Assistance Choosing 3-Way Component set

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I am in the process of completely rebuilding the lower doors on my car because the midbasses I wanted to use would not fit in the factory location without hitting the window when it was rolled down or, if I spaced it out to kepp from hitting the window, the factory grill. It pained me greatly to cut into my door panel but I wanted those speakers. I probably would have bought 8's if I had know from the beginning that I was going to be doing this amount of work. You can get most anything to fit, it's just a matter of how much time you want to take to make it fit.

As far as porting the midbasses, if you have the T/S parameters for the midbass you want to use it is simply a matter of plugging it into a box building program and figuring out what will work. Once you have the required volume and tuning, you design the pod/enclosure to those specs.

If you are running a component set then tuning of the system is a bit more simple. For tuning purposes, you can basically treat the set as a single driver. They already have a crossover that should be designed to provide the smoothest transition between the mid and the tweet, all you will have to do is match the levels and figure out the x-over freq between the midrange and the midbass. You might need to play with the phase a little as well. These are thing that you will have to do with any system if you want it to sound its best.

Equipment that you will need to set everything up: a test CD, an RTA (many shops will rent the use of theirs in their bay for tuning sessions.)

For wiring, if you are sticking with JL, you will not need or want any 8ga wire, so you can cross that off your list. To figure out how much wire you need, you need to know the basic layout of the system. How far will it be from the distrobution blocks to the amps? You are going to need at least 1/0 to go from the battery to the trunk. From there distro to 3 4ga (one for each 1000/1 and one to the 450/4). With that kind of power I would consider running a ground wire back to the battery. Many on the board here disagree with me but Manville smith from JL will tell you the same thing. They recommend running a direct battery ground any time you are useing larger than 4 ga primary wire because they have found that the sheetmetal of modern cars is not as good a conductor as it was always believed. It's just too thin and does not give a good return path for a high current load.

 

[TimberJon 10+ year member]

Well hmmm if i could fit two drivers in my doors with a port in the middle or something, would that be a good setup? I would spend the time needed to custom cut the door paneling. I will try to get some inside pics of the panels and stuff today so you can see what i have to work with. Basically my door is wierd, the bottom paneling is a molded plastic piece that has a little pocket for stuff (i use it for trash) and the pod for the speaker, with an odd-shaped grill of the same material. Looking at it, it looks as if the speaker i have is right up against the drill, like the driver cone would hit the grill. but it doesnt that i can tell.. perhaps if i put more power through them it might. but my broken stock piece of crap is barely putting out 4 or 5 watts i bet. something also fried inside that cut my bass out by more than half. So im eagerly trying to figure out the wiring i need so i can get it installed with my radio, that way i'll be set, and wont have to spend any more time in the shop, Can probably do the rest myself too.

whatever the components i get for the front, i want them to drive hard, sound clear, and have the best crossovers from the manufacturer. Programmable crossovers are i think the best description ive seen. whatever the case i'll want to get some good wattage too, and put some good power through em. Umm the only other thing i could think of was the crossovers.. i want to pay some good money for brand name stuff. CDT seems like some good drivers, the '04 models. im gunna look at their website now.

Knukonceptz has my vote for wiring, and ill probably get it there. Id like to order it soon.

I saw a battery terminal that has dual 1/0 out, and dual 4ga out. And a nice distro block that takes two 1/0, and splits it to 3 4ga. Does it matter if my distro blocks are fused, if im going to have those big ANL type fuses wired before the amps? I would say its good to have backup. Wouldnt want a .001% chance of my equip getting damaged in any small way.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Each time you step to a smaller size wire you should have a fuse rated for less that the capacity of that wire as close as possible to the beginning of that wire. It is there as a safety catch incase something happens to that wire. The ANL fuse you have under the hood will need to be bigger likely than the rated capacity of the 4ga wire. The wire will over heat before that fuse blows, which is bad. You need another fuse, and ANL is the only type widely available big enough to cover the 1000/1s, but I have seen MAXI type fuses rated at 100A.

 

[TimberJon 10+ year member]

if i use a plain distro block, I would want to fuse every line coming out of it.

But if i used Fused distribution, should i still fuse the lines coming out of it? like redundant backup? or will it bottleneck the current going out to the amps?

What if i want lighting or some other powered gadget back there? could i get a distro block that accepts 2 I/0 wires, and 4 ga out? So that i have an extra 4ga back there should i need it later on? possibly for fans?

obviously i wouldnt use 4ga for fans.. id split it down again.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

You only need a single fuse on the wire.

For additional power to the rear for accessories such as fans and lights and my EQs and remote leads, I got a small distro block for custom hot rods and boats that takes standard automotive 2-blade ATC fuses and am feeding it off the 2nd 1/0 input to my distro blocks with an insert to make it a 4ga output. The wire runs to a terminal ring attached to the small distro block where it is divided to 6 fused outputs. Simple, elegant and inexpensive ($15 shipped off eBay).

 

[TimberJon 10+ year member]

whoa with the electrical terms and stuff. I know what a distro block is but i dont understand the setup you have. your 2nd 1/0 gage cable is split to six 8ga or something? or it goes to a distro block and then you run a few wires off the ring ter...minal... ok im lost. Im really slow with audio... im visual/spatial... so i ask that ya dont waste your time explaining it to me unless you believe i should do it in my trunk as well. If i should, and not use a Four 4-ga out distro block, then fire away =) im listening. just.. dont want ya to waste your time.

Respectfully - Jon

For all still viewing this, I AM still interested in finding out the best component setup for my car. SO! i finally got some pics of my door panels and dash and all that good stuff. Heres the links to my pics. i saved them outside of this server so the file sizes could be larger.

http://www.twhq.homestead.com/files/car1.jpg

http://www.twhq.homestead.com/files/car2.jpg

http://www.twhq.homestead.com/files/car3.jpg

http://www.twhq.homestead.com/files/car4.jpg

http://www.twhq.homestead.com/files/car5.jpg

any suggestions on cutting my doors, installing dual-woofers, or where to mount tweeters would be cool. You'll notice in one of the pictures you can see the ugly grill and my 3-way pioneer full range behind it. Only nice thing that i can see about the door pods are that they are thick. they bulge out, and pretty far, still leaving inches of room between the lower door panels and the seats. So i can stick em out a little bit more if i have to, say if i was putting some kind of ported enclosure in there for the drivers.. anywho, take a looksee and see what you can

 

[dogears 10+ year member]

The subs play a very narrow frequency band so you can port them and still have good sq. Please do not port the midbass drivers because they need to have a flat frequency response. Your midbass has a large part to do with sound quality and with them ported it would be almost impossible to eq them flat. For the frequency you tuned them to they would have a steep rolloff below that and a larger peak just above the tuning frequency. Lets say you cross over your subs @ 60hz and your midbass's would run 60-250hz. If you tune them to 90hz for instance you could have 5-10db drop @ 65hz and + 5 db @ 120hz then drop to -1db @ 200hz.(all #'s are theoretical and would vary in car due to midbass boosting properties of car) Punch in the parameters in winisd and to get a ported box for a midbass that would play flat. The box would be about half as large as your sub box at minimum. I'm sure there are people who have done it and made it work but it wouldnt be easy for an average sq setup. As for not having cancellation with speakers facing each other. Lets see you face your subs together and not wire them out of phase. Speakers facing each other can and will have some cancelation if running in phase. You are correct in saying that it will emphasize other frequencies but most of them will be in the mid and upper frequencies. Play a track recorded in/out of phase on 90% of the cars with door speakers facing each other and they will need to be wired out of phase. I was just suggesting something that would be fairly simple to install and have great sq for a daily driver. Component set in the doors and component set in prefab Q logic kicks would be easy to install in his maxima and sound great. Dont believe it come listen to mine and I bet the imaging and staging are as good as your 8, 5.25, & tweet setup and put in in half the time.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

A ported midbass in a Besel alignment will exhibit a perfectly flat response to the tuning freq and roll off at 12dB per octave below that. There will not be a peak in the response. Midbasses will not respond to porting the same way that subs will. Subs get their peak from 1) mistuning and 2) cabin gain. The midbass MUST be tuned correctly and does not get much from cabin gain because of the higher frequency involved. The volume of the enclosure is important but the tuning frequency is even more important for a flat response. There is only one combination of volume and tuning that will yeild a flat response for a given driver. You must match the driver to the space you have available and the frequency you need. If you are set on using a certain midbass, your crossover frequency will be set by what the driver can do. You can't arbitrarily pick a crossover freq and then expect a given midbass to be able to work with that freq. Also, not all misbasses are suitable for porting, just as not all subs are. You MUST pick the right midbass for the job.

As for cancellation, learn about basic acoustics and come back. Unless there is sufficient space between the drivers especially subs for the wave form to get out of phase, there can be no cancellation. Cancellation at higher freqs has nothing to do with speaker aiming and everything to do with phasing as do all cancellation issues. There are cancellation nodes for different frequencies at different locations all around the car. You can find a spot in the car for every frequency of the spectrum where it is totally cancelled and one where it is perfectly in phase. That point will be different for every freq. Aiming of the speakers does not affect where that point is. The reason you aim a high freq speaker is not phasing related. Most speakers exhibit a better frequency response on-axis rather than off-axis. By getting the high freq drivers more on-axis to the listener, the frequency response improves.

Basically you are talking about stuff you don't understand.