Recent content by Patrick Bateman

The biggest problem with the use of multiple drivers is their phase interaction. When two pistons are playing out of phase, you get comb filtering. Even worse, the comb filtering changes if you move even an inch, and it destroys your soundstage. That's the bad news. The good news is that our...

The dash is a violent place to put a full range, there's a ton of nasty reflections. And it gets 10x worse if you use multiple drivers. Having said that, it's the best location in the entire car, there's no doubt about it. And I think you're on the right track, using multiple midranges. It's...

THIS There isn't anything inherently wrong with an elliptical speaker. To say that a round speaker will sound better because "the weight is evenly distribute" is complete nonsense. But you don't see a lot of good speakers in elliptical shapes, and 90% of the elliptical speakers are complete...

The easiest way to improve the bass response when you have a speaker in a door is to put it in a box. Because doors are leaky and resonant, they vibrate along with the woofer, but out of phase. I discovered this the hard way a few years back when I put dual eights in the door of my car, and it...

I'm on a crusade to get everyone to put waveguides in their cars

Getting a good soundstage isn't rocket science. Put the midranges as far and wide as possible. The height of the stage is determined mostly by the height of the tweeters, so higher is better. You don't need to put midranges on your dash to bring the stage up. I *do* have midranges on *my*...

If there was a decent amount of interest, I would be willing to throw together a waveguide that people could use instead of tweeters. Basically a waveguide which wouldn't require an equalizer, wouldn't require any fiberglass work, and would work with a conventional midrange. Basically I would...

The designs that I've published are on the lunatic fringe, but if you want something that's modest and inexpensive, it's definitely possible. The reason that the USD and Image Dynamics horns require EQ is that the horn is a funky shape. If you use a simple waveguide, you won't need EQ. Here's...

They're not that big at all! Here's the MCM waveguide used by John Krutke, installed in my car, with a baffle and a BMS 4540ND: Here's the Unity waveguide made by yours truly, installed in my car, with a baffle and a BMS 4540ND: Painting it made a world of difference.

I tried half a dozen different compression drivers, and I've never found anything that can rival the BMS 4540ND in the car. I will be very very sad if I ever break one, because you can't get the ones I'm using in the US anymore. It is the ultimate car tweeter IMHO. (you can still get the 8ohm...