Totally Perplexed: Harsh Sounding Tweeter

[CTGT2005 10+ year member]

Sorry, Yes that is what I am planning on trying when I get a chance this weekend. I'm also going to move the tweeters closer to the front of the door panel as they are sitting quite a bit recessed inside the factory tweeter "cup" right now, which might be having a similar effect to horn loading them.

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

3-5k is not exclusively treble. That's midrange. Check the "mid" EQ bands on your head unit.

 

[Why So Cereal? 5,000+ posts]

you guys are saying reverse the phase on the tweeters?...what exactly does that do(I know it reverses the phase obviously) but how does it help

If he's getting phase interference, it can cause a "harsh" tweeter sound. Flipping the tweeter phase help could rid him of the phase interference and rid his system of the harsh tweeter sound. From what I hear, its a pretty common issue with component sets having something to do with the fact that most use 12db slopes and phase shifts. Its part of the reason active is preferred over passive as well.

 

---------- Post added at 10:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 PM ----------

 

Sorry, Yes that is what I am planning on trying when I get a chance this weekend. I'm also going to move the tweeters closer to the front of the door panel as they are sitting quite a bit recessed inside the factory tweeter "cup" right now, which might be having a similar effect to horn loading them.

They need to come from behind the door panel completely. By doing that you're helping reduce diffraction and helping tame harsh tweets.

 

[CTGT2005 10+ year member]

3-5k is not exclusively treble. That's midrange. Check the "mid" EQ bands on your head unit.

There are no mid-bands in the headunit, Bass and treble only. I was screwing around with some settings tonight and turns out the "Loudness" setting was turned on, which boosts treble at low volume levels, might explain why the tweeter picked up alot sooner than the woofers.

 

[CTGT2005 10+ year member]

They need to come from behind the door panel completely. By doing that you're helping reduce diffraction and helping tame harsh tweets.

I simply cannot bring the tweeters outside of the door panels. I know that very well may be the culprit, but the installation needs to remain 100% stock in appearance.

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

Reversing the phase also helps widen the stage and better integrate the lower frequencies of the midbass with the higher frequencies of the tweeter. Generally it's a good rule of thumb for when tweets are mounted high and mids low in the doors or in kicks.

 

[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

Prior to installing these speakers, did you have this harshness? I ask b/c if you installed new speakers in the OEM locations and you didn't have this harshness before - it's the speakers. If you did have harshness before, it's the location.

We'll pretend that the harshness is new as that'd may be easier to solve than relocating speakers.

Did you change anything along with the speakers? A gritty DAC in a new HU could be the issue. Also, what's your source material? If you're playing compressed music you can run into weird things too as not all MP3's are created equal. Lastly, and this is probably the most likely issue, have you thought that the tweeter isn't the problem? I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's actually the mid being a little 'peaky'. Boston Acoustics Pro series speakers are notorious for this; everyone says the tweets are harsh but when you EQ the mid they sound gorgeous.

If you're using a well recorded CD (not something burned) and are having no luck with EQ'ing the tweet; start messing around with 800-2k on your EQ to see if you can tone down the mid.

 

[Staliano77]

dunno if your problem is solved and I haven't read through everyones replies but if you are running active drop the mids crossover level! I'm running some Boston pro 6.5 running active and I had the mids playing from 63-3200 to match with my tweets that play from 3200 and up! I dropped the mids down to 2500 and the tweets to play from there with a 24db slope because I'm going a bit lower than the recommended range...I tried everything else to rid the harshness from my highs and this helped..I think the prob was that the mids were playing way to high which may be your problem? Active of course if it's passive then I really can't help you!