Why are my HAt tweeters so harsh?

[disturbed471985 5,000+ posts]

will do. thanks guys. cant wait to get the full potential out of this system. i think im going to be buying the JBL GTO amp btw, what do you guys think?

Its decent. If u like it then buy it. It will be in ur car after all.... Its not junk so if you buy you made a good buy.

 

[RoYALbLUE08 10+ year member]

do you have a good amp in mind ?

soundstream rubicon, JBL GTO (the newer version) or the rockford?

 

[denim 5,000+ posts]

Textile - SEAS Prestige 27TFFNC/G (H1396) 1" Textile Dome Tweeter: Madisound Speaker Store
I run 4 of these - SEAS Prestige 27TAFNC/G (H1397) 1" Aluminum Dome Tweeter: Madisound Speaker Store and can they be harsh?? Yep as harsh as you want them to be... Like said back a page or two a good eq will correct almost anything. I have mine crossed at 3.15k 12db slope each pair sharing 175watts.

For the money, the SEAS neo textiles are VERY good.

 

[dietDrThunder]

i dont have any crossovers. the imagine set doesnt come with a crossover like the clarus or unity. which is pretty stupid because i think they should come with an external crossover like almost all sets do. it has a little built in crossover unit

Cliff notes: don't give up, the speakers are awesome.

The Imagines don't need a separate crossover, they just need a proper installation. I am running my Imagines almost exactly as goingdef mentioned, except I'm using a Rubicon RUB4.600 [EDIT: just saw that you are actually considering this amp...it is as good a value as the speakers imo]. The gains are set up so that the mids have roughly 100WRMS going to them, and the tweeters have roughly 20. My car has this setup, and one Image Dynamics ID12D4V3 powered by a RUB1.400, and my head unit, and that's it. Yesterday that setup came in second to Rob Hilton by .25 points at the MECA SQL event in TN, getting a 74.25 v. his 74.5 . He's got (4) big, modded ARC Audio amps, 3-way active front, etc. etc. in his car.

On a side note, Rob is a graet guy, and he car is ridiculously cool. If any car of mine is ever half as cool as one of his I'll consider myself lucky. I'm just posting this as a counterpoint to people here talking about how the Imagines don't sound good, or need crossovers, or whatever...not necessarily the case. And also, if I'm being honest I listened to Rob's car, and if I were judging the gap would have been larger...I was lucky to be that close).

Also, I'm not sponsored, or on any team, or whatever...I'm very new to the hobby. I bought the HAT's out of my own pocket at a retail store. I spent about 6 weeks auditioning speakers, and if there's another pair of components available for $220 that even come close to the Imagines I'd love to hear them...I sure didn't find them in my search.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

most car audio tweeters are more like 15watts not 100watts. The crossover attenuates them.

Make sure that jbl has a 5khz highpass.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

which I don't think it does, I think it's not even as high as 500hz. The recommended xover point is 5200hz.

 

[RoYALbLUE08 10+ year member]

Cliff notes: don't give up, the speakers are awesome.
The Imagines don't need a separate crossover, they just need a proper installation. I am running my Imagines almost exactly as goingdef mentioned, except I'm using a Rubicon RUB4.600 [EDIT: just saw that you are actually considering this amp...it is as good a value as the speakers imo]. The gains are set up so that the mids have roughly 100WRMS going to them, and the tweeters have roughly 20. My car has this setup, and one Image Dynamics ID12D4V3 powered by a RUB1.400, and my head unit, and that's it. Yesterday that setup came in second to Rob Hilton by .25 points at the MECA SQL event in TN, getting a 74.25 v. his 74.5 . He's got (4) big, modded ARC Audio amps, 3-way active front, etc. etc. in his car.

On a side note, Rob is a graet guy, and he car is ridiculously cool. If any car of mine is ever half as cool as one of his I'll consider myself lucky. I'm just posting this as a counterpoint to people here talking about how the Imagines don't sound good, or need crossovers, or whatever...not necessarily the case. And also, if I'm being honest I listened to Rob's car, and if I were judging the gap would have been larger...I was lucky to be that close).

Also, I'm not sponsored, or on any team, or whatever...I'm very new to the hobby. I bought the HAT's out of my own pocket at a retail store. I spent about 6 weeks auditioning speakers, and if there's another pair of components available for $220 that even come close to the Imagines I'd love to hear them...I sure didn't find them in my search.

I will be messaging you once I get the rubicon amp! Sounds like u have the simple setup I was looking for. Thx for the info I really appreciate it

 

[dietDrThunder]

I will be messaging you once I get the rubicon amp! Sounds like u have the simple setup I was looking for. Thx for the info I really appreciate it

When you go active, make sure the cap that is on there gets put in-line with the + tweeter lead on each tweeter. Also if it helps, I have them crossed at 4Khz and they are performing very well in my system.

 

[zako 10+ year member]

what do you recommend? buying a headunit such as the new pioneer deh 80prs with the 3way crossover
or buying an electronic crossover unit and keep my stock HU?

You don't need the active crossover. Here is what I did. Simply insert a 2.2uF capacitor inline for the tweeter. Now you can run tweeter directly off an amplifier channel. The woofer can run off a dedicated channel without any low pass crossover. So you effectively have a bi-amp setup without an active crossover. This setup effectively replicat's HAT Imagine's crossover on the back of woofer. It has a 2.2uF capacitor in the back. I did not want to remove the capacitor from the back of woofer, so I bought 1% precision Dayton capacitors from parts express for like $5. This procedure is recommended by the HAT company as a poor man's "active" setup. There used to be a paper on the HAT web site describing this setup.

This is what I have in my car, and the setup sounds great. If tweeters sound too harsh, I can simply calm them down with amplifier gains or the fader control on the head unit. The mids and tweeters are powered by MB Quart REF4.80 amplifier. I chose to run 4 RCA cables from the head unit so I could control time alignment for woofers and tweeters independent from each other. The woofer is high passed at 60Hz@24dB (as recommended in the manual).

 

[chillin 10+ year member]

Little bit of a thread jack, but I see the guys that are saying these speakers sound great are running them active. Have either or you ran them as coaxials before going active and if so, did you find the tweeter sounding harsh when you ran it that way?

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

I only have 75 going to mine. Look at my amp, its set with a scope at max output. I dont think I need to clamp it. Look at the Rainbow power tweeters. They are rated at 175 rms. The ones I have now can take 90+ but i dont have it to give them.

Saw a set of Cal27's go poof on 100watts. They can RMS rate them at whatever they want, tweeters do NOT need anywhere near that kind of power.

 

[zako 10+ year member]

Scott Buwalda mentioned on forums that Imagines tweeter sounds harsh to people running in component mode because the speakers were designed to be used as coaxial speakers. I don't know how much truth is in this since I haven't tried running my HAT Imagine speakers in coaxial mode.

For those interested in speakers such as HAT Imagine to be used in component install, but using the more traditional passive crossover, they recommend HAT Unity. HAT Unity woofer is based on HAT Imagine, and the tweeter and crossover box come from the HAT Clarus line.

 

[RoYALbLUE08 10+ year member]

If its intended to use as coaxial mode why is so terrible? It doesn't make sense

 

[dietDrThunder]

I never ran them as coax so I have no idea about that, but as components they are very good IMO, provided that they are properly utilized.

 

[zako 10+ year member]

I never ran them as coax so I have no idea about that, but as components they are very good IMO, provided that they are properly utilized.

This depend highly on the install location. When Scott Buwalda mentioned that the speakers were designed for coaxial use, he probably meant the usual locations.. in the doors, where both tweeters end up being way off axis and firing into soft interior parts of the car, resulting in few reflections. In any case, the sound of any speaker is seriously affected by the characteristics of car interior and aiming. The likely number one cause of "harsh tweeters" in most speaker installs is that tweeter's output is not matched with the woofer for that install. (The other thing that makes tweeters harsh is often crossover point being too low for a given tweeter). This is why so many people are running active..

The tweeters on these speakers do seem to be somewhat aggressive. However, people who run these speakers active tend to like them a lot. Once fully broken in and tuned, these speakers are very enjoyable. I keep finding in my music collection albums, which I stopped listening on regular basis years ago, and listening them all over again, because everything has become so much more musical with these speakers and my new sub.