I need more. It's not loud enough.

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

Those Crescendo mids look beefy as a motherfucker. Luckily, I don't typically have rear passengers, so I'll either power them from the headunit or use one of my baby amps like the EA1412 or the KTP445-U to power the rears. Maybe move my current components to the rear and bi-amp them off that Alpine like an absolute madman, lmfao. 

First things first though: Upgrade to a proper active capable HU. Either sell the zap and put it toward a 6 channel, or run another amp entirely. Upgrade to a 240+amp alt, and upgrade my second battery to a proper unit for the application. Re-run wiring with 1/0 OFC instead of the current 1/0 CCA Knukonceptz wire. 

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

Would it be silly to build a tiny enclosure to house a JL 6w3v3 in each door, and go active 3 way for the front stage? I have a couple laying around from a project I scrapped years ago, lmao. 

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

the first thing you want to do is say fk off to the components idea and get rid of the kenwood head unit.    You want to use raw drivers with no passive crossovers, all crossovers are done on the 80 prs head unit.    The signal will be split into high, mid and low which means tweeters, midbass and subwoofer.

some loud cheap tweeters,   https://www.amazon.com/Massive-Audio-CT2II-Tweeter-Crossovers/dp/B00NBC25UM 
some decent mids https://store.soundsolutionsaudio.com/products/crescendo-un-65-6-5-pro-audio-speaker.html

You'll need to use your ppi 900.4 and your current zapco for this because those UNs love power, they just sound better and better with more power. you will either bridge the ppi or the zapco to 2 channel stereo to the crescendo UNS yes they will eat up all the power and more without issues, just raise the HPF depending on how loud you want it. Now with the remaining amp, you'll want to power the tweeter and the rear speakers.   Your midrange RCA on the head unit RCAs will be split with an rca splitter to get signal to the rear.  I'd generally recommend losing the rear speakers completely or leave them on head unit power but i understand its a big car and passengers might want something back there.

Start off with the head unit in network mode and try a 4000 hz at 12 db crossover point for both mid low pass and tweeter high pass and tune around.

Here we are a year later and I still haven't bridged my ppi to the 4 un6.5's i have. I dunno why it just sounds like they're already getting all they can take unless I raise the hpf well above 100hz and I don't like that idea

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Would it be silly to build a tiny enclosure to house a JL 6w3v3 in each door, and go active 3 way for the front stage? I have a couple laying around from a project I scrapped years ago, lmao. 

If you build a proper enclosure then no it wouldn't be silly, it'd be great and have a super flat response

edit: maybe not, i didn't realize that was a subwoofer

apparently its been done

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

If you build a proper enclosure then no it wouldn't be silly, it'd be great and have a super flat response

lol I think that would be hilarious. I had them in a .75cuft 36hz ported rear center console enclosure in my '94 Prelude years back, powered off a Sundown 1000, so roughly 250wrms each (since they're 4 ohm woofers). Had to upgrade them to DD units because they kept blowing the dustcaps off. 

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Would it be silly to build a tiny enclosure to house a JL 6w3v3 in each door, and go active 3 way for the front stage? I have a couple laying around from a project I scrapped years ago, lmao. 

if you go 3 way active, you can get a dayton DSP and have 8 channels of RCA output with full control over everything and it only costs 150 dollars + 30 dollars for a bluetooth dongle to control on your smartphone.  You can definitely use them for midbass, just make sure you tune your enclosure so it plays hard 50hz and up to 315hz or something. While the midrange can go nuts. 

Those Crescendo mids look beefy as a motherfucker. Luckily, I don't typically have rear passengers, so I'll either power them from the headunit or use one of my baby amps like the EA1412 or the KTP445-U to power the rears. Maybe move my current components to the rear and bi-amp them off that Alpine like an absolute madman, lmfao. 

First things first though: Upgrade to a proper active capable HU. Either sell the zap and put it toward a 6 channel, or run another amp entirely. Upgrade to a 240+amp alt, and upgrade my second battery to a proper unit for the application. Re-run wiring with 1/0 OFC instead of the current 1/0 CCA Knukonceptz wire. 

I'm actually telling you to run two mids and highs amps. your zapco bridge 2 channel mode plus your ppi in 4 channel mode or your ppi bridged plus your zapco at 4 channel.  For midwoofers, you really want to amp up the power, they can definitely take it.   

Here we are a year later and I still haven't bridged my ppi to the 4 un6.5's i have. I dunno why it just sounds like they're already getting all they can take unless I raise the hpf well above 100hz and I don't like that idea

Anything that makes them sound like its all they can take is basically your ppi 900.4 running out of juice causing it to sound that way.  A high pass filter above 100hz but overall output jumps up higher will still get you the same midbass impact due to overall elevated output throughout the frequency spectrum. It just wont feel as loud and bloated since everything else is louder as well.

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

Alright, went out and reset my gains and my EQ, no positive attenuation, only negative attenuation. I noticed something on a couple of song intros, I'm actually getting crackle from at least one front tweeter even when there's next to no sound being played at those frequencies. I'm wondering if there's something fucky going on with the crossover(s). That, or I'm getting some kind of odd crosstalk and need to upgrade RCAs.

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Alright, went out and reset my gains and my EQ, no positive attenuation, only negative attenuation. I noticed something on a couple of song intros, I'm actually getting crackle from at least one front tweeter even when there's next to no sound being played at those frequencies. I'm wondering if there's something fucky going on with the crossover(s). That, or I'm getting some kind of odd crosstalk and need to upgrade RCAs.

I've found it's usually a problem with RCA connections and speaker wiring but the next likely thing is crossovers causing weird sounds at certain frequencies

 

[kcr357 10+ year member]

It's not a matter of power, if I were to  grab the MMats I'd be grabbing 4 of them and bridging them all. Guarantee it'd sound better than 2 ppi 900.4's

I was quoting ts, 90rms isnt honna do much for him

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

I've found it's usually a problem with RCA connections and speaker wiring but the next likely thing is crossovers causing weird sounds at certain frequencies

Knowing how I wired things up, I'd say the order of things most likely to result in shenanigans are:
- Wiring. I half-assed it, admittedly. Didn't feel like pulling all the heavy interior out of this monster in the middle of the summer. Ran either 14 or 16 gauge to the factory amp bypass I made, and called it a day. On top of that, My RCAs are probably dangerously close to my speaker wires. Again, oopsie. First time I've had this much power for such a long run of wire. 

- Crossovers. Let's be real here, I've thrown a lot of power at these guys, and I have a loose woofer connection that occasionally causes me issues on the side that's giving me tweeter grief. Perhaps when the woofer isn't properly connected, the crossover is unable to cope with its absence. 

-RCA connections. Meh.

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

f**k me, I can't win. Got around to doing some improvements to the mounting of my crossovers, fixing a loose connection on the passenger's side woofer, jamming out in my truck and admiring my handywork, and after a while I'm like, "huh, the rear door speakers get ****** rowdy". Faded to the front, and realized I must have smoked both tweeters during my session, since I'm positive that at the very least, the passenger's side was working yesterday. Whipped out the DMM and I've got AC voltage coming out of the crossovers, disconnected the tweets and they're measuring a woeful 320k ohms. f**k me. No magic smoke. No snap, crackle, pop. No glorious sendoff whatsoever... just drifting off calmly into the night. So looks like I'm in the market for another set of 1" silk domes. 

Any input on any of these? 

Peerless Tymphany 1" Silks, 80wrms 4 ohm - https://www.parts-express.com/peerless-by-tymphany-ne25vts-04-1-silk-dome-tweeter--264-1034
Same but 3/4", 80wrms 4 ohm - https://www.parts-express.com/peerless-by-tymphany-bc20sc15-04-3-4-fabric-dome-tweeter-4-ohm--264-1438
Peerless 1" Aluminums, 100wrms 4 ohm, might be mega bright - https://www.parts-express.com/peerless-by-tymphany-da25bg08-04-1-aluminum-dome-tweeter-4-ohm--264-1458
Dayton 1-1/8" silks, 80wrms, 4 ohm - https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-rst28f-4-1-1-8-reference-series-fabric-dome-tweeter-4-ohm--275-141
Alpine Type R 1" silks, 75wrms, 4 ohm - https://www.amazon.com/Alpine-SPR-10TW-1-inch-Component-Tweeters/dp/B0066D5NZM/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1550889970&sr=8-9&keywords=silk+dome+tweeters


I'm sure there are more good options out there, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do here. I don't know the specs of the original tweeters, and this is a 2 ohm component set. I know that with the passive crossover, it could change the crossover frequency and **** if I don't find a replacement with the appropriate resistance.