Anyone else have this front stage issue?

  • 5
    Participant count
  • Participants list

mat3833
10+ year member

CarAudio.com Elite
1,891
372
florida
Alright, bit of a weird question but here we go.

Upgraded my front stage amp and added a set of midrange speakers to run 3 way active. I've got 85w per tweeter and midrange, and 260w per midbass.

Previous amp/setup was 100w for each tweeter/midrange pair(ran passive) and 150w per midbass.

And before that I was running a 2 way passive setup with the same midbass/tweeter as my current setup on 75w per side.

**** sounds amazing. Absolutely love the setup, hands down. But I feel like it's not as loud as it should be considering the power I have on tap. Each driver is getting almost double the power as my last amp/setup, and almost 3x the power as the 2 way setup. And I don't even have a crazy substage right now to blame. It's just a 10w6 in a small sealed enclosure.

Anyone else feel like they need 2000w once you go above a set of comps or is it just me?

Matt
 
Yeah I had a similar issue back in the first G6 I had. I had two speakers out of phase. Once it was corrected I got gobs of volume back.


Edit: also, try 24db crossovers.

Hmm, didn't think about phase issues. I'll have to check that. And Yea, 24db slopes are there. I'm running 80-500 on my midbass, 500-5k on my midrange, and 5k up on my tweeters. I think I may drop the midrange down to 400-4k and let the tweeters play 4k and up and the midbass 400 and down.

Matt
 
I run 1200w rms and it’s perfect 😂. If these are different drivers it could be efficiency. Could also be if you changed locations or a simple error during install.
 
I run 1200w rms and it’s perfect 😂. If these are different drivers it could be efficiency. Could also be if you changed locations or a simple error during install.
Well I've got a 1200w capable amp if I bridge all 4 channel pairs lol. It's possible I have a phase issue.

Matt
 
Assuming you had 150 per channel into your fronts bumping that to 225 per channel (what components will even handle this???) will only give you the equivalent of 1 click on the volume knob more output.

More power is NOT going to be your silver bullet once you're in 100W per channel territory I think.
 
Assuming you had 150 per channel into your fronts bumping that to 225 per channel (what components will even handle this???) will only give you the equivalent of 1 click on the volume knob more output.

More power is NOT going to be your silver bullet once you're in 100W per channel territory I think.

I'm not sure how the power gets split on passive. But before this I had 100w into a crossover for the midr/tweeter pair. Now I have 85w PER driver. I know it takes double the power for a 3db gain, but I also went from off-axis to on-axis in pods and went active.

The midbass performance is a little lackluster, but I'm pretty sure that's an install issue for the moment. I'm more concerned with the midrange/tweeter output at the moment. I have the level on the drivers side about 2db down from the passenger to balance the stage, so I know that's costing me some overall volume, but I figured a 3" midrange getting 85w would be screaming, especially high passed at 500.

Im pretty sure there is a phase issue somewhere. I haven't had time to check that yet.

Matt
 
You say it’s a 3 way?

Are you having cancellation issues? I would make sure your 3 way active isn’t having issue with phasing and woofers crossing or playing the same frequencies and being out of phase with each other. The location and angling of a 3 way might matter a bit more than a 2 way, because of how the speakers divide the frequencies up differently.

I would maybe post up the playing bandwidth of each component of the 3 way, how they’re crossed over or limited from playing outside of that, the db/octave slope, and the location and angling of all of the speakers. I’m not the most familiar with active setups, haven’t hardcore researched or experimented with it much. I’m just looking from a raw sound perspective.

What I’m saying is imagine if you had all of the speakers in the 3 way grouped together like a typical 2 way component would be with built in tweeter, where all the axis of the individual components are linear/truly parallel and in phase. Now if you separate all the axis and angle them differently from each other, that in itself could cause issues, especially if any angles are weird and if there’s any phasing issues on the electrical side of things.

I know staging matters, which is angling. Sound becomes significantly more angular as you move up in frequency, so the locations of woofers can put you out of the “beam” of a tweeter, for example. On the lower end, if speakers are all in a door, you could have door-related resonance issues. You maybe want to consider sealing the midrange and midbass, maybe gain some control over the rear wave resonances, if they aren’t already like that.

Hope maybe some of that helps.
 
Like if your midrange and midbass crossover in the middle frequencies between them, and the midbass has a higher Mms than the midrange, those two speakers are going to try to reproduce those same shared frequencies a little bit differently, possibly. When you have situations where woofers with different Fs’s and cone sizes are trying to play the same notes, there could be some fundamental distortion or cancellation issues, due to the way the different speakers actually move to reproduce those notes. That’s probably a smaller detail, but could be more of an issue, I imagine, if any speakers play a lot of the same frequencies. That’s why I ask what the db/octave is on the crossovers, because sometimes a low one sounds better, but can cause too much overlap in sound where the details of the music are heard.

Maybe you need some really big speakers or something. Some bass head dudes I know that are on here are doing like 130 db at 55 hz with their doors, lol. Make a 3 way active version of that, lol. But your system and what you’re going for sounds dope; it’d be cool to hear that.

Dang missed where you already posted some of that.
 
Last edited:
Hmm, didn't think about phase issues. I'll have to check that. And Yea, 24db slopes are there. I'm running 80-500 on my midbass, 500-5k on my midrange, and 5k up on my tweeters. I think I may drop the midrange down to 400-4k and let the tweeters play 4k and up and the midbass 400 and down.

Matt

Most tweeters that I see play down to 3k. Maybe your midrange isn’t resonating those top few kHz that well. Your smaller tweeter maybe play those lower kHz better than your heavier midrange. 5khz seems too high to me, but I’m not an expert on this. I’d drop them 3 kHz or at least not be afraid to do so. I’d try it. How big are your tweeters and can they play that low?

Your midbass could have cancellation issues in the door with the longer wavelengths it reproduces.
 
Last edited:
Most tweeters that I see play down to 3k. Maybe your midrange isn’t resonating those top few kHz that well. Your smaller tweeter maybe play those lower kHz better than your heavier midrange. 5khz seems too high to me, but I’m not an expert on this. I’d drop them 3 kHz or at least not be afraid to do so. I’d try it. How big are your tweeters and can they play that low?

Your midbass could have cancellation issues in the door with the longer wavelengths it reproduces.

OK, that's alot to answer but I'll try.

Yes, it's a 3 way active setup. Full hertz Mille legend front stage. Ml 1650.3 midbass, ML 700.3 midrange, and ML280.3 tweeters. Aiming is on-axis at my face for the midrange and tweeters. Drivers side are aimed at the headrest, continuing to the passenger C-Pillar. Passenger side are aimed just behind the drivers B-Pillar.

I'm still messing with crossover points and haven't even really gotten into EQ or TA yet. I switched from RCA to Optical signal so I had to restart everything over. It is possible I have some acoustical phase issues right now, all my crossovers are 24db L/R at the moment. I may be switching to 24db Butterworth for the midrange and tweeter so I can seperate the crossover points a little if I'm getting a peak.

It's been hot as BALLS down here so I haven't gotten a ton done besides enclosure design for the subs and some minor tweaks here and there. I will be pulling some RTA sweeps of each speaker pair soon, but I do think I'm going to drop the tweeter down to 4k and drop the midrange down to 400hz-4k. I know the tweeter can play down to 2400ish, probably lower, but I have protection caps wired in on both midrange and tweeters so they can't play anything below 250hz(midrange) and 2500hz(tweeter).

I'm currently waiting on the box guy to give me a quote and time frame for the box panels. He's been no-contact for about 10 days now...

If it stops raining today I'm going to jump in the car and work on some basic T/A and try to get some level matching and RTA measurements done.

Matt
 
OK, that's alot to answer but I'll try.

Yes, it's a 3 way active setup. Full hertz Mille legend front stage. Ml 1650.3 midbass, ML 700.3 midrange, and ML280.3 tweeters. Aiming is on-axis at my face for the midrange and tweeters. Drivers side are aimed at the headrest, continuing to the passenger C-Pillar. Passenger side are aimed just behind the drivers B-Pillar.

I'm still messing with crossover points and haven't even really gotten into EQ or TA yet. I switched from RCA to Optical signal so I had to restart everything over. It is possible I have some acoustical phase issues right now, all my crossovers are 24db L/R at the moment. I may be switching to 24db Butterworth for the midrange and tweeter so I can seperate the crossover points a little if I'm getting a peak.

It's been hot as BALLS down here so I haven't gotten a ton done besides enclosure design for the subs and some minor tweaks here and there. I will be pulling some RTA sweeps of each speaker pair soon, but I do think I'm going to drop the tweeter down to 4k and drop the midrange down to 400hz-4k. I know the tweeter can play down to 2400ish, probably lower, but I have protection caps wired in on both midrange and tweeters so they can't play anything below 250hz(midrange) and 2500hz(tweeter).

I'm currently waiting on the box guy to give me a quote and time frame for the box panels. He's been no-contact for about 10 days now...

If it stops raining today I'm going to jump in the car and work on some basic T/A and try to get some level matching and RTA measurements done.

Matt

EQ’ing can make a world of difference.
 
EQ’ing can make a world of difference.

Agreed, I have some basic EQ from the headunit set. I know I prefer a dip here and there overall so I set the EQ on the headunit to sort of resemble my general curve taste but on a smaller scale. Once I get the enclosure built and installed I can tune everything properly. I'm looking for someone else to cut panels, idk what happened to Dave, but he's been silent for over 2 weeks now...

Matt
 
Agreed, I have some basic EQ from the headunit set. I know I prefer a dip here and there overall so I set the EQ on the headunit to sort of resemble my general curve taste but on a smaller scale. Once I get the enclosure built and installed I can tune everything properly. I'm looking for someone else to cut panels, idk what happened to Dave, but he's been silent for over 2 weeks now...

Matt

Do you know about tuning with pink noise?

And I’m not sure. May just be extremely busy.
 
Do you know about tuning with pink noise?

And I’m not sure. May just be extremely busy.

Yep, I use 0-28k tones and pink noise. My amp actually came with some really high quality tracks that I've been using.

RTA measurements are done with pink noise generally. But I also have a few songs I listen too and I can tell if something is off.

Matt
 
Activity
No one is currently typing a reply...

Similar threads

Are you planning on upgrading the alternator and add extra batteries?
2
522
Seems kind of stupid to prevent helping others with advice on equipment from Amazon, doubt that Amazon is preventing this either. Pain in the arse!
14
670
My point exactly. Sealed, they are pretty decent for midbass output. I bought 4 thinking I would use four of them in the garage for subs. Used two...
23
163
Thanks everyone for the replies! Like I said in my first post I’m not wanting to be loud, I just would like to have a little extra bass.. I like...
12
547
Thinking of going this year. Around August maybe? Never flown before and I know nothing about flights. Any tips on when is best time to buy...
0
25

About this thread

mat3833

10+ year member
CarAudio.com Elite
Thread starter
mat3833
Joined
Location
florida
Start date
Participants
Who Replied
Replies
14
Views
1,632
Last reply date
Last reply from
mat3833
1000006564.jpg

Mr FaceCaser

    Mar 28, 2024
  • 0
  • 0
1000006569.jpg

Mr FaceCaser

    Mar 28, 2024
  • 0
  • 0

Latest topics

Top