3way comp question

[Jeremy M 10+ year member]

Okay, in my dodge neon i've been contemplating running a 3way set of comps...soemthign along the lines of 6.5" driver, 4" mid, 1" tweeter.

so i already run a 6.5 mid in my stock location in my doors and i put my 1" tweeter in the window sails....now if i were to get a new 3 way set....are u supposed to put the speakers really close or in a certain order?

i have my stock 3.5" speaker location not being used on my dash way up in the corners by the window sails....if i were to get a 3 way set, could i put the 6.5 in the door like i currently do, the 1" in the window sails and the 4" in my dash or would that throw everything out of wack and be a waste of a good 3way comp set?

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[kovemaster559 5,000+ posts]

Okay, in my dodge neon i've been contemplating running a 3way set of comps...soemthign along the lines of 6.5" driver, 4" mid, 1" tweeter.
so i already run a 6.5 mid in my stock location in my doors and i put my 1" tweeter in the window sails....now if i were to get a new 3 way set....are u supposed to put the speakers really close or in a certain order?

i have my stock 3.5" speaker location not being used on my dash way up in the corners by the window sails....if i were to get a 3 way set, could i put the 6.5 in the door like i currently do, the 1" in the window sails and the 4" in my dash or would that throw everything out of wack and be a waste of a good 3way comp set?

i say put them all on the door! it will be better location!

 

[UCF52 10+ year member]

You have an 880 and you want to stay passive...? Any reason you don't want to go 2-way front active?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

A waste of a good 3-way.

The only way reasonable attempt to have that setup work decently is if you were doing it active.

 

[Jeremy M 10+ year member]

I am currently active on my front stage.

A waste of a good 3-way.
The only way reasonable attempt to have that setup work decently is if you were doing it active.

That's what i was figuring, but if i were to run a 3 way ACTIVE set in those locations i mentioned, it'd be alot of fine tuning and probably not turn out how it is supposed to sound?

and ideally, how would i want to set it up....all 3 in the door like Kove said?

 

[Jeremy M 10+ year member]

lol school me on this, i need a better understanding...

or how about option #2:

i run my RSD 6.5 for mid bass, and my type R 6.5 as a mid and the type R tweets...all active of course?

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

Okay, in my dodge neon i've been contemplating running a 3way set of comps...soemthign along the lines of 6.5" driver, 4" mid, 1" tweeter.
so i already run a 6.5 mid in my stock location in my doors and i put my 1" tweeter in the window sails....now if i were to get a new 3 way set....are u supposed to put the speakers really close or in a certain order?

i have my stock 3.5" speaker location not being used on my dash way up in the corners by the window sails....if i were to get a 3 way set, could i put the 6.5 in the door like i currently do, the 1" in the window sails and the 4" in my dash or would that throw everything out of wack and be a waste of a good 3way comp set?

Ok my friend, here we go:

First your location can work fine. If you look at a lot of the cars from across the pond, they use dash mount midranges all the time, in competition none the less. Also top in mounted high in the dash or a-pillars has grown in use here in the states also.

If you are not planing to compete you will be fine. A lot of people worry about reflection, but if used right that are not all bad. Mount high in the dash will keep your soundstage high. And honsetly most people don't know what reflective sound sounds like, they have just read somewhere that it is a bad thing, but in the car reflection is a part of life and is no way around it unless you are ready to do a complete rebuild of your cars interior and even then its not completly done away with.

I see you have a the Pioneer 880. Now with the 880 you can do a 3 active front stage if you have to right amps:

1. 3 way active.

Use the highpass (lets says 4 khz) and send that to your tweeter amp

Then use the bandpass(lets say 70hz-4khz. Don't remember the lowest piont on the 880), but Y the signal and send it to your Midrange and Midbass amp. Here is where the amp comes in to play. The amp will need to cross that can high pass the midranges around 250khz or above and then do a lowpass on the midbasses amp @ 250khz.

And the lowpass the your sub amp.

All active. I done this in a few cars, and its works great.

2. I need to look at the lowest point of the highpass crossover of the 880 to see if you could do active/passive 3-way front. I do not remember been a few months since I have used one. Thats passive midrange and tweeter and active midbass, and sub.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Ok my friend, here we go:
First your location can work fine. If you look at a lot of the cars from across the pond, they use dash mount midranges all the time, in competition none the less. Also top in mounted high in the dash or a-pillars has grown in use here in the states also.

If you are not planing to compete you will be fine. A lot of people worry about reflection, but if used right that are not all bad. Mount high in the dash will keep your soundstage high. And honsetly most people don't know what reflective sound sounds like, they have just read somewhere that it is a bad thing, but in the car reflection is a part of life and is no way around it unless you are ready to do a complete rebuild of your cars interior and even then its not completly done away with.

It was not necessarily the reflections that worried me....it was the inability to time align the midrange independent of the midbass....as time alignment on both would be necessary and they would also need to be different values.

You do not need high mounted mids to achieve a high soundstage. If you can't get a high soundstage with kicks....you're doing something wrong.....

As for reflections.....they are a can of worms. In kicks/etc steps can be taken to mitigate the amount of early reflections. You can not do this with dash mounted mids. You will always get some comb filtering from the windshield/etc up there and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it like you can in kicks/etc. You can get an idea of where you'll run into problems my measuring the distance from the speaker to the reflective surface (windshield/etc) and use that measurement to determine frequency. My personal opinion is to avoid early reflections if possible, and would consider high-mounted mids less than ideal for the average user. Yes, some people have used them with good results but they generally have far more experience and knowledge than the average user, and they typically have greater processing power than a 880PRS.

I see you have a the Pioneer 880. Now with the 880 you can do a 3 active front stage if you have to right amps:
1. 3 way active.

Use the highpass (lets says 4 khz) and send that to your tweeter amp

Then use the bandpass(lets say 70hz-4khz. Don't remember the lowest piont on the 880), but Y the signal and send it to your Midrange and Midbass amp. Here is where the amp comes in to play. The amp will need to cross that can high pass the midranges around 250khz or above and then do a lowpass on the midbasses amp @ 250khz.

And the lowpass the your sub amp.

All active. I done this in a few cars, and its works great.

Again, doing this method would not allow him independent time alignment of the midrange and midbass.....which would be absolutely necessary. Not a good plan......

2. I need to look at the lowest point of the highpass crossover of the 880 to see if you could do active/passive 3-way front. I do not remember been a few months since I have used one. Thats passive midrange and tweeter and active midbass, and sub.

That could possibly "work"....though it'd still be less than ideal as the highpass of the midrange would be a fixed value, so I still wouldn't consider it ideal considering the install location. But atleast now he'd have independent time alignment of the midrange and midbass. You'd also want to verify the design of the passive crossover, as it's potentially harmful to run a passive without a driver connected (midbass) depending on the specific design of the passive. It's only a single order that you really need to worry about in that regard.....I'm thinking it's 2nd order off hand.....

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

It was not necessarily the reflections that worried me....it was the inability to time align the midrange independent of the midbass....as time alignment on both would be necessary and they would also need to be different values.

So are you say you need time alignment to have a good sounding system. Don't get me wrong I totally understand your point, but I think we are getting a little deep for what he is asking, but I could be wrong.

You do not need high mounted mids to achieve a high soundstage. If you can't get a high soundstage with kicks....you're doing something wrong.....

Not sure where this statement came from, but your are correct. But once again we are off topic of what he asked. Believe I have built more then my few cars with kicks, door and dash/apillar mount speakers for competition and daily drivers and all of the position have their down falls and positive points, and as you know it goes a lot deeper then just dropping speakers in Kick panels or in the dash to get correct imaging and staging and still have good tonal quality.

As for reflections.....they are a can of worms. In kicks/etc steps can be taken to mitigate the amount of early reflections. You can not do this with dash mounted mids. You will always get some comb filtering from the windshield/etc up there and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it like you can in kicks/etc. You can get an idea of where you'll run into problems my measuring the distance from the speaker to the reflective surface (windshield/etc) and use that measurement to determine frequency. My personal opinion is to avoid early reflections if possible, and would consider high-mounted mids less than ideal for the average user. Yes, some people have used them with good results but they generally have far more experience and knowledge than the average user, and they typically have greater processing power than a 880PRS.

Again, doing this method would not allow him independent time alignment of the midrange and midbass.....which would be absolutely necessary. Not a good plan......

I agree once more, but once more we are not talking about Kick panels, He want s to use the factory location he has. Reflection can be use to your advantage if you aim be correctly, but as you said to is a whole other can of worms, and IMO is just a little to deep for what he ask. I just think to say it is a waste is just a bit of a strong statement. I will challenge anyone to say I could make the car sound very good with the 880 using mounting location he asked about and with or without time alignment. I will not be prefect in no way, but it will be better then most. I done it in a few cars, the ones that pop in my head is a Jeep Grand Cherokee 95 and a 90 something Chevy/GMC pickup. And both of these trucks sound very good not prefect, but better then 75% of the system you hear on the street. Yes kicks and other things would have made the systems better, but they didn't want custom work. Would they have been better if I had time alignment to play with, Yes, but is it necessary to have good sound, No. I don't consider put tweeters in doors and in the a-pillars custom if the a-pillars and big enough to mount the tweeters. Neither of them is going to win any comps, but the owners was more then happy.

Honestly would I have done it this way if it was my cars, more the likely not, but for my wife yes, shes not as picky as I'm, but likes good sound and I about to do something very close to the same thing in her 95 Grand Cherokee use a Eclipse 8053. The only thing I doing different is moving the tweeters to the a-pillars and the mids are going in the stock location the factory tweeters come in the dash at the edge of the dash next to the a-pillar. I have been playing with it for about a week now testing it and with just drop them in the location with cardboard as a baffle it sounds good, not very good or great, but it will get better once I have the 8053 and make real baffle for them and mount the tweeters in and aim them.

So just saying it is a waste is a bit strong to me.

That could possibly "work"....though it'd still be less than ideal as the highpass of the midrange would be a fixed value, so I still wouldn't consider it ideal considering the install location. But atleast now he'd have independent time alignment of the midrange and midbass. You'd also want to verify the design of the passive crossover, as it's potentially harmful to run a passive without a driver connected (midbass) depending on the specific design of the passive. It's only a single order that you really need to worry about in that regard.....I'm thinking it's 2nd order off hand.....

I agree this is better, if time alignment is a must. On the crossover, If I'm understanding you correctly, If you use just a 2 way crossover for the midranges and tweeters with the highpass from the 880 and the midbasses active from bandpass the 880 you shouldn't have a problem. With ether set-up I say, if it is possible move the tweeters to the a-pillars to get them a little closer to the midrange in the dash and then just time align the midbass to the midrange.

But squeak9798 that is some good info you put out man!

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

I will challenge anyone to say I could make the car sound very good with the 880 using mounting location he asked about and with or without time alignment.

I would take that challenge //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Without time alignment, in that configuration, it would EXTREMELY difficult to achieve a good sounding frontstage. Ignoring everything else for a second....the time arrival differences of both the individual midbass and midrange, along with the arrival differences between both midbass compared to both midrange, would make it nearly impossible to create a coherent soundstage....which would totally lose it for me. IME stereo systems without a coherent soundstage tend to also suffer from tonality problems (likely due to the same acoustic issues that are fogging up the soundstage).

If you use just a 2 way crossover for the midranges and tweeters with the highpass from the 880 and the midbasses active from bandpass the 880 you shouldn't have a problem.

I was referring to using the stock CDT 3-way passive with only the mid and tweeter connected.....depending on the design of that open output on the crossover, it's possible for it to present a dead short to the amplifier within that frequency range.....which as I'm sure you can imagine is not a good situation //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif Won't happen with all crossovers obviously, but it is a potential problem. It was more just a warning to research before attempting something like that.

As to my comments of it being a "waste"......my point is; Would it be better to have an excellent 2-way system using the capabilities of the 880PRS or a cobbled together, highly non-idealized 3-way setup?? IMO the 2-way would clearly be the superior option. Going to a 3-way in this particular instance would, IMO, be a waste compared to the other available option (2-way active).

 

[Jeremy M 10+ year member]

good info here guys, keep it coming.

and if i did go 3 way with a substage included...i would use a Y adapter to split the rear/mid RCA set correct?

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

I would take that challenge //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif
Without time alignment, in that configuration, it would EXTREMELY difficult to achieve a good sounding frontstage. Ignoring everything else for a second....the time arrival differences of both the individual midbass and midrange, along with the arrival differences between both midbass compared to both midrange, would make it nearly impossible to create a coherent soundstage....which would totally lose it for me. IME stereo systems without a coherent soundstage tend to also suffer from tonality problems (likely due to the same acoustic issues that are fogging up the soundstage).

I still will have to disagree up to a point, by moving the tweeter to the a-pillar the path lengths of the tweeter and the midrange should be close enough not to be a big issue. At that Point use the time delay to align the midbass drivers if need be. Also by playing around with mechanical phase will help also. Also if the tweeter is ran say 5-6khz and above path length is not very important in the range. It can be controlled to intense techniques, such as gain levels and angles. But the mid will need to be able to reach that high cleanly. 400hz and below is path length angle has little to with image and staging. Most important is the midrange. And once we are talking a better then average system not a no holds bare system hear. Not EXTREMELY difficult, but not the easiest.

Also if you are trying to get good imaging and staging from the drivers set this makes it a lot easier. From both seats now we are in a whole other ballpark!

I was referring to using the stock CDT 3-way passive with only the mid and tweeter connected.....depending on the design of that open output on the crossover, it's possible for it to present a dead short to the amplifier within that frequency range.....which as I'm sure you can imagine is not a good situation //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif Won't happen with all crossovers obviously, but it is a potential problem. It was more just a warning to research before attempting something like that.

True!

As to my comments of it being a "waste"......my point is; Would it be better to have an excellent 2-way system using the capabilities of the 880PRS or a cobbled together, highly non-idealized 3-way setup?? IMO the 2-way would clearly be the superior option. Going to a 3-way in this particular instance would, IMO, be a waste compared to the other available option (2-way active).

Now I totally agree with the statement in bold, But also door mount mids and tweeters are not the best location either. If the tweeter and mid is that far apart the mid need to have a wide frequency range, in order to mate with the mount high in the door are the a-pillars. Some like to run their tweeters down to 2.5khz, this is just not a good idea with small compact dome tweeters, Can you say distortion, not only that but thinning of the upper midrange and a lost of dynamics.

 

[Jeremy M 10+ year member]

ok, so if i put lets say the 4" mid in the door but about evenly between the tweet in the sails and the 6.5 in the stock location....that would allow for a better blend w/o too much time delay?

just trying to soak all this info up.