Active speaker placement

[pimpnyou204 10+ year member]

Alright I have a few questions about going active on where to place my speakers. Yes I know another one of these threads. I have a 2010 altima coupe and I have come to hate this car for car audio. Equipments in sig but mods I have will be changed obviously for the active setup but I'd also like to know what other equipment I would need for this.

My car speakers stock are set up like this 6x9 in the rear 6 1/2 in the 2 doors and 3 inch in the front dash corners.

Now what I'm asking is where should I place my midrange midbass tweeters etc. I can't do kicks there's no space on the driver side. Should I do my midbass in the rear deck as an ib kind of thing then mods in the door and tweets in dash?

Or I could do bass in door with tweets and 3 inch mods in the dash?

I've given some thought to changing my 29 ported box to a sealed enclosure and playing maybe up to 100hz. Thoughts on this?

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[Bumpin' Goalie 10+ year member]

I vote mids in well-treated doors, large format tweeters in the dash. As far as subwoofer duty, possibly consider IB through the rear deck, or rear seats. This would allow you to use stock locations for the front doors and avoid major cutting or fabrication. If you insist on going with a 3-way front stage, which would require fabrication, then I'd put the mid-bass in the kicks, mid range either a-pillar or door, and tweeter either a-pillar or kick.

Lastly, to enhance imaging, I'd try to avoid having anything over 80hz coming from behind you as it will be localized.

Best wishes.

 

[pimpnyou204 10+ year member]

You really think a IB woofer install would sound better than a sealed box walled off facing forward?

I'd rather not fabricate and if I have to as little as possible. How would a 6.5 midbass in the door tweets in the kicks or door and then my midrange 3" in the dash? The only thing I'm worried about is if my midrange being 3" will keep up with the tweets and midbass bcuz it's only 3". But I do get a large amount of bounce back from my window.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

you want tweeters at your desired stage height - i.e. apillars/dash area. mids in the kicks is doable, but you need to relocate what is there currently and fabricate kick panels - no small feat, but doable.

dash mids is also difficult due to fabrication and airspace requirements. kick midbass is even more difficult due to airspace and vibration concerns. you can excite structural modes in the floor. most successful kick midbass installs have heavy modifications to the kick and floor area.

a properly done 2-way can sound great. start with that. then, after you've got a 2-way properly installed, you can consider a 3-way.

another 3-way option is dome midrange in lieu of cone. dome midrange alleviates the need for an enclosure, allowing for a smaller form factor. the down side is that you have a crossover point in the middle of the vocal range.

sub sealed and walled off can sound good, as can a IB/TB. I've gone TB and i'm very pleased. my decision was based on the desire to retain trunk space.

if you don't have adequate time alignment, then your placement options may change. you do need something to provide flexible crossovers for each driver, which i don't see listed in your sig. what processor do you plan on using? you'll need more than 4 amp channels if you want to run rear drivers. to run active you need an amp channel for each driver, and you would like to have a pre-out for each driver as well. rears are something that can be added later, if you have adequate processing for it.

start with the front. fully deaden and seal the doors (required for midbass anyway). plan on midbass in the doors - since it's the easiest to accomplish. after the front doors and woofers are in place (Starting with a 2-way) then start testing tweeter locations. use velcro to test tweeter aiming and position. once that is decided, you can determine if you want to tackle the fabrication of a 3-way, or just run 2-way for a while.

you can test midrange locations as well, difficult with cone drivers due to the airspace requirements, but easy with dome drivers.

 

[pimpnyou204 10+ year member]

you want tweeters at your desired stage height - i.e. apillars/dash area. mids in the kicks is doable, but you need to relocate what is there currently and fabricate kick panels - no small feat, but doable.
dash mids is also difficult due to fabrication and airspace requirements. kick midbass is even more difficult due to airspace and vibration concerns. you can excite structural modes in the floor. most successful kick midbass installs have heavy modifications to the kick and floor area.

a properly done 2-way can sound great. start with that. then, after you've got a 2-way properly installed, you can consider a 3-way.

another 3-way option is dome midrange in lieu of cone. dome midrange alleviates the need for an enclosure, allowing for a smaller form factor. the down side is that you have a crossover point in the middle of the vocal range.

sub sealed and walled off can sound good, as can a IB/TB. I've gone TB and i'm very pleased. my decision was based on the desire to retain trunk space.

if you don't have adequate time alignment, then your placement options may change. you do need something to provide flexible crossovers for each driver, which i don't see listed in your sig. what processor do you plan on using? you'll need more than 4 amp channels if you want to run rear drivers. to run active you need an amp channel for each driver, and you would like to have a pre-out for each driver as well. rears are something that can be added later, if you have adequate processing for it.

start with the front. fully deaden and seal the doors (required for midbass anyway). plan on midbass in the doors - since it's the easiest to accomplish. after the front doors and woofers are in place (Starting with a 2-way) then start testing tweeter locations. use velcro to test tweeter aiming and position. once that is decided, you can determine if you want to tackle the fabrication of a 3-way, or just run 2-way for a while.

you can test midrange locations as well, difficult with cone drivers due to the airspace requirements, but easy with dome drivers.

With an sax 100.4 u can use that for crossovers right all i would need is a processor wouldnt i?

And i guess i can stick to a 2 way set up and work from there, it makes sense then from there i can see where im actually lacking (mids midbass highs) then beef up in that area. Makes sense.

The only thing im afraid of doing an IB install is i love bass, but i dont need a ton and i like what i have now and will be droping some rms in my substage and i know ill lose even more with an IB and i just dont want to lose too much. But how would a sealed enclosure compared to ported for SQness?

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Sundown SAX 100.4D

•Independent 1/2 and 3/4 Channel High Pass Filter Variable

•with x 10 Range Selectable Switch

•Independent 1/2 and 3/4 Channel Low Pass Filter Variable

•with x 10 Range Selectable Switch

•HPF/FULL/LPF Selectable Switch

•Independent 1/2 and 3/4 Channel Electronic Crossover Slope Selectable

•Switch with 12dB and 24dB Octave

The "D" model is newer, i don't know if your crossovers are the same. I can't tell from the specs if you can bandpass channels 3/4 - it doesn't look like you can. you want a bandpass filter on the midrange/midbass drivers.

if you like what you have now, stick with it. IB/TB is a ton of work. can sound awesome, but requires the right sub(s). either sealed or ported can sound good - if properly implemented. sub performance is determined by the install/enclosure. anything done right can sound good.

 

[Bumpin' Goalie 10+ year member]

I'll just emphasize a couple of things keep_hope_alive has already touched on:

A properly applied 2-way can be very successful, especially if you aren't looking to do much fabrication. Sealing/deadening the doors will be helpful and prove beneficial/worth the time and cost.

I am partial to IB, but same as keep_hope_alive, I also work around space constraints. Sealed or ported alignments can also be very well rounded if planned and used properly while being much easier to implement. IB is a bit of work, so you may want to avoid it for this time. That being said, I am partial to sealed alignments in most non-SPL cases as it generally has a smoother roll off in its frequency curve. Once you factor in cabin gain, it can bring the curve very close to flat before EQ.

Ported alignments can also sound quite nice, however the majority of the time, after cabin gain, they will have an exaggerated bump at and slightly above tuning. Many people enjoy this, but it's not for everyone.

To finish, anything used to its fullest potential and installed correctly has the ability to sound good. Some are just easier to get to that point than others. It all revolves around your goals and amount of effort and money you wish to invest.

 

[pimpnyou204 10+ year member]

Yea I've kinda went away from the IN install my trunk has too many crevaces for it especially in the tail lights.

I think I'm gonna go with the 2 way set up put my tweets in the dash and mods in the door. Then after that I can roll into 3 way and move tweets in the pillars then mids in the dash or kicks depending on time alignment.

I think I'm gonna try a sealed enclosure my car has heavy peaks in the mid 40s I don't like and hopefully I can tame that in a sealed enclosure some.

My sax 100.4 has a 10 range switch which I can put on lpf and go into bandpass with the subsonic and lpf up into like the 1000s+. this would work correct? Then I wouldn't really need a processor no?

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

http://www.sundownaudio.com/pdfs/SAX504_1004_1252.pdf

bummer the manual doesn't go into better detail on a 2-way active with woofer and tweeter.

it does look like the combination of a 10x LPF and a subsonic will give you a bandpass.

 

[Bumpin' Goalie 10+ year member]

Yes, if my memory serves me right, you can create a bandpass for the mids and a high pass for the tweeters.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

that is a nice feature in an amplifier. i personally think all 4 channel amps should have 10x switches for crossovers.

note that when you select 12dB/oct you have a 180 deg. phase shift. i prefer to keep adjacent crossover points at the same slope to minimize phase issues. you can't tell if they build in phase compensation from specs or owner's manuals. you can listen to it and tell though.

 

[pimpnyou204 10+ year member]

I don't think it phase shifts bcuz I'm on 12 db now but why would anyone make the amp do that?

And yes I agree every amp should have bandpass option some how otherwise u can't really run mids. It's part of the reason I paid the extra lil bit to save on a processor and it seemed to work //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[disturbed471985 5,000+ posts]

I say start out like suggested above with a 2 way then once you get that set you can move on to a 3 way setup. The SD amp has a decent crossover section. Running my setup active 2ohm load per channel and its gonna sound very nice. I bought a b-stock from jacob that was suppose to have major scratches thus the reason it was a b-stock but I got it in a few days ago and it brand new. Jacob ran out of scratch and dent models and since I had already paid and he said he had some he sent me a perfect one. $210 shipped

 

[pimpnyou204 10+ year member]

Agreed love my 100.4 thinking of picking up another one for the 3 way setup and maybe run my 15 on channel 7 and 8 bridged at 4 ohms. Anyone used one as sub amp and see how the output is (obv not much being a 4 channel) but as over heating sq etc?

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

I don't think it phase shifts bcuz I'm on 12 db now but why would anyone make the amp do that?

every 12dB/oct crossover has a 180 deg phase shift (as does 18dB/oct). it is inherent in all crossovers - active or passive. you'll only notice it around crossover frequencies where the speakers overlap. it's one reason why devices have a phase switch 0 - 180 deg. it is up to each manufacturer/designer to try to compensate for the phase shift in the design. even my H701 had a phase shift with 12dB/ and 18dB/oct slope selections.

some info on active filters

Active Filters