Component Speaker Questions

Tesla

Tesla

Tesla

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Joined
19 Jan 2003
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Bristol, UK
I have just ordered some Infinity REF6510CS Components for upfront in the Mondeo.

I didn't want to spend much more than about £80-£100 and having heard these in a Mondeo they sounded much better than Alpine 171A (which I also listened to in a Mondeo). I bought these for £60 delivered from ebay, brand new, boxed etc.

My current speakers are pretty poor.

Upfront I have 2 x Sony 17cm somethings which I just bought as a stop gap and then never really got round to replacing them (until now).

In the rear are the two standard Ford speakers but they start distorting quite badly at a medium volume and are known to be rubbish.

I use adaptors with the Sony speakers as Ford speakers are weird size, 6x8/5x7 IIRC. I picked them up from Halfords and they have always seemed a little flimsy, should I make my own from MDF, will it improve sound at all?

Now I have three main questions:

Where is the best place to mount the tweeter, should I just play around with height and see how I prefer it?

Most Mondeo owners mount them on the inner wing mirror cowl but I have seen and heard these Infinity's with the tweeter mounted in the door around 1/2 way up, between the mid-range speaker and top of door. He said he found they sounded best there. I have seen some cars with the tweeter on the A pillar cowl too?

Secondly, what should I do regarding the rear speakers?

Thirdly, there are some settings on my headunit (Alpine 9851R) I don't quite follow. I guess they are the high pass and low pass filters but changing them doesn't seem to do a lot? Most of the current Alpines have similar interface so can somebody explain what these settings do and what are ideal/optimal settings?

Oh I also have a sub, it's a JBL unit, 290W RMS with a pretty well matched JBL amp which is 300W RMS in bridged config. Won't set the world on fire and I don't have it cranked right up, just add's a bit of depth to the music.

Oh, as a side not I found out why my radio reception is so poor, the connection between the aerial and aerial cable is badly corroded which means I will need to buy a new aerial, aerial base and cable. Hopefully these will be cheap from Ford :) Any idea on cost?

Thanks,

Chris
 
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Tesla said:
Where is the best place to mount the tweeter, should I just play around with height and see how I prefer it?
Click to expand...

Best thing to do is play about with them - find where it sounds best to you and fix them there - or at least, as close to where it sounds best as you can...

Tesla said:
Secondly, what should I do regarding the rear speakers?
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If you have people in the rear often, just get a basic set of coaxial replacements for the stock speakers. If you don't, then I'd say just leave the rear speaker-less tbh. Let the components up front handle the mids and trebles and let the sub work with the bass.

Tesla said:
Thirdly, there are some settings on my headunit (Alpine 9851R) I don't quite follow. I guess they are the high pass and low pass filters but changing them doesn't seem to do a lot? Most of the current Alpines have similar interface so can somebody explain what these settings do and what are ideal/optimal settings?
Click to expand...

The settings will depend on the style of music you listen to - and also the kind of setup you have. My JVC has similar settings which basically allow you to control the cut-off frequencies, levels and width of the highs, lows and mids.

What I usually do, is play around with the presets on the HU and then fine tune it with those settings - the differences they make are very subtle - often not noticable - but they are there.
 
Good choice, I've got the 605CS, and they're pretty decent speakers.

Have a look at my OcUK Motors gallery for ideas on placing tweeters. A popular place to mount them on TalkAudio is in the A-pillars.

I've got mine Dynamat'd at the mo, but am in the process of making MDF mounts for them. Should sound miles better... I feel that the bass response lacks in certain places.

Does your HU have a dedicated sub woofer output? My Pioneer P80 has a sub out, and I loved being able to set it up like my home AV gear... sub LPF set at 80Hz. Sounded absolutely fantastic! Such a nice blend. I really miss my sub now :(

If I'm at the RR, I'll have a listen and a bit of a play if you don't mind :)

Oh, and the rear speakers... I have my HU mostly faded to the front. I don't miss the rears at all.
 
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I have my tweeters on the A pillar and they sound great But i can cutomise my crossover points abit more then most can as i'm running an active crossover instead of the passives that came with them.

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I would ditch the rear speakers you wont need them. :)
 
You're running actives? Nice :cool:

What amps do you have?

Nice tweeter mounts btw. Don't the sound waves bounce off the windscreen?
 
agw_01 said:
You're running actives? Nice :cool:

What amps do you have?

Nice tweeter mounts btw. Don't the sound waves bounce off the windscreen?
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DLS CA21 on mids and DLS CA23 on tweeters Using a directed electronics active crossover.

not really they are nearly pointing straight at each other so not much reflection from the windscreen. :)
 
DLS nice choice :cool: i ran velocity reference comps in the mondy, and i found the best position for them to be between the wing mirror cowl and the main speaker, half way up, sound stage was fantastic, i always look to set the system up as if i cant hear the specific speaker.

Its very much speaker dependant, the velocity tweeters were brutes, bloody huge they were.
 
wohoo said:
DLS nice choice :cool: i ran velocity reference comps in the mondy, and i found the best position for them to be between the wing mirror cowl and the main speaker, half way up, sound stage was fantastic, i always look to set the system up as if i cant hear the specific speaker.

Its very much speaker dependant, the velocity tweeters were brutes, bloody huge they were.
Click to expand...

Metal dome tweeters will be a lot harsher then soft dome tweeters so being abit lower will help but it also depends on what there of axis peformance is like. Some speakers have to be pointing at you to sound good where as others sound good in any direction :)
 
I will go and take some screen shots of the menu options I cannot figure out :)

Maybe a small video if it's easier.

Post it up in a sec.
 
Tesla said:
I use adaptors with the Sony speakers as Ford speakers are weird size, 6x8/5x7 IIRC. I picked them up from Halfords and they have always seemed a little flimsy, should I make my own from MDF, will it improve sound at all?
Click to expand...

yes, definately make some out of mdf. I used the mondeo adaptors to fit 6 1/2" speakers in my focus.

Gives them a better bass response.
 
nope....it's fairly easy.

Use the thickest mdf you can get away with. check the clearance between the speaker pods and the door cards though.....you can make them too thick if you're not carefull
 
Tesla said:
It's a WMV.

www.avconnections.co.uk/cjackway/hu.wmv

Should be a quick download.

I can use my Halfords plastic adaptors as templates so it won't be to tricky to make MDF mounts.
Click to expand...

Damn, that's a nice looking headunit. What model is it?

Menu system seems a damn sight easier to use than my Pioneer.

Reading this thread has given me an incentive to make some MDF mounts for mine. Was going to wait until I had an ample supply of SS or DM and deaden the entire door, but I cba waiting any longer.
 
Alpine CDA-9851R

Any idea on what those settings are, filters? What should they be set to?
 
i used a daynamat extreme trunk kit for my two front doors.....until you actually hear the difference it makes you won't believe it!

it;s worth spending the £80 here for a much better sound!
 
needmorespeed said:
they are treble and bass boost and the center frequency for the boost leave them at 0 :)
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Ahh right, What should the centre frequency be for bass and treble?
 
on the subject of rear speakers.....don't bother.

I've left my ford standard things in for a bit of rear fill but faded most of the sound to the front.

better to spend more on the fronts than spend anything on rears.
 
Speakers arrived today,

Few more questions:

Speaker cable, suddenly realised I need some to go between the speakers and crossover. What cable would you recommend?

How come the cable coming off the tweeters is about 3 inches long.

Oh, and if you watch that video, when I am adjusting the bass that middle number (it's a 1) can be changed between 1-4. What does it do?
 
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