DamonB

Tweeters are easy because they aren't heavy. Wire them up and stick a ball of clay on the back of them. Then you can listen, move and aim to your heart's desire before settling on a location.

Pick a favorite well recorded song you know well and play it in your car at normal volume. Now lean your head forward to get your ears between the tweeters. Notice a difference?

Cars are actually difficult sound environments and sometimes things that shouldn't work do. The key is to try it. IMO if you have to resort to aiming speakers at the windshield the speaker itself is lacking though. If you do that you're no longer listening to the speaker, you're listening to the windsheild. This brings all kinds of phase, dispersion and response problems.

FDNewbie

iTrader: (10)

Yea I'm gonna play w/ the tweeters, and I'm sure you'll turn out to be right...it'll sound better aimed at me. I might even have to turn down the high's a bit to compensate for better sound delivery

Re: aiming at winshield, good point, but a lot of times I think it's due to space contraints. Lemme say this: even w/ a $1000 component system, placing speakers literally on the floor, in a position where your foot is immediately in front of the speaker face, blocking a great deal of the noise (talking about the FD here), it CAN'T get any worse. I'm sure dash-mounted speakers woulda been better. But hey, they gave us one, right? Too bad I got a gauge pod there haha.

Serious sound setups have a sub set above knee height, then a midbass speaker about elbow length (both in the door panel), then high speakers/tweeters on the top of the door/triangle area, or on the dash facing up, AND a center speaker channel on the dash. Now THAT'S a monster setup w/ correct placement.

Awesome speakers + poor placement (FD spots) = sucks, any way you cut it lol.

Lastly...I got a question for ya Damon. Any way to still get sound from the center speaker while using a pod there? Or is that a lost cause?

DamonB

Probably. I built my xovers from scratch so I also kept swapping resistors in until I got the levels right too.

Certainly. So I would make the point of not bothering to pay for a $1000 component system in that case. Placement is every bit as important as the speakers themselves.

Ideally every speaker would be co-axial to eachother so all the sound came from one point. However people always feel component systems are somehow better because co-axials have a "cheap" connotation. Therefore a truly high performance coaxial speaker with a real xover is hard to find; nobody bothers to make them.

Yep. In cars I always settle for "good enough". You just don't have many choices at times.

I don't know how you'd do it without somehow building the speaker into the gauge pod. Even so I would want it pointed at the cockpit, not the windsheild. If it's just for center fill a better idea might be to mount it behind the center a/c vents.

FDNewbie

iTrader: (10)

I've considered that...not sure how that would affect the A/C function at all. I'm thinking (if space allows) to position the speaker on it's side so it faces the A/C vents. But not trying to replace the vents... Oh wait. The vents are plastic tubes completely enclosed, aren't they? You'd have to drop A/C huh? Scratch that...

poss

iTrader: (5)

FWIW, I have my tweeters mounted in my a-pillars. I can't stand the way surface mount looks so they are flush mounted. They fit *almost* perfectly. There is a little lip that sticks out towards the front because the a-pillar starts to curve around to the edge of the windshield.


They are JL Audio XR-100CTs. Overall they are pretty good, but at times they are a little bright for my tastes and the crossover that comes with them doesn't have an attenuation feature.
http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_c...hp?comp_id=249

Don't pay attention to my filthy dash!

FDNewbie

iTrader: (10)

Poss, I considered putting it on the A-pillar, but I have an A-pillar gauge pod, so only spot I could put it would be at the top of the A-pillar, and that's wayyy too close to my head But def looks nice!

On that note, my FAV place to mount tweeters is on the very front of the door panel. Love that. 100% flush, and looks so clean. Good distance, etc. Prob is, hell will freeze over before I cut up a door panel. These things are $2K a pop from the dealership, should you need to replace 'em!

HedgeHog

Has anyone successfully install the Image Dynamics HLCD system? In the 80's when Clark/Navone came out with it, it was all the rage. I think they still call it the Waveguide. It apparently eliminated a lot of the issues with separation/depth/soundstage. And they're uber efficient to boot.

BTW, I remember out-of-phase firing of the tweets to the windshield was another "trick" for better imaging...except the reflected sound off the glass often sounded too harsh.

AustinCustoms

Contrary to popular belief, it is best to fire them from opposite sides of the car at each other. anything facing you can be too harsh.

DamonB

Easily fixed with a high quality non-inductive resistor inline with the positive speaker lead of the tweeter.

DamonB

Bologna. If the listener is 90 degrees off axis it's going to suck everytime.

Show me an off axis frequency response graph for any tweeter of any design or manufacture at any price that doesn't loose a huge amount of output over 10K when you're anything more than say 50 degrees off axis (and it will get much worse at 90!).

You don't fire speakers at eachother unless they're in headphones.

DamonB

Were those the guys who were putting large waveguides on the front of a compression driver? The output of the waveguide was like 2"x6" or something? Never got to listen to anything like that but I do know they eat up a LOT of room. The compression drivers alone are big and heavy.

HedgeHog

Yup...same ppl. http://www.imagedynamicsusa.com/prod...1pro&type=horn They make a mini version now that I'm tempted to try out. Something romantic about emulating Klipschorn in the car.

I wished they post dimensions so I can see if they're gonna sit on my shins. In their installation forum, they claimed to have done it in a C5 so it may fit in the FD. The biggest problem (other than dp/mp/cb, roadnoise, etc) is that with the smallish interior even crossfiring the speakers to a point in front of the driver, you'll have problems with the steering column/wheel blocking the sound. The waveguide is supposed to minimize that issue...."supposed to".

DamonB

Better drive it with some tubes!

Only dimns I saw:

http://www.imagedynamicsusa.com/page.php?page=fullhorn

http://www.imagedynamicsusa.com/page.php?page=minihorn

HedgeHog

I <3 Toobz!!11!!one!1!eleven

Auditioned some Sonic Frontier and Conrad Johnson pre/amp...wow...incredible. Heck I remember Milber tube amps for cars was very well reviewed...too bad them tubes will not last the drive around the block. LOL.

D'oh...and...D'oh. Thx for the link.

turBRO240

iTrader: (1)

anyone try to buy a a-pillar guagepod and mount the tweeter IN the guage location..... and so its not to direct place the pod as low on the a-pillar as it can go?

DamonB

^ That's actually a slick idea but what are you doing to do for the right side?

SpoolinRX

iTrader: (6)

I can't believe that no one thought of a RHD single pod....

GOTBANNED?

here is mine

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...&highlight=jbl