Can Coaxials exist peacefully with tweeters?

[Ursula1000]

I have Alpine SPE-6000 coaxials installed on all four doors bottom with the factory stock tweeter domes up by the front window pillars. It sounds too harsh. I hear some bass but it seems the sound isn't full. The highs are too harsh and in your face. I am driving them with an Alpine battery pack amp. I got the treble set to -2.

My question: since the coaxials have built in tweeters, do I have too many tweeters and is that why it all sounds thin? Would I be better to swap out the coaxials and stock tweeters and put in components? I drive a 2012 Scion xB. I appreciate any feedback.

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[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Disconnect coaxial tweeters and run the stock tweeters instead. Try that before buying new speakers.

 

[zako 10+ year member]

IMO, yes, this is a common car audio beginner mistake. A sound system consists of ALL woofers and tweeters involved as well as the crossover that joins them. They were designed to work well together. If you replace just one component and it actually sounds good, then it will be by a sheer luck. If you replace the woofer with a different one that has a coaxial mounted tweeter, this is even worse because in addition to potentially a mismatched woofer you also have twice as many tweeters as you need. This can make high frequencies louder, and also make imaging worse than it used to be.

A good starting point is to get a component speaker set, the one that comes with its own tweeter, woofer, and crossover box. You can certainly try to disconnect the tweeter on the coaxial speaker you have, but be careful. Depending on the crossover type that the speaker uses, you could should circuit the amplifier if you disconnect the wrong wire (this could happen if the tweeter uses second order high pass crossover network).

 

[matt_bennett05 10+ year member]

IMO, yes, this is a common car audio beginner mistake. A sound system consists of ALL woofers and tweeters involved as well as the crossover that joins them. They were designed to work well together. If you replace just one component and it actually sounds good, then it will be by a sheer luck. If you replace the woofer with a different one that has a coaxial mounted tweeter, this is even worse because in addition to potentially a mismatched woofer you also have twice as many tweeters as you need. This can make high frequencies louder, and also make imaging worse than it used to be.
A good starting point is to get a component speaker set, the one that comes with its own tweeter, woofer, and crossover box. You can certainly try to disconnect the tweeter on the coaxial speaker you have, but be careful. Depending on the crossover type that the speaker uses, you could should circuit the amplifier if you disconnect the wrong wire (this could happen if the tweeter uses second order high pass crossover network).

And since you have a stock tweeter location that would make installation of it much simpler unless you feel it's location is causing it to be harsh (aiming at your head). Also, a silk dome (non-metal/hard dome) tweeter makes a smoother sound so that would help too.