Rainbow Profis ... Tuned at last ; my impressions

[blue 10+ year member]

Well ..... These designated " kick " versions of the Profi line up are reeeeaallll WARM !!! If you are lacking mid bass , look no further. Fact is .... I now know , I probably should have bought the phase plug versions instead. Overall I find them to be very neutral sounding overall , except for the emphasized mid bass region from 100hz to 400hz . I played with switching the tweeters to the boosted level , or " linear " on the Rainbow x-overs , but due to the tweeters being placed in my door pillars at shoulder level , I found this too bright even with cut high frequencies on my 5 band parametric eq. After switching them back to the " reference " setting , I sat down to do some serious EQ'ing , and found pretty much sonic nirvana after a few hours.

Here's what it ended up like :

100 hz ........... - 2 db

200 hz ........... - 2 db

400 hz ........... - 2 db

8,000 khz ....... +1 db

12,000 khz ..... +1 db

ALL EQ point " q " properties were set on the widest choice available in my HU ...

As you can see , I pretty much cut ALL off the mid bass frequencies down uniformly , which is why I say I probably should have went with the phase plug versions. That would have given me slightly smoother dispersion and response in the midrange , and would have most likely been OK with the midbass right out of the box..... But who knows ??

What was REALLY interesting , is how after cutting the midbass down , and finding the high vocals and guitars lacking in some clarity , only a tiny 1 db of boost at 8 and 12.5 khz was all it took to liven things up to perfection.

I would have expected to need a couple of more dbs of gain on those frequencies , to get the results I was looking for , but no ......

Of course , someone else may experience exactly opposite things from these same speakers in their car , so I've included the settings I was using on my 6.5" Diamond Audio Hex components for comparison , IF it is of any help. I find it rather interesting how the emphasized and cut frequencies are almost exact opposites of each other between these sets , and it makes for a good arguement aginst my car having overwhelming frequency tendencies.

Here's the EQ settings I was using with the Diamond set .....

50 hz ........... + 1.5 db

100 hz .......... + 2 db

400 hz .......... + 2.5 db

3000 khz ...... - 2 db

6300 khz ...... - 2.5 db

My final thoughts .....

I find these speakers to be simply warm yet dynamic also. The tweeter is smooth , yet NOT laid back , and almost " perfect ". The warmth of the midbass does come at a small fraction of resolution and detail , but only slightly so. Best thing is : You can listen to these REALLY loudly for a long time without any fatigue setting in !!! The ONLY problem I'm having is one of the tweeters going into protecting mode with LOUD volumes , but I know how to take care of that too //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

HTH

Click to read more...

 

[blue 10+ year member]

I just drove 40 miles to pick up someone from work , and noticed I've never heard subs sound more like they are right up front , when only a 2-way front stage was being used. While the Alumapro sub is known for excelling in that area , there is zero doubt the strong and solid midbass capabilities of the Rainbows is at work here in a great way. Kudos to SERIOUS midbass !!

 

[skierxx5556 10+ year member]

Good to hear man im glad that you like them!!

 

[6spdcoupe 5,000+ posts]

Glad theyre becoming more to your liking.

Have you tried reversing the polarity of the tweets due to the distance of them from the mid?

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

Glad theyre becoming more to your liking.
Have you tried reversing the polarity of the tweets due to the distance of them from the mid?

x2....reversing polarity made a big difference for me.

Man, it sounds you are thoroughly enjoying them....//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[blue 10+ year member]

Bad news and good news ...... Good news is : I figured out why my image is not always stable in the center of the soundstage ..... It's because the x-overs tweeter protection bulb is often lighting up , and reducing volume in either , or both channels ..... which is the bad news.

These will not play at the volumes I want, without the protection kicking in. I can wire in a solid piece of wire instead of the bulbs , but I will probably blow a tweeter that way ..... I guess it's time to buy an extra set of tweets //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

If I remember correctly you are sending close to 400rms per side as you have the 4150 bridged....how about trying lowering those gains some

 

[blue 10+ year member]

If I remember correctly you are sending close to 400rms per side as you have the 4150 bridged....how about trying lowering those gains some

The gains are barely cracked //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif :laugh: .... Literally.

 

[OlogyAudio 10+ year member]

Trust me if you are after SQ… you don't want another tweeter... look up the effects of comb filtering... in effect you would be putting tons of nulls in your frequency response... -- try shorting the bulb and placing a .1 ohm 10w resistor in line -- that way (if the tweeter can take more than 10w of power that is) -- the resistor will fry before the tweeter will... much better to kill a resistor than a tweeter... Light bulbs as protection are well... horrible for systems that have a lot of head room -- every time a transient hits the light bulb will heat up -- but it will be very slow to cool off again relative to the transient peak... making it stay on and compress more than is required of it...

OTOH almost 400 watts is a lot to be sending at any tweeter… even if it is only getting 20-40% of the program information depending on the xover point and the program material… and the average power level of the musical signal is typically 20% or less than rated power if you are maintaining good head room… that’s about 32 watts worst case scenario and you will be hard pressed to find a tweeter that can eat that and live – except for some mid-high end pro drivers… there are ribbons that will take it too… I wouldn’t expect more than 25 watts out of say the Dayton RS tweeter aka 312 watts ‘worst case’ with clipping occuring at 10dB over RMS level… If you could keep 10-15dB of headroom or more on that amp you would be fine with a robust tweeter with that amp though...

 

[blue 10+ year member]

Trust me if you are after SQ… you don't want another tweeter... look up the effects of comb filtering... in effect you would be putting tons of nulls in your frequency response... -- try shorting the bulb and placing a .1 ohm 10w resistor in line -- that way (if the tweeter can take more than 10w of power that is) -- the resistor will fry before the tweeter will... much better to kill a resistor than a tweeter... Light bulbs as protection are well... horrible for systems that have a lot of head room -- every time a transient hits the light bulb will heat up -- but it will be very slow to cool off again relative to the transient peak... making it stay on and compress more than is required of it...
OTOH almost 400 watts is a lot to be sending at any tweeter… even if it is only getting 20-40% of the program information depending on the xover point and the program material… and the average power level of the musical signal is typically 20% or less than rated power if you are maintaining good head room… that’s about 32 watts worst case scenario and you will be hard pressed to find a tweeter that can eat that and live – except for some mid-high end pro drivers… there are ribbons that will take it too… I wouldn’t expect more than 25 watts out of say the Dayton RS tweeter aka 312 watts ‘worst case’ with clipping occuring at 10dB over RMS level… If you could keep 10-15dB of headroom or more on that amp you would be fine with a robust tweeter with that amp though...

Ughh .... Dylan , I never said I wanted another tweeter .... I'm just going to use a wire jumper where the bulb now is. All will be fine , I promise //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[bri487 5,000+ posts]

if you are happy with those i would seriously look into the zapco reference components man. i think those will give you even more midbass. also to get a little more out of them i would try a bomb *** in dash EQ.

 

[6spdcoupe 5,000+ posts]

if you are happy with those i would seriously look into the zapco reference components man. i think those will give you even more midbass. also to get a little more out of them i would try a bomb *** in dash EQ.

Not according to the current review. Also a different league in pricing.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

i can't get over your car...

 

[johnecon2001 5,000+ posts]

why dont you just run active? trade in that 4150 and get a 2100 and a 2050. then go get an MX1. stay all arc and it should still sound pretty good.

 

[OlogyAudio 10+ year member]

I guess it's time to buy an extra set of tweets //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

Good ur not getting more -- you just scared me //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif -- put one of these in line:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=004-.33

and see how hot they get when you are cranking things -- it will give you an idea about what is going on in the voice coil... .33 ohms isn't going to change things THAT much... thats a little more change than most quality control will allow between units... but not much //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif It will give you an idea about how loud you can allow things to get... Things start going to hell when the voice coil gets over 160 degrees C -- as high as 260 in high temp designs... well relative to 160 atleast they are high temp... I'm playing with some stuff though... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif -- put it this way... the magnet failing due to high temperature is the weak link