Hooking tweeters up to speakers

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

I want to throw in some extra tweeters in the front, and I've decided that by far the easiest way would be to hook them up directly to the speakers that are already in the door which are powered by a 4 channel amp. The amp delivers 50 watts per channel at 4 ohms (my door speakers are 4 ohms), but if I introduce tweeters into the mix will it change the ohm load or is this a good way to hook up tweeters? I have no idea what impedance my tweeters will be, or which ones I should be shopping for. It's all in the process at the moment.

I remember from reading sub wiring diagrams that when you introduce a second sub it changes the impedance load, will the same thing happen if I wire up a tweeter from the speakers terminals? Thanks!

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[Sleeklsc 5,000+ posts]

I did this in my last car. I had some 4x6's and ran 8ohm(pretty sure, I know it was between 4-8) JL tweet's that had a inline x-over. Just hooked it up + to +, - to - on the speaker terminals for each side..

 

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

I did this in my last car. I had some 4x6's and ran 8ohm(pretty sure, I know it was between 4-8) JL tweet's that had a inline filter. Just hooked it up + to +, - to - on the speaker terminals for each side..

How did it sound?

 

[plugger 10+ year member]

yea make sure ur amp can handle the final ohm load and dont do what i did and jus put a high freq bass blocker inline... i blew a tweeter eventually and i think thats why. do like he said get a filter or crossover for ur tweets

 

[Sleeklsc 5,000+ posts]

How did it sound?

It had louder high's.. Worth doing if ya need some more of the upper freq's.

Placement of said tweeters would play the biggest role.

 

[ckunke002 10+ year member]

It had louder high's.. Worth doing if ya need some more of the upper freq's.
Placement of said tweeters would play the biggest role.

Where did you put yours? What are some of the best areas?

 

[Sleeklsc 5,000+ posts]

I put mine in the upper corners of each panel, about a foot from the other speaker. Hook the tweet up with some extra wire and move it around to find the spot that sounds best to you.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

you need a passive crossover in-line with the tweeters. hopefully they will come with them. if not, you need to add one based on the mfr recommendations. parts express sells in-line crossovers for 4 ohm or 8 ohm speakers.

will it help? depends on your specific vehicle and installation. aiming is crucial for tweeter performance. with door coaxials, additional tweeters in the apillars will usually help. you can't really hear door coax tweeters anyway.

use velcro to experiment with positions and aiming. choose what sounds best and make it permanent.

 

[zako 10+ year member]

As it was pointed, you need some kind of crossover for the tweeter. The easiest way to add a high pass crossover is to insert a capacitor inline. The capacitor value can be calculated easily. The high pass filter created by a capacitor inserted inline has only a 6dB slope. So if you take this route, your crossover frequency for the tweeter has to be at least two octaves above tweeter's resonance frequency. The standard recommendation for tweeter's high pass crossover frequency is one octave above this tweeter's resonance frequency, but this is based on the assumption that you use 12dB-24dB slope. With 6dB slope, you need to be at least two octaves above.

I do question the value of running two tweeters. Just think of all the wonderful things this will do to your imaging and frequency response. If you think that the current tweeter is not good, either replace the whole speaker set or just the tweeter. I mentioned about the replacing the speaker set, because if you get it, then almost certainly a good care has been taken to make sure that the tweeter actually matches the woofer.

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

Too much treble will mask the midrange, and then you'll want to upgrade your door speakers and put more power to them, then your sub won't be loud enough, etc. I would skip the add-on tweeters and go for a component set. There's a better way to add tweeters, and that results in splitting the treble so one pair acts as a supertweeter, which is the pair that would be mounted above the dash. Then you don't have two pairs of tweeters playing the same frequencies.