Tweeter Question

[fmueller67]

Hi Everybody, first of all, many thanks for admitting me to the forum. I used to be into car audio way back in the mid 1980s to early 1990s. In the interim I moved around a lot, didn't have time to work on a car, and I was reasonably happy with the stock systems in my cars. They have got better!

Recently I bought a Corolla Fielder, which is a car that's not available in either Europe or the USA. We get it here in New Zealand, because most of our cars come 2nd hand from Japan.

Anyway, it had the worst audio system I ever listened to - just two paper light speakers in the front doors. For the reverse camera the dealer had already installed a new head unit, which I kept. I upgraded the system to this:

Head Unit: Nakamichi NA3600M
Amplifier: Sansui SA-31504
Front doors: Rockford Fosgate R165x3 Prime Series 6.5"
Rear doors: Rockford Fosgate R165x3 Prime Series 6.5"
Dash board: Nakamichi 13mm tweeter pair with crossover
Subwoofer: Fusion CPAS1080 active 8" slim underseat subwoofer

I am pretty happy with that setup, but my question is about the tweeters. They hiss! They hiss a lot!!!

I simply connected them to the same output as the front speakers, and installed them left and right basically on the dash board to provide a better soundstage. I vaguely remember doing that back in the day with small Alpine tweeters, and the result was amazing! This time not so much.

Is there anything you can suggest other than just getting rid of them?

Many thanks!

Frank

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[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Are you asking about the hiss, or soundstage info? The hiss could be from overdriving your amp, a bad ground, or induced noise in the signal chain. Saying they hiss is pretty vague. If you are asking about staging, adding additional tweeters highly off axis from each other is not a good recipe for staging and imaging.

 

[fmueller67]

Are you asking about the hiss, or soundstage info? The hiss could be from overdriving your amp, a bad ground, or induced noise in the signal chain. Saying they hiss is pretty vague. If you are asking about staging, adding additional tweeters highly off axis from each other is not a good recipe for staging and imaging.

Thanks for the quick response! I am asking about the hiss. I am probably not using the right technical term with hiss. If that's a technical term at all.

I think the tweeters are just too loud for my taste. Since I have them hooked up with the front speakers, I cannot control them independently. Is there an easy way to dial them down? Would using a rheostat work to bring the volume down in comparison to the front speakers?

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Again, making multi-point sources for your upper frequencies is a recipe for a muddled sound stage. But if you want to add depth at the loss of locality, I would suggest a robust control of your tweeters performing fill. They should have independent control of frequency response and output. You will never achieve that by sistering them to another set of speakers in the system.

 

[fmueller67]

Again, making multi-point sources for your upper frequencies is a recipe for a muddled sound stage. But if you want to add depth at the loss of locality, I would suggest a robust control of your tweeters performing fill. They should have independent control of frequency response and output. You will never achieve that by sistering them to another set of speakers in the system.

Thanks again! So let's treat this as a theoretical exercise. If I sister two speakers together, how can I reduce the volume of one of them compared to the other?

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Thanks again! So let's treat this as a theoretical exercise. If I sister two speakers together, how can I reduce the volume of one of them compared to the other?

Id have to think about that, Im not sure it's possible since both speakers would be on the same circuit so a resistor or pot would affect both speakers. But even if it's possible, you wouldn't have independent control of the frequencies between each driver, which you would definitely want. IOW, I don't recommend this option unless you power the tweeters independently.

 

[fmueller67]

If anybody is still interested, I ended up driving the tweeters with the amp of the head unit. That doesn't really make it possible to control the volume separately, but I figured I could kinda do this by playing with the gain of the separate amp that's driving the main speakers. Turns out I didn't have to touch the gain. The volume of the tweeters happened to be just perfect as soon as I hooked them up directly to the head unit. The result is exactly what I expected and was hoping for!

And in case there are any fellow Kiwis around, both the amp and sub I found are absolute bargains and worth well more than I paid. And that's saying something in NZ where everything costs an arm and a leg!

SANSUI -- AB Class 4/3/2 Channel Amplifiers -- JAPAN BRAND

Sansui Electric Co., Ltd. (山水電気株式会社 Sansui Denki Kabushiki-gaisha?) is a Japanese manufacturer of audio and video equipment. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, which also owns Japanese brands Akai and Nakamichi.Brand：SANSUIModel No: SA-31504Specification: 110W x 4 RMS at 2 Ohm 75W x 1 RMS at 4...

www.pepsiauto.co.nz

FUSION CPAS1080 8INCH ACTIVE UNDERSEAT SLIM SUBWOOFER*special price* - Driving Sound

FUSION CP-AS1080 IS A SLIM 8INCH ACTIVE SUB DESIGNED TO FIT IN MOST AREAS IN THE VEHICLE. COMPACT SLIM DESIGN MAKES IT UNIQUE AND VERY VERSATILE! The 8″ Super Slim (78mm high) Active Enclosure, boasts a massive 600 Watts of Power, enhancing your car audio system with crisp clear low frequency...

drivingsound.co.nz

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

If anybody is still interested, I ended up driving the tweeters with the amp of the head unit. That doesn't really make it possible to control the volume separately, but I figured I could kinda do this by playing with the gain of the separate amp that's driving the main speakers. Turns out I didn't have to touch the gain. The volume of the tweeters happened to be just perfect as soon as I hooked them up directly to the head unit. The result is exactly what I expected and was hoping for!

And in case there are any fellow Kiwis around, both the amp and sub I found are absolute bargains and worth well more than I paid. And that's saying something in NZ where everything costs an arm and a leg!

SANSUI -- AB Class 4/3/2 Channel Amplifiers -- JAPAN BRAND

Sansui Electric Co., Ltd. (山水電気株式会社 Sansui Denki Kabushiki-gaisha?) is a Japanese manufacturer of audio and video equipment. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, which also owns Japanese brands Akai and Nakamichi.Brand：SANSUIModel No: SA-31504Specification: 110W x 4 RMS at 2 Ohm 75W x 1 RMS at 4...

www.pepsiauto.co.nz

FUSION CPAS1080 8INCH ACTIVE UNDERSEAT SLIM SUBWOOFER*special price* - Driving Sound

FUSION CP-AS1080 IS A SLIM 8INCH ACTIVE SUB DESIGNED TO FIT IN MOST AREAS IN THE VEHICLE. COMPACT SLIM DESIGN MAKES IT UNIQUE AND VERY VERSATILE! The 8″ Super Slim (78mm high) Active Enclosure, boasts a massive 600 Watts of Power, enhancing your car audio system with crisp clear low frequency...

drivingsound.co.nz

Next time you should do an active network setup, you'll have way better results with actual tuning capabilities

 

[fmueller67]

Next time you should do an active network setup, you'll have way better results with actual tuning capabilities

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately I have not the foggiest idea what an 'active network setup' is!

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately I have not the foggiest idea what an 'active network setup' is!

so the limitations of those old head units is the tuning capabilities. Newer head units have 13 bands of EQ, Time alignment (delays the far away driver so all sound waves from each driver hits your ears at the same time recreating a virtual concert), and active network mode. This gives you independent control of each midrange and tweeter left and right for output levels along with the crossover point and slope aka full complete control over the sound which results in perfect results everytime after a proper tune.

No passive crossovers of any kind is used other than the head unit crossover which is more accurate and power efficient and most of all, adjustable based on vehicle acoustics. This allows a perfect blend between midrange and tweeter and subwoofer. This is how all modern medium to high level setups are done(not money cost wise just results wise you can get amazing results with really crap equipment too going active)