Morel's killing my ears! Please help.

[EPICjurneez]

I have Morel Tempo Ultra Integra 602 powered by JL 400/4d unbridged complemented by a sealed jl 10w1v2, running off 500/1d. The headunit is a Kenwood dxd393. The Morels are in the stock door location of a 2014-16 Corolla to achieve some stealth. No deadening.

My problem is that the speakers leave my ears ringing every time! What's the deal!? Is it because I haven't deadened the doors? I usually don't, if I do, it's usually very minimal because I'm cheap.

I hear the potential to these speakers but they're soooo harsh! They're pointsource coaxials down in the front corner of the doors so I was estimating weak highs but NOPE. These come with no passive xover and only a cap, I assume, for the tweeter.

My guess is the mids and tweeter are having some redundancy in the higher freq, the roll off from the capacitor is still allowing too much lo-freq work for the tweeter and possible cone break up in the hi-freq for the untamed mids? Seems unprofessional of Morel to allow this. Speakers are run-in and the tweeters sound more open... but harsh upper mids which seems uncharacteristic for the reviews I've read for their other products above, equal or below in pricepoint. I mean you've read the rave reviews even for their entry level maximos. I'm stumped.

I sent an email to the US rep but no answer in over two weeks.

I haven't seen any reviews at all on this model and I thought I'd take a chance. It's looking like a bad idea at this rate. I bought from an authorized dealer and had them install them. Don't know if they'll let me return them. Should they?

I've run old MbQuart tweeters (hx and mx 19mm) and managed to make them work well (No Pain/Good sound) with simple headunit tweaks. Go figure.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm all ears for quality experience and assistance.

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[blazian87 10+ year member]

How do you have your gain settings for the 400/4? Maybe your gains are too high. But also the fact that it doesn't have any passive crossover, the mids are just screaming all the frequencies at once.. making them very harsh to listen to. A cap for a tweeter is not good enough because it usually has a very shallow curve, which is also overlapping with the mids, creating nasty peaks everywhere. That's probably why it's playing too low also. I'm not a fan of coaxials because of this. Those morel coaxials are $340 online. Holy crap. You could've got some nice components with that. I don't see why you couldn't put atleast some deadening in the doors if you're gonna go through the trouble of installing aftermarket speakers. It would've made a difference in sound quality. Sealing the doors turns it into an enclosure for those speakers basically. I bet it sounded better with the stock speakers before. You need a way to tame those speakers because it seems like it was just slapped on the doors and added an amp and called it a day. That's not how you do a proper sound stage. It's not just about the products you buy, but proper installation and tuning is key.

Honestly, you bought a bunch of overpriced products and I have a feeling you got ripped off hard by your dealer too. You could've gone with less mainstream brands and have a better install with money to spare. See if you can ask your dealer to swap out the coaxials for some decent components within the same price range. and this time tell them to add the deadener with it.

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

Equalizers are handy even for ****** speakers. But certainly for better speakers like Morel.

Try bringing down the range between 800 to 4k, tiny bits until it doesn't hurt.

BTW, coaxial is the next best thing to a single fullrange driver. They will almost always image better than drivers that have any distance between them. But in either case, the filters have to be correct so that the overlap is proper.

 

[EPICjurneez]

The gains are at about 40%. Maybe it's more the lack of passive tuning like we both mentioned.

Yeah, anything I don't do myself is too much money and a necessary rip off nowadays. I don't have the luxury of time anymore to do this stuff with a family and all. I paid less than that price so it wasn't too cut-throat. It's middle of the road in their line up. I saw a poor review on Ovation XO coaxs that are higher end and come with xovers. Thought it was a one-off.

What do you recommend for swap that you've heard? This setup is surely not lesser than stock. It sounds pretty great in spite of the resonant peaks, no deadening and the slap-n-play. I just can't live with the peaks. I'm afraid I'll lose my hearing at this rate.

The dealer sells Hertz and I heard the ESK 165L.5 they had on the sound board. They sounded better than the reviews give them credit. You're apparently a fan of Rainbows. I don't think there are dealers near me.

 

[EPICjurneez]

Equalizers are handy even for ****** speakers. But certainly for better speakers like Morel.
Try bringing down the range between 800 to 4k, tiny bits until it doesn't hurt.

BTW, coaxial is the next best thing to a single fullrange driver. They will almost always image better than drivers that have any distance between them. But in either case, the filters have to be correct so that the overlap is proper.

I agree. I've owned a pair of jbl pointsource coaxs a couple decades ago. They had the most solid soundstage I've ever heard in a car. They just didn't last long. That's what I was hoping for with these, but with better durability. My deck has a 13 band eq and I've had to use it! Looks shaped like an Lpad attenuating the tweeters. Can't remember the exact #'s but it goes downhill from roughly 1khz to 4khz (a gradual 4db drop) and flat from 6khz up (all at -5db, honestly not sure if each notch is a db or half...). The trouble is the soundstage sags along with these cuts and whenever they get raised back up, so does the pain

These speakers sound huge and deep in their staging with lots of sweet detail as long as the harsh notes weren't firing. That would mean, I can only play two or three tunes for the rest of my life:/

I wonder if I should find a generic passive xover and start splicing.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I'd like to chime in that sometimes its not the speakers. Its also the car. I've had a corolla before, almost every speaker put in was harsh sounding without any EQ and still had some even after EQing. The car has pretty bad acoustics and requires a good bit of acoustical treatment to tame the bad resonances and reflections in there. Also try reversing the polarity of one speaker. It might be sound better when wired out of phase.

I'd invest in a Digital signal processor and run everything active and buy raw quality drivers from partsexpress or madisound websites and have the shop do the install if you want the shops to install.

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

I agree. I've owned a pair of jbl pointsource coaxs a couple decades ago. They had the most solid soundstage I've ever heard in a car. They just didn't last long. That's what I was hoping for with these, but with better durability. My deck has a 13 band eq and I've had to use it! Looks shaped like an Lpad attenuating the tweeters. Can't remember the exact #'s but it goes downhill from roughly 1khz to 4khz (a gradual 4db drop) and flat from 6khz up (all at -5db, honestly not sure if each notch is a db or half...). The trouble is the soundstage sags along with these cuts and whenever they get raised back up, so does the pain
These speakers sound huge and deep in their staging with lots of sweet detail as long as the harsh notes weren't firing. That would mean, I can only play two or three tunes for the rest of my life:/

I wonder if I should find a generic passive xover and start splicing.

Nice. Yeah, if EQ isn't enough to get you out of this then the overlap of the passbands may not be correct as far as filter points and slopes is concerned.
When I run into these issues, I play a single driver (one tweeter for example) at dynamic levels to see if it is the offending driver. When I've identified the drivers responsible for reproducing the harsh frequency, I lock on to the nasty frequency by purposely over-boosting each band until I've homed in on it. Then, just target it with the corresponding amount of EQ. Or, if it's a tweeter being crossed too low or a mid being crossed too high, I simply adjust filter points accordingly. Worst case, is that the passives had a notch filter built in to tame a peak in ther woofer's top end response and without them in place it is now painfully obvious.

Sometimes, a great trick is to cross shallow and early on both drivers. Something like 6dB @ 6k on the tweeters and maybe 800-1.2k on the mid, then just raise each one until you hit the sweet spot (for your tastes). Then you would apply mild EQ as necessary for final tweaking as time passes. I often have eerily spooky realism using this trick but the drivers have to be pretty decent. Phase lock (coherency) is great, drivers are not stressed. Not surprisingly, I find I can turn these systems up the loudest, without much ear fatigue. And vocals have much better weight or warmth to them, but without that hollow or dark sound usually caused by aggressively pulling down the midrange with EQ when trying to accomplish the same thing.

 

[EPICjurneez]

I'd like to chime in that sometimes its not the speakers. Its also the car. I've had a corolla before, almost every speaker put in was harsh sounding without any EQ and still had some even after EQing. The car has pretty bad acoustics and requires a good bit of acoustical treatment to tame the bad resonances and reflections in there. Also try reversing the polarity of one speaker. It might be sound better when wired out of phase.
I'd invest in a Digital signal processor and run everything active and buy raw quality drivers from partsexpress or madisound websites and have the shop do the install if you want the shops to install.

No doubt! I was wondering about the car's acoustics. I thought it was sales talk but I do notice small movements making big impacts. For instance, having my right arm up w/ hand on steering wheel lowers harshness on my left ear (passenger speaker reflecting off driver window?!). Rolling down a window or opening sunroof...

So will the dsp knock out peaks via built in parametric eq? Or is it more about simply running active and tweaking xover freqs?

It's nice you've dealt with a Corolla. Did you overcome the challenges without having to sell the car? How do you deaden the reflectivity within the cabin?

I'll try reversing the phase.

 

[EPICjurneez]

Nice. Yeah, if EQ isn't enough to get you out of this then the overlap of the passbands may not be correct as far as filter points and slopes is concerned.
When I run into these issues, I play a single driver (one tweeter for example) at dynamic levels to see if it is the offending driver. When I've identified the drivers responsible for reproducing the harsh frequency, I lock on to the nasty frequency by purposely over-boosting each band until I've homed in on it. Then, just target it with the corresponding amount of EQ. Or, if it's a tweeter being crossed too low or a mid being crossed too high, I simply adjust filter points accordingly. Worst case, is that the passives had a notch filter built in to tame a peak in ther woofer's top end response and without them in place it is now painfully obvious.

Sometimes, a great trick is to cross shallow and early on both drivers. Something like 6dB @ 6k on the tweeters and maybe 800-1.2k on the mid, then just raise each one until you hit the sweet spot (for your tastes). Then you would apply mild EQ as necessary for final tweaking as time passes. I often have eerily spooky realism using this trick but the drivers have to be pretty decent. Phase lock (coherency) is great, drivers are not stressed. Not surprisingly, I find I can turn these systems up the loudest, without much ear fatigue. And vocals have much better weight or warmth to them, but without that hollow or dark sound usually caused by aggressively pulling down the midrange with EQ when trying to accomplish the same thing.

That "gap" style tuning is done only through an active system right? I'd love achieve those results. These speakers do seem to have tons of potential at moments.

I just spoke to the dealer and they won't take a return and blamed my amp "because sometimes digital amps run bright..." Sounds silly. But then morels are reputed for sound non-bright in the highs. So if I can't return them, I might have to try some experimenting based on tips from you and Jeff. I was hoping not to get into it this much because of lacking time but...

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

No doubt! I was wondering about the car's acoustics. I thought it was sales talk but I do notice small movements making big impacts. For instance, having my right arm up w/ hand on steering wheel lowers harshness on my left ear (passenger speaker reflecting off driver window?!). Rolling down a window or opening sunroof...
So will the dsp knock out peaks via built in parametric eq? Or is it more about simply running active and tweaking xover freqs?

It's nice you've dealt with a Corolla. Did you overcome the challenges without having to sell the car? How do you deaden the reflectivity within the cabin?

I'll try reversing the phase.

I've had deaden with CLD tiles and mass loaded vinyl in the doors and the roof which helped control some of the harshness. The DSP with the parametric EQ should help tremendously if you have a proper Real Time Analyzers to show you what frequency you are peaking at that causes the harshness. Setting the crossovers and overlaps properly will also tame a lot of the harsness due to drivers playing properly in their range without overstepping their bounds. So yes and yes. Each speaker will like different crossover points in each vehicle thats why going active crossing over the tweets and mids yourself choosing your own crossover points and slopes is pretty important.

Its very weird that its happening with morel tempos because they sound very smooth when i demo'd them on a soundboard. However I demo'd the component set which had a proper crossover network.

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

That "gap" style tuning is done only through an active system right? I'd love achieve those results. These speakers do seem to have tons of potential at moments.
I just spoke to the dealer and they won't take a return and blamed my amp "because sometimes digital amps run bright..." Sounds silly. But then morels are reputed for sound non-bright in the highs. So if I can't return them, I might have to try some experimenting based on tips from you and Jeff. I was hoping not to get into it this much because of lacking time but...

Yes, that would be an active approach. I apologize, when I read your post the first time, I was at work and I missed the part about 'only a cap on the tweeter' and such. For some reason I was thinking that you removed the passives so that you could run active. Again, sorry about that.
There is some merit to digital amps having a certain brightness or harshness. Not all of them, of course. Regardless, I can't speak to that being your particular issue.

It could all be cumulative! Digital amp, poor acoustics, overlap between drivers that are breaking up!!! Oh my, lol.

Hope you can figure it out, bud.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

That "gap" style tuning is done only through an active system right? I'd love achieve those results. These speakers do seem to have tons of potential at moments.
I just spoke to the dealer and they won't take a return and blamed my amp "because sometimes digital amps run bright..." Sounds silly. But then morels are reputed for sound non-bright in the highs. So if I can't return them, I might have to try some experimenting based on tips from you and Jeff. I was hoping not to get into it this much because of lacking time but...

The digital amps are bright comment is BS. They're just trying to cover their a$$es. If you find potential in those Morel speakers, there might still be hope since there's still a lot of things you haven't tried yet. Going with components you will probably have to drill tweeter holes in your new car. So it might be best to keep your car looking stealth with those coaxials you have. Since you can't return them, make the most out of them. A DSP is a great way to tame those speakers but it is a pretty penny depending on which one you're looking at. If you're pretty serious about sound quality, then I would recommend it. You will be able to use parametric or graphic EQ with much higher bands within your fingertips that can get down to the nitty gritty. But yea active filtering will help those speakers tremendously for sure.

I, too, had a corolla before and I have to agree it wasn't the best acoustical environment to work with. I swapped speakers so many times and it always sounded harsh and when I finally decided to get a DSP, that's where I was able to do what I wanted with the speakers. Unfortunately my corolla was totaled by a stupid driver not paying attention so I ripped out all my equipment and now I'm in the process of doing my setup all over again with more power this time and gonna try to combat 3 way active tuning for the first time. Anyways here's a pic of my deadened door on my corolla for reference..

http://s5.postimg.org/555sjmtqv/IMG_1985.jpg

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

I, too, had a corolla before and I have to agree it wasn't the best acoustical environment to work with. I swapped speakers so many times and it always sounded harsh and when I finally decided to get a DSP, that's where I was able to do what I wanted with the speakers. Unfortunately my corolla was totaled by a stupid driver not paying attention so I ripped out all my equipment and now I'm in the process of doing my setup all over again with more power this time and gonna try to combat 3 way active tuning for the first time. Anyways here's a pic of my deadened door on my corolla for reference..

http://s5.postimg.org/555sjmtqv/IMG_1985.jpg

I feel your pain! Our poor Corollas!!! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying:

oh well at least i achieved much better sound right off the bat with my new soccer dad van without as much intensive deadening as the corolla.

Op

Watch this vid

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

I feel your pain! Our poor Corollas!!! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying:

oh well at least i achieved much better sound right off the bat with my new soccer dad van without as much intensive deadening as the corolla.

Yea I'm hoping I have better acoustics with this scion that I bought. So far the stock speakers are crap. Can't wait to pimp that sh1t out.

 

[EPICjurneez]

I'm going to try avoiding the dsp route until I have no other choice. However, between the three of you, who are obviously experienced and knowledgable about equipment, which dsp(s) do you recommend? I'm always hoping bang-for-buck. I'll need an active xover and eq. The lpf/hpf on my amp only range up to 200hz, as well as my hu.