line is about how low the window glass goes

The verticle sharpie lines on the door skin correspond to the open part of the panel where the speaker goes, horizontal lines are where I could cut the door sheetmetal and have the pod slip under the window glass.

The plan would be to top mount some 1/2 MDF outside the door panel for the speaker to front mount nothing fancy in the looks dept, then make the pod in the back out of 2 or 3 layers of 24oz woven roving.

Can you picture it? Its gonna be a hack job lots of sheet metal missing ect. This is my work truck btw guys looks dont matter at all it's just a white van with my company logo on it no one ever rides in here but me and an occasional helper so no need for a full custom door panel or nice looking pods, just flat mdf screwed to the outside is fine.

here is what I would do. Attached is the pic you took of the entire door panel. You see the line I put arrows pointing too? I’d cut on that line to get rid of everything below it. 1/2” mdf mounted to the door skin use bolts and washers and I’d use mdf rings and build them out using dowels or 1x2 pine etc. Staple the fiberglass cloth over it to give me my shape I’m going for and start glassing it. If you know how to work with fiberglass this ain’t hard to do at all and you can actually make it look nice just by covering it with carpet. You will easily get the most airspace this way and you can run dual 8”, 7”, 6.5” etc drivers if you so please! Now what drivers? Gotta settle on the size, with a budget of $300 the choices IMO are pretty wide especially since it’s an enclosure involved now.

 

[Bobby.b.]

Damn that's a good idea. I'm thinking I'll hack it a little lower so I still got some shallow door pocket action. Heres some rough specs, if I just do half the door without it popping out any (3" depth) I'll get .23' if i make it pop out an inch, or cut the door and send it back an inch (4" depth) I get .32'. If i wack the whole door panel front to back i get .52' at 3"depth, .69' at 4".

 

[Bobby.b.]

I'm leaning toward the 2nd option at .32' and I still have a door pocket, pretty good. I'm assuming the box is gonna be 1/4 to 3/8 thick solid fiberglass, with some bracing I think itl do.