Component Speakers?

[blakesmith13]

I've been reading a lot about all these speakers and all you guys say the way to go is component speakers and not to put the tweeter in our stock location in the MP5 cuz it hurts sound quality. now i really don't wanna cut my door to put the tweeters in. if i'm not like audiophile could i just disconnect the stock ones and just put the woofers in with no tweeters? or is that like a complete no-no? if i stick with the tweets they are going in the stock location no matter what cuz it's my car but my dad owns it and he doesn't go for the whole chopping stuff up thing bc usually i end up totally messing something up when i have to do stuff like that! and i might as well run this by too while im at it i think im gonna get the panasonic MXE CQ-HX1083U bc it's ghost and it runs mp3's and im gonna get an eD sub with i think a us acoustics amp. hopefully that all sounds good otherwise bring on the criticism!

 

[blakesmith13]

o yea and with the component speakers i was gonna get an amp for it from a local audioshop around here that sells planetaudio stuff and i have two 10's and a 400w.2 amp in my jeep that sound really good but the eD is supposed to be great with that lil 8"a sub and i don't wanna take up that much room. so you think maybe a planetaudio amp would run good on that ED sub? or should i go with the us acoustic or avionix?

 

[bjdesire]

get mb quart discus line speakers, a bit pricy, but you wont regret it, at all, i promise you

 

[bjdesire]

oah and btw while ur at it get a jl audio 300/4 amp, there really nice. its expensive, but a nice setup you wont have to replace for a while or have any problems with


woot 100 posts

 

[servoeyes]

1) Listen to any speaker before you buy it. I liked the MB quarts on a sound board, but they sounded like ass in a car. They were WAAAAAAY too midrangey, barky, and harsh for my tastes. basically, they weren't worth the 300 or so dollars and the upper line wasn't worth the 650$ or so dollars. That'll give you an idea as to the differences in peoples' ears.

2) If you spend the money for an 8a from eD don't bother going with US Acoustics...kinda kills the purpose of getting a SQ sub. I'd personally just get a jl250/1 and run it at 2ohms (wire the sub coils in parallel) and make the recommended vented box if you want more volume, or use the sealed box they have, but a little larger (~.05-.1CF more) than they say so that you get a little extra volume, better power handling, and flatter response. It'll cost you a little more, but you probably won't regret it when people hear your car and ask how many subs and how many watts you have going to it.

3) Here's a little trick if you don't want to drill holes in the doors for components: either find components that have bridge mountable tweeters: Boston Acoustics Pros and Zs, Image Dynamics Chameleon, CDT convertibles, among others...or get cutom kick panels made. If you run *more* than 50-75W to your speakers it's a good idea to upgrade the wiring from stock. You'd have to pull it through the doors, which does involve some cutting of a wiring harness. Nothing major, and you'll never see it, but it has to be done. With Kick panels, it's easy becuase you never have to run the speakers into the doors. Of course, kicks will probably cost you 150-200$ to get made.

4) While I can not tell you which speakers to buy, I can recommend a list of brands to look at: Adire Audio Kodas, Boston Acoustics Pro and Z series, JL Audio VR and XR, Kicker Resolutions, MB Quart Reference and Premium, Focal, Image Dynamics, CDT, and Eclipse.

 

[Douggie]

The thing about the stock location of the tweeters is that it's too far from the woofer/midrange, so "supposedly" it affects the sound stage. Nothing really wrong with the quality of sound though. But if you're not that picky or not an audio-phile, replacing the tweeters in the stock location with a new component set should be fine.

Bear in mind that some members here are true car audio-philes and they can be quite particular (anal) about their setup . So what applies to them does not necessarily apply to you.

 

[servoeyes]

I say it depends on the amount of power that you're giving them. Tweeters up high can do damage if they're really high up. An yes...tweeter placement can make a really big difference in how a system sounds...beofre you drill anything or mount them, play around with the tweeter and see where it sounds best for you. Up high also adds the possibility of throwing it out of phase with the midrange. Again...it's all car and install specific, and the major thing is to find a set of comps you like before you have to worry about ANY of this stuff!

 

[blakesmith13]

hey thanks for all the input. i thought about just getting a bigger amp so that i could run the speakers up front and the sub. is that a bad idea? i can just get two this is a long term project but i like to plan things. and what kinda car alarm should i get since this is gonna run be up on the cash and i don't want things stolen.

 

[Douggie]

hey thanks for all the input. i thought about just getting a bigger amp so that i could run the speakers up front and the sub. is that a bad idea? i can just get two this is a long term project but i like to plan things. and what kinda car alarm should i get since this is gonna run be up on the cash and i don't want things stolen.

What exactly do u mean by a "bigger" amp?

 

[blakesmith13]

o like having an 800w amp to run the sub and the comps up front

 

[Douggie]

o like having an 800w amp to run the sub and the comps up front

I see. Yes, it's defintely possible, but remember that one speaker will take up one channel on the amp. So for your case, you probably need a 4 channel amp to do that. So one channel would drive your left component speakers and another channel would drive the right component speakers. Then for the remaining two channels, you can bridge them to drive your sub.

The thing about subs is that you need to low-pass-filter the signal at the amp (most amps have this feature) before sending it to the sub. So if you send the same signal to the components, you won't hear any high frequencies in your component speakers. Then it will sound like @ss. That's why you need separate channels to keep the signals separate.

Likewise, you need to high-pass-filter the signals that are going to the component speakers.

 

[Poseur]

first off 800w is no-no talk around here. That's the kind of terms they use to sell ppl widgets. If you want to get serious, break it down to RMS wattage. (for example, a 4x40w headunit puts out closer to 4x12RMS watts. Max wattage is what something will do right before it explodes and really is doubtfully accurate at that. I don't evne have any grasp on what a 4ch "800watt" amp would be realistically, but I'd assume something like 4x50w (yes this does add up to only 200, but of course with different loads it gets alot higher)

Sothen, if you want to run this all off of one amp (say an avionixx 440) you will get 85w per channel for your fronts and, I believe something like 250 for your bridged rear channel. But make sure you check for proper impedance (ohm rating) You'll need a sub that will handle that wattage and show a 4 ohm load for most 4ch amps.

As for speaker mounting, there are plates available to make a 5x7" hole into a 5-1/4"midrange with a 1" tweeter right next to it within that oval. I'm hoping to do this with a 6-1/2 making my own plates, but that'll require money and effort both of which I'm lacking currently. And you will want to pull wires if you're going over 50wRMS per channel. So check the sticky I hope it helps.

Sub-wise you Might want to go for a 10" unless you're talking about Ed's new yet-to-be-released high-excursion 8. Just really be hard to fill in for whatever you're going to be pushing up front with an 8. and that new ED 8 will take like 1000 REAL watts if you want to be serious about it. You can get a 10k in a .5cubeish box, which is still nicely compact. and will hit plenty hard while sounding nice. With a good bit of efficency and money savings to boot.

 

[parks853]

another option is to get the JL 450/4 if you bridge channels 1 & 2 you will get 300Wrms @ 3-8ohms (so use a sub with 4 ohms to be safe) and for the components you will hook channels 3 & 4 up in stereo to get 75Wrms to each component. JL amps are not cheap but they have all the power that they list plus more. You will have all the crossovers that you will need (A low pass on channels 1 & 2 for the sub and A high pass for the components on channels 3 & 4). They look nice and perform well ( I have 2 of them)

As for components if you want to use one amp and not spend alot of money you could get the JL XR 6.5 components (they sound great for the price and dont require alot of power).

As for the sub you get get a JL 10W3v2. It only requires 250Wrms so you will be good on that and you can get d2 which is 2ohm dual voice coils (so hooked up in series would give you the 4ohms for the amp)

This is not my top choice if money, install, and number of amps is not a concern, but with the things that you wanted to do I think you would be very happy with this system.

I did not want to cut up my car so I put my tweets on the top of the door panel (right in front of the stock location) which only leaves two little screw holes not a big hole in the door. I used focal utopias and my sound stage is awesome.

I would recommend a head unit also if you are going through the trouble of installing a system.

good luck

 

[P-Funk!]

Uhm, doesn't your 03 P5 already have a separate tweeter location at the top of the door? Just pop out the wimpy ones and a 1" Boston Accoustic will fit right in (breaking the tabs for the old one)

(confused)