Hertz MLK 165: Crossovers BiAmpable - Why?

[livinlegend 10+ year member]

Can someone explain what the benefit to bi amping both the tweet and the woofer instead of just the whole crossover? I don't understand why they put this feature. Is it so you can use a LPF on the midbass and an HPF on the tweeter? If so why even make the crossover?

Sorry makes no sense to me

Click to read more...

 

[chrisnben 10+ year member]

I suppose it depends on the power and which amps you are using. These Milee Hertz can take alot. I demoed them this week as well. The rep at the shop explained the use of the crossovers to me because I asked the same question about using the amp or HU crossovers. He suggested that Hertz spent alot of time designing the crossover and to use it. Why spend hours adjusting just to get back to the sam results from the crossover? I am deciding to buy these as well and am probally going to bi-amp w/ a 4-ch amp to them. Ben

 

[99StangGt 10+ year member]

The biggest reason is so you can adjust the gains independently. that helps depending on where you have your tweeters mounted.

 

[goldway 10+ year member]

Agree, Hertz suggested to use their crossover.

That configure as bi-amp. but if we have HU like Alpine 9887 which we could run full active. compare with Hertz bi-amp(still passive)?

which is the best way? bi-amp or active?

the advantages of passive biamping are much the same as the advantages of going active, the improvement is just smaller.* This is mainly owing to the power loss and distortion in the passive filters.

Again, anyone could tell bi-amp or active for MLK165. Let's say HU is Alpine 9887.

Amp is Audison Vrx.4.3.

To use bi-amp with MLK165's crossover MLCX 20?

or

To use Active without MLK165 crossover?

 

[jdc753 10+ year member]

I have yet to actually do this, but it is what I am planning. I have a 9887 and polk SR6500 components which also allow for bi-amping off the crossover. For me I plan on mounting the tweeters in the sail panels and the mids in the factor location. This will require time alignment from the 9887 to get things back into sync. With bi-amping the tweeters can be run off the rear channel of the 9887 and the mids off the front and run through the same amp, this way the time alignment can be used and then adjust the gains independently as well.

I could be wrong though, but I am hoping this is the case, will allow for much more freedom on the install, and still maintain good sound.

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

a lot of old school amps have no built in crossovers ...//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

 

[goldway 10+ year member]

I have yet to actually do this, but it is what I am planning. I have a 9887 and polk SR6500 components which also allow for bi-amping off the crossover. For me I plan on mounting the tweeters in the sail panels and the mids in the factor location. This will require time alignment from the 9887 to get things back into sync. With bi-amping the tweeters can be run off the rear channel of the 9887 and the mids off the front and run through the same amp, this way the time alignment can be used and then adjust the gains independently as well.
I could be wrong though, but I am hoping this is the case, will allow for much more freedom on the install, and still maintain good sound.

em. but i did not see the benefits here, if you could run full two way active without using passive crossover, should be able to archive same result.

come back to my question now, bi-amp or Active..which is better？

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

If you use the passive bi-amped or not, you will still be limited to the cross points set by the passive crossovers between the mid and tweeter. I think the reason Hertz wants customers or recommends us to use the passive is to protect the speakers. This helps cut downs on returns do to customers not truly understandings how the use the speakers. I have never came across a speaker that could not be ran active.

Running fully active, no passive will allow you more tuning options. mean freedom of crossover points only limited by the processing unit you use.

Hope this helps.

 

[jdc753 10+ year member]

I suppose if you have all the processing power and know how to tune the drivers well then active will most likely be best as you can tune the drivers for the specific application inside of your car. However when it comes to a higher end component set such as the Hertz I would suspect the crossovers weren't just slapped together with what works good for every other set. I would venture to guess that whoever designed the passive crossovers knows the drivers a bit better than the average end user and that for the most part if they were to be run active and ditched the crossover that the end user would wind up with essentially the same effect from the active tuning versus the passive tuning.

Active would be best when used with raw drivers. Generally saving a bit of money, and getting speakers that are slightly more purpose built. Personally I would love to run active in the future but I think I will sell my components and pick up raw drivers instead of running my components without the passive cross over. So in short in your situation I would run them passive but bi-amped and do whatever tuning short of playing with crossovers points/slopes, and if you really want to go active then sell the comps and pick up some nice raw drivers from madisound or similar.

 

[goldway 10+ year member]

That's good suggtion. i do not think i could tune system much better than Hertz engineer does.

i should call bi-amp to semi-passive now. maybe its good solution for MLK165 owners.

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

I suppose if you have all the processing power and know how to tune the drivers well then active will most likely be best as you can tune the drivers for the specific application inside of your car. However when it comes to a higher end component set such as the Hertz I would suspect the crossovers weren't just slapped together with what works good for every other set. I would venture to guess that whoever designed the passive crossovers knows the drivers a bit better than the average end user and that for the most part if they were to be run active and ditched the crossover that the end user would wind up with essentially the same effect from the active tuning versus the passive tuning.

Agreed, as I stated for the everyday customers yes.

Active would be best when used with raw drivers. Generally saving a bit of money, and getting speakers that are slightly more purpose built. Personally I would love to run active in the future but I think I will sell my components and pick up raw drivers instead of running my components without the passive cross over. So in short in your situation I would run them passive but bi-amped and do whatever tuning short of playing with crossovers points/slopes, and if you really want to go active then sell the comps and pick up some nice raw drivers from madisound or similar.

The statement in bold I don't completely understand. Raw drivers, The Hertz driver can be bought as raw drivers also. I don't know of any speaker that is built just to be ran active or passive. Most raw drivers are built be used in some sort of home, studio, or professional monitor or array or something of that sort, and most of them have some sort of passive unit inline.

Any driver can be ran active or passive. I will say this the hertz passive units are some of the nicest units to come with any highend comp set.

O ya, if you want to talk about a crazy passive unit look at the Focal Be units, these things are crazy, but not many people who use the Be drivers use the power or crossover blocks (I think thats what Focal calls them).

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

That's good suggtion. i do not think i could tune system much better than Hertz engineer does.
i should call bi-amp to semi-passive now. maybe its good solution for MLK165 owners.

Man I just not understanding this. Tuning, they add a very good crossover point, maybe a notch filter here and there. And the position imaging switch is more of a level switch. Its not that hard my friends. The passive are there for protection. Believe me on this. They (Hertz recommanding using the passive units) are protecting drivers from uneducated users. Which if you are here, you have all the help you need to get it right.

With or without the passive you will still need to tune. Its no way they know how you will be installing the units in your car and no way they know how every car well affect the sound of the drivers. Its just a good starting point.

 

[goldway 10+ year member]

Hey Here-I-Come. Thanks for your detailed reply.

Am i right to say that, if i just bi-wired/bi-amp set up for my system, even throught its semi-passive setup. if i stuy on tuning deeply. it could archive same result as Full Active setup w/o crossover compents.

Or someway is easier to archive better result since Hertz MLK165 already get good crossover compents there. (i only have 9887 not H701).

In fact, the reason why i am so concent about active or bi-amp. becasue now i am on bi-amp/bi-wired. but i do feel my midbass is weak now. but tweeter is nice/sweet. I was used Lrx2.9(260w per channel.) with MLK165 run passvie mode. Now i change my system to dual Vrx2.150 (110w per channel.). but i think MLK165 is 92db. 110w should be able to drive it right.?thanks.

 

[Here-I-Come 10+ year member]

Hey Here-I-Come. Thanks for your detailed reply.
Am i right to say that, if i just bi-wired/bi-amp set up for my system, even throught its semi-passive setup. if i stuy on tuning deeply. it could archive same result as Full Active setup w/o crossover compents.

Or someway is easier to archive better result since Hertz MLK165 already get good crossover compents there. (i only have 9887 not H701).

In fact, the reason why i am so concent about active or bi-amp. becasue now i am on bi-amp/bi-wired. but i do feel my midbass is weak now. but tweeter is nice/sweet. I was used Lrx2.9(260w per channel.) with MLK165 run passvie mode. Now i change my system to dual Vrx2.150 (110w per channel.). but i think MLK165 is 92db. 110w should be able to drive it right.?thanks.

Honestly my friend you may see a small improvement in the midbass response. By bi-amping them you have more control over the level of each set of drivers now. Meaning you can raise or lower the level of the tweeters or mids now to better match their levels of output. This allows for more balance in the sound. This is the reason why companies allow for bi-amping.

The reason I say maybe is you are still around the same amount of power. No matter how you run them on the passive crossover, the passive unit will have some sort of power consumption. Its just a little less since the drivers don't have to share power in the bi-amp mode.

As I feel EQ are a Band Aid, they can and are our friends in the Car Audio world. If you midbass is a little low EQ it in. Remember these are not sub-bass drivers so you will need to set the highpass around 60-70hz, you may be able to get away with 50, but they are not going to handle any thing below low that cleanly and still produce clean midrange.

Get to your EQ and boost around 125-160 buy 2-4 dbs and lower 250 by 2-4 until the sound evens out, or you have more punch in the midbass. You might need to lower around 80 are so to keep it clean. Boosting it to much will muddy up your lower midrange. By add a nice sub to your system will do wonders for easy of tuning your system. Even a nice 10" or a high power 8" would work.

Also remember Transfer Function is our friend in the Car Audio world. It cause a boost in the lower octaves. You just have to listen for it if you have no way of testing to find out the frequency your car boost at. It is usually around 50-80 hz. Not all the time, but it dose happen around there in most.

Nothing I said here in concrete just great starting points. It will work great for some and not so great for others, but will give you an idea of want to look for.

Hope this helps.

O ya, and if anyone wonders if I have used/own hertz speaker, Yes I do. I have the Hertz Space K8L, Which is basically the same set as the MLK165, but with the 8L 8" midbass. I have used just about very brand of highend speakers that has been available in the US, Note: I did not say every model, but every brand.

 

[goldway 10+ year member]

That's very detailed. i was followed. My midbass improved alot now. And i am happy with bi-amp now. thanks again.