3 way

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

here in the near future, i will be glassing my doors. my original plan was for 2 7" and a 1" tweet per door. going active via my 860 in pro mode. i've been thinking lately about doing 2 7's, 1 tweet, and and a 4. i want this to be very clear, and loud. what would i need to do this? any better suggestions? i want to know EXACTLY what i'm doing before i start.

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[CRAZYCORNUTS18 10+ year member]

o i was thinking of a diff 3-way you got me all excited

 

[MiniVanMan 10+ year member]

It's very hard to tune a system using single drivers, much less 2 drivers playing the same frequencies.

Even in home audio, multi-driver systems are pretty hard to design correctly as lobing, baffle step and other various problems exist. So to answer your question, you can either have loud, or you can have "very clear". Very clear will not exist as you will be running into problems with off-axis alignment and cancellations.

However, if you must, this is what I recommend. Two midbass drivers per side, mounted as close together as you can get them. The Peerless SLS would be a great choice as it has a truncated frame so you can pair them up even closer than your standard round frame.

Now the challenge. Each driver within the pair needs to have it's pathlength to your listening position as close to equal as humanly possible. This becomes even more challenging when I say that each driver in a pair needs to be on the same plane, and angle to your listening position. The closer you can get these variables the better it will sound.

If that is done right, output should be exceptional. So, that would necessitate a midrange driver with a pretty high sensitivity. Might I suggest a dome midrange. A dome might eliminate the Peerless SLS 7" driver from contention due to it's inability to really extend that high, so maybe two Adire Extremis', or AA Poly Mids (when they come out again). There are a ton of other options, and frankly, I'm not going to sweat driver choices on this.

So basically, if you want to do this, then install as I stated above, but be prepared for your midbass to be a bit muddied up. It might sound fantastic, or it might sound like crap. It's a crapshoot. Plan on using a dome midrange though, as you'll need the added sensitivity due to the dual 7" drivers.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

so i'd be better off using a single mid? my main concern is the crossover. the hu has 3 outs...sub, mid, and high. could i run the mid to the mids, and the high to a passive crossover, to the midrange and tweet? or would i need an active xover and a forth amp?

 

[MiniVanMan 10+ year member]

so i'd be better off using a single mid? my main concern is the crossover. the hu has 3 outs...sub, mid, and high. could i run the mid to the mids, and the high to a passive crossover, to the midrange and tweet? or would i need an active xover and a forth amp?

You can do it either way. I've done the 4" 2-way passive set with great success before. Then add an appropriate midbass.

If you can fit an 8" then go that route. It's pretty hard to argue the Peerless SLS 8" driver. They get very loud, and stay very controlled in a properly treated door.

You will still need to run the midbass actively though. It will need to be bandpassed so keep that in mind. You'd also need a high pass for the component set.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=295-335

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=264-578

i was thinking of doing 2 of the daytons, and a vifa tweet. do those look ok? i haven't found a mid yet...suggestion?

so what your saying is it'd be ok to run 2 if i keep them the exact same distance from my ear, and on the same plane? so id have to mount them up and down on the door instead of back and forth...am i thinking about this right? cause i don't wanna do that. i wanna sound real good, but i also have a certain 'look' i'm going for. maybe just run one dayton, and a mid. or maybe just the 7 and the tweet active. i wanna opinion that would sound the best, not necisarilly the easiest way, but i don't wanna 'crapshoot'.

 

[MiniVanMan 10+ year member]

One way to do it would be to use two different 7" mids. For example, the Adire Extremis is a great low end pounder, though it's not really known for it's midrange. Great driver. Now for a 7" driver that has fantastic midrange is the Vifa MG18. It's a 7" driver as well, and has fantastic midrange. Run those as a 3-way with a suitable tweeter, and you have your two 7" mids in your doors. They won't be the same color, but it's just an example. With enough research you can probably find a suitably similar looking drivers that will behave relatively closely to the two I just mentioned.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

i was looking at my doors and i was thinking that i may try to glass an enclosure in there. maybe just going a single 6.5(and mid and tweet) would this be better? should it be ported or sealed?

 

[MiniVanMan 10+ year member]

i was looking at my doors and i was thinking that i may try to glass an enclosure in there. maybe just going a single 6.5(and mid and tweet) would this be better? should it be ported or sealed?

Depends on the mid. If you're just looking for 80 hz, there are a ton of drivers that will do 80 hz in a sealed enclosure. Even if it's just a F3 of 80 hz, you can eq the 3 db at 80 hz to get your flat response. Should give you a nice controlled response.

I'm not going to speculate on which mids to use. The L18 is pretty hard to beat as a pure midbass driver. At $70.00 a pop, they're a very nice option. They could exist in an .25 ^ft enclosure, but would excel somewhere around .4 cubes.

Then there's always the Rainbow Kicks. Excellent down to 80 hz. If you want lower, they're not the driver for you. The L18s can be used down to 50 hz if you wanted in the right install.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

what is the L18? which would sould better...a 3 way passive 'set' like the jl 3way comp set. or a 2 way active diy?

 

[MiniVanMan 10+ year member]

That's probably not the right question.

However, I know where you're going, so here's my .02.

Going active, DIY is more about price to performance ratio. You get a lot more for your money, and can be a lot easier to make sound good than a passive set where you're restricted to design of the passive crossover.

The JL 3-way will sound very nice when installed the way the manufacturer intended. The DIY 2-way is a quite a bit more flexible. A DIY 3-way can be a ***** to tune, but once you have it dialed in, it's bliss, and will compete with prepackaged sets costing many times as much money.

So, if you gave me, say a budget of $300.00, I could suggest a rock solid DIY 2-way (active) that would sound on par or better than a comparably priced prepackaged 3-way, that would be a lot more complicated to install (building kicks, etc). For that same money, I could design a 3-way that would knock your socks off, and be a good bit more flexible in installation, but you would need the processing to do it.

The L18 is an offering from Seas. Many of the drivers recommended in the DIY community come from Seas. Peerless, ScanSpeak, and Vifa are also major players. Then you have your Morels, Audax, Eton, etc. And, let's not forget Dayton. Vifa is a major supplier/builder of many, many car audio speakers that just stamp their name on the product. CDT anyone? Alpine, Polk, and many others as well.

Clear as mud????

 

[jmanpc 5,000+ posts]

High five for mini vans.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

i get what your saying. so my best bet for right now, would be an active 2 way setup, since the extra processing is just not in my budget. then later down the road i can add a midrange and a processor. i don't really have a set budget yet seeing as how right now i'm completly broke. i wanna stay as cheap as possible, without being 'cheap' and while still retaining good sound. if i had to guess, i'd say $200-250. i like my music crystal clear. thats why i think going active is gonna be much more to my liking than the passive re set i got now. i don't really need the mids to go below 80 i believe that is the subs job...but right now i have my comps high passed @150hz cause anything below that and the mids start getting muddy. so there's a big gap in my range (80-150hz) that i'm just totally missing.