How in the hell do you make Kick panels?

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

http://www.lincoln.com/zephyr/img/main_int_9.jpg

that lil area on the upper left corner, its actually touching the corner of the picture.

 

[orangeblast 10+ year member]

like this??

 

[orangeblast 10+ year member]

wait I think I know what you mean...where the windshield is?

wouldn't that be to far from the mids? Always thought you were suppose to keep the tweeter and mids together

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

well the reason people want the mid as close to the tweeter as possible is for of course blending well together but also for use of time alignment. placing the mid as close to the tweet is mostly for people who run a passive setup but for those who run an active setup, its just a matter of placing the tweeter to where it sounds best and then it could time aligned correctly.

 

[orangeblast 10+ year member]

so you could move the tweet around when running an Active setup and just tune from there eh? wow...talk about alot of listening. I could see how one would deffinitly want to be turned on by an active setup. I could only imagine the amount of human saturation of sound there would be. I bet it would be exhausting to just sit there and listen...tune...listen...tune...listen...tune. But in the long run...sure its alot more woth it.

However, in my situation...I don't want to lay money down for another amp...or a 4 channel amp to be exact. Maybe in the future..but for now..I guess I'll go with passive and run my DEI 2 channel.

I also noticed that you can get silk or aluminum tweeters with a Sea Lotus Reference 2 way....whats better? I always thought the metal tweets were really harsh and brittle.

whats the difference anyways?

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

Since it's too long to PM (I tried), i'll just copy and paste here:

My speakers are now moved into my house for home audio, because I got into a car accident back in september and I haven't gotten a replacement car yet. I actually went with full active instead of using the passives. Reason being that I have the alpine PXA-H701 with is a very flexible using, allowing me to go active.

I've heard them with passive crossovers though and they sounds very very nice. A friend of mine has Seas Lotus in his car and he ran passives during the 2005 IASCA national finals and placed 2nd in his class, which isn't bad since it was his first time competing and no real tuning was done. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

3-way setups are harder to setup due to having too many drivers, where errors can be made easily. A good 2-way setup will outperform an okay 3-way. Honestly, most people wouldn't even be able to tell a difference between 2-way and 3-way as far as clarity.

I really do enjoy these. When dropped into the car, they sound pretty good, but the real deal is when you tune them. Voices will sound basically real and you'll hear details that you never have. These are very revealing speakers and are not as forgiving as the CDT HD-series. Revealing as in they will play whatever is on the CD. If the recording is bad, it will play bad. If they recording is great, it will play great. It doesn't sugar coat the sound like the CDT will. It does what it's suppose to do.

The lotus reference midrange is based on the Seas Excel Magnesium. The same driver that is heavily used in home audio, especially in $10k+ setups due to their details. The lotus mid is basically a 4ohm version, 6.5" in size version of the seas excel mag. If you haven't already, take a look at this review.

http://forums.caraudio.com/vb/showthread.php?t=128519

btw, where are you located in orange county? If you want, I can try to get you to listen to the lotus in a friend's car (Seas Lotus sales rep). He's works in Pasadena, but sometimes he comes down here. This way, you can get an idea of how they sound.

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

so you could move the tweet around when running an Active setup and just tune from there eh? wow...talk about alot of listening. I could see how one would deffinitly want to be turned on by an active setup. I could only imagine the amount of human saturation of sound there would be. I bet it would be exhausting to just sit there and listen...tune...listen...tune...listen...tune. But in the long run...sure its alot more woth it.

It's normal if you've been tuning your system for weeks. A lot of guys I know are still tuning, even though they got their system in over a year ago. Tuning can never be done. Not to say they will never sound good, but there is always room to improve.

I also noticed that you can get silk or aluminum tweeters with a Sea Lotus Reference 2 way....whats better? I always thought the metal tweets were really harsh and brittle.

whats the difference anyways?

If you've ever heard a well built metal tweeter, you'll find that they aren't harsh at all. If I cover up the silk and metal tweeter, you'd think they are both silk. It's that smooth. No hints of harshness unless you aim them wrong or boost the EQ at 4khz by 12db. lol.

The silk are just a tad bit smoother, but the aluminum has a better top end extention. Really, it's your pick. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif I have the silk and have heard the aluminums. I couldn't be happier with either one.

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

Lastly, since you're getting that eclipse deck, you have room to go active. That deck is enough for you to go active. Davie, the one who was trying to sell you the DLS, has that deck also and he's about to go run active (using my seas lotus reference tweeters and lotus performance midrange). Simply using 4-channel of power is all you need.

Honestly, here is what I would do. Go ditch the passive crossover.

The passive crossovers are worth/cost $200 alone. The whole set is about $745 or so. You are able to buy the tweeters and midrange separately, instead of having to buy the whole set. This means it'll cost about $530 or so for the drivers. Invest that $200 in a 4-channel amp and then sell your DEI amp for however much it's worth. Or just sell the amp and use the money with $200 and buy something even better.

This way, you're paying for the same amount as the actual lotus set, but you're running active. The only reason why I recommend this set is because your deck is capable of doing active. Save you money and time down the line. That is, if you rather have a passive system //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[orangeblast 10+ year member]

Interesting. What would be the best amp for the job?

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

I like the DLS amps and Arc Audio XXk line.

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

Basically any amp with enough power will suffice. Buy the amp for quality.

With that being said, you're better off finding deals on used amps. $200 wont get you much of an amp (power-wise). I'd look got 100x4@4ohm, just for headroom.

 

[orangeblast 10+ year member]

I noticed that the tweeter in the lotus reference series is 6 ohms...how do I manage that if i'm running a 4 ohm amp?? confused.

having trouble finding a 100x4 channel amp. Highest I've seen yet is 85x4@4ohm. And also can you explain how the tweeter wont recieve a full 100 watts if going active? I don't understand that one.

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

If you use the tweeter on the amp, the amp will see a 6ohm norminal load. Theoretically, the amp should send 75w at most. This is far more than you need.

85x4@4ohm is fine, unless you really need more power. I've gotten away with 60x4@4ohm and was plenty loud.

Your tweeters will not receive a full 100w before that 100w rating is at 4ohm, at a specific frequency, with a specific input voltage and power voltage. Think of an amp as a car's engine. You see cars with 250hp as advertised, but that's just peak. Throughout the RPM, the power will vary with torque.

The power the tweeters will receive depends on the voltage the amp gets, and the frequency.

Take a look at second graph of the Dayton RS-series tweeters:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pdf/275-130g.pdf

The resistance is dependent on frequency. The higher impedence, the less power the tweeters will see, so it only makes sense that the tweeters will never see constant power unless you put test tones to it. Music is made up of dynamics response. You see graphs where the frequency response is all zig-zags. Thats what makes music, music. Frequency and output changes all the time.

Active or passive, your tweeters will behave the same way as far as how much power is being received (except for passives where a Zobel and/or notch filter is introduced).

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

yea what gsteg said, //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/tongue.gif.6130eb82179565f6db8d26d6001dcd24.gif .

 

[orangeblast 10+ year member]

Ok cool...I understand now.

my main concern thus far is tweeter placement...where the hell would I put such a great tweeter such as the reference one? I mean to make things really easy on myself I could stick them in the stock tweeter position...see the pic. This pic of the door of the 2006 4runner....

http://img370.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0c41sq.jpg

would that work or would I still want to some how put them in the stock kick panel area and aim the tweeters upwards towards the driver/passanger dome light?