Installed in my car I have a set of Response CS-2338 Kevlar Splits up front and a set of Alpine type-S SPS-60 running in the rear. Both are running off a 4 channel Cadence Amp.

Now, I was getting quite a lot more noticeable midbass "punch" from the rear more so than the front. Settings are fine on the amp.

So today I decided to experiment and mounted my alpines in the door. I noticed a difference immediately, and came to the conclusion that the Response splits were just not delivering.

However, upon putting the response midbass back in the door, and listening again, I realised that it had just as much (and cleaner) midbass as the alpines.

After a little more experimenting, I discovered that the door skin was actually hindering the sound and the midbass rather dramatically when it was on. Because I have made MDF baffles for the front speakers, they sit well far from the door skin, and there is a large cavity betwen the door and the skin that the sound seems to be getting lost in. It is quite noticable and rather dissapointing because the speakers sound amazing without the skin.

So, I am contemplating reinforcing the stock plastic mounts with fibreglass and using them instead of the baffles to bring the speakers further out, and reduce the amount of sound getting lost inside the door skin.

Any suggestions? Comments? Advice?

Mdf rings with fibreglassed factory baffles would be the way to go in my opinion, unless you want to go to the effort of making mdf baffles up which match the shape and angle of the factory plastic ones, and seal them completely on the sides. Got some spare baffles you can play with from the verada too if you like.

Yeah, the problem with the Verada is it has the high mount speaker and the power window controls, so there is almost a 10cm gap between the speaker and the skin. When the power window plate is removed, you can see the massive cavity inside.

Removing the plate also changes the sound rather obviously.

I remember this from my old car, although I never has any midbass issues like you're having, perhaps because I had the doors fully dynamatted.

I dynamatted my doors and put the speakers onto the door frame and mine work great, can you not do that and hide the speakers behind the door trim grille (or is yours different to my trims?)

I have a TW and 2338's, obviously with different door dress skins, and mounted on mdf Baffles, with sound deadening on the door only, I currently need to get a smaller baffle, or push the dress skin into the car a little more, as the midbass speaker excursion hit the skins at volume.......However, the bass in the front doors can easily be felt by my legs.
The amp is the Response 4 x100, (approx 4 x 130 if you beleive the reviews).

I like your idea of bringing them further out, but you could go ape, and screw and glue many pieces of MDF on top of each other, and shape with a big bore drill, jigsaw and rasp.
Good luck.
Fibre glassing sounds easier, but MDF may benefit sonically.

I was also looking at this last weekend! I made some custom mdf baffles for mine, and used the black speaker bit on the door skin (Had to shave it down though as the MDF meants it wouldnt sit right. I am guessing a decent amount of sound is being lost into the skins...... Now, im running Hertz HSK165's with 150wrms+ going to them (each), fed from a JL HD600/4 (+ fully dynamatted), so you would expect some more-than-decent results, but still missbass is still fairly mehhhh... I was thining of maybe somehow using fibreglass to shape the black bit on the skin so that it forms a complete tunnel from the speaker to the door skin grill? Think this could alter the sound though :\

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing this problem.

How are peoples experience with the door skins completely off? I'm not just hearing things am i?

I changed my MDF baffle to an angled speaker baffle like two months ago, using my MDF speaker spacer on an angle and then fiberglassing the whole thing. Put it in my car, sounded good at first, but I think this may have just been because I hadnt had speakers in the front for a few days while I was making it so they seemed alright. Anyway, a few weeks later I noticed a huge lack of midbass. Even took the car to WestSide for them to have a quick look and they confirmed that the midbass was non existant and that my HSk's should be VERY midbass'y. They checked all my settings (settings were perfect), connections were fine and I tested the speakers to be perfect also (Testing resistance on each speaker).
Anyway, so I eventually decided to switch back to the plastic baffles to see if that made a difference (As I used my mdf ones as a base for the angled ones which I cant undo), it did! The speakers had much more midbass and a much more punchy/crisp sound. But I have the vibration issue that comes with the plastic ones...

So im going to be making another MDF baffle in the next few days, but still puzzled as to why my angled one didnt work! Im losing a decent amount of output in the door skin as I have verada door trims on my magna (For my power windows) so there is like a 3" gap between the speaker and the skin and a huge empty space inside.

So im thinking of making an ordinary speaker baffle this time, but stacking up a few MDF spacer rings to bring the speaker closer to the speaker grill/door skin. Does anybody know if this will have the same effect as my angled baffle? The only reason I can think of for the lack of midbass in the angled one is that there was more space behind the speaker (The baffle was fiberglassed with resin and a few layers of paint so I know it wasnt leaking air).............so if I stack spacers, this will have the exact same effect?

Really dont wanna waste to much more money on this as spacers are like $8/pair (Actually prob around $12/pair), so 3 pairs + paint/fiberglass resin + mdf adds up.... I wasted like $40+ on my angled one that didnt work... :(
Otherwise I could play it safe and just make a normal MDF baffle with one spacer, but have a loss in midbass from the cavity in the door....

Thoughts?

When you use the plastic mounts, what is actually vibrating, I assume it the plastic mount itself. I was pondering this when I was experimenting with my 6.5's
I thought about the guy who cut my MDF holes as his were in the same mounts yours were I presume. (A 2000 TJ sport).
I would like to try, if if I had that door layout, reinforcing the plasic formed speaker mounts, with a MDF ring just under the 6" hole, so the perimeter of the speaker basket mount has a firmer base to mount to. Supported somehow (didnt get to solve that bit) and reinforcing the plastic walls of the oem mounts, this could be done with aluminuim angle with tabs at either end as means of securing them to the supporting MDF ring, and using a similar setup to secure them to the doors where the 5 mount screws are.

Getting the speaker as close to the door skin is paramount, getting rid of the plastic mesh speaker gaurd does wonders, as Grelise and I are discovering. This experimenting should be done as early as possible if you go down that track, as it wil get rid of a lot of air resistance, which will be soffocating the midbass and creating backwaves (if you will) that would greatly increase the vibration you are experiencing.
Unfortunately, trial and error usually means dollars and error.
Hope this helps.

Just to let know I have solved my midd bass issues and peaandham probably had his sorted already and is increasing the midbass 3-fold.
Unfortunately we are using 4 channels to do it. Mine is done by adding another parallel external crossover, so one is solely tweeter and the other the 6.5, so I have independant volume over each speaker.
Peaandham has a more advanced head deck, with active (electric internal) crossovers controlled by the deck to his 6.5's, he has to high pass them, and another full range channel to feed his new floor mount mid Bass drivers and tweeters of a suitable crossover, the problem if any, that could occur there if he winds up the mid bass driver the tweeter powers along with it.
He could also solely run the midbass off one channel and use his original cross over as designed with his 6.5 and tweeters, it's hard to tell which works best til they are mounted and their characteristics tested. I am a unsure of the wiring plan he has and it could be either.
Thats a active/passive/BI-Amp application, actually I have no idea what its called really...

And you reckon you've wasted moola. lol

Just a thought, the oem speaker mount may be able to be reinforced, still using the mdf Ring and rightangle aluminium ribs and tabs, by sanding back very roughly the shiny plastic finish, so a layer of cotton and resin will bind to it.
More trial and error though. ;).

Just something else to consider, the more complicated you make a situation, the next problem you'll have will more than likely be more complicated.

Make sure you know the benefits of Dynaxorb mats, or Mass load vinyl. Assuming you already have some bitumen based deadener.

MLV was $15 dollars a rectangle, enough to put two big squares behind my drivers. Jaycay.

Enough thoughts. lol

Thanks SH00T,
I actually have a headunit with built in crossovers etc (Alpine 9887), but im always disconnecting my battery, doing things to my car, so I cant risk going active. Ive thought of going for some focal k2 crossovers or something though because they have a switch for something like -7db for the tweeter compared to my -3db for my hertz, so that should make the mids a little louder... but will only resort to that when I know ive done all I can to make my speakers perform better in their current environment as I know they are supposed to sound much more midbassy with the stock crossovers and I shouldnt be needing to turn down the tweets....

I think I might just try the stacking of mdf rings (Actually, I have some decent 1" MDF at home so might even use the router to make the rings myself....might as well try save some money, Already spent around 5K on my sound, dont wanna make this figure much larger lol!) to get as close as I can to the speaker grille and then ill see how it sounds... I'll also get one of the accoustic tiles as you mentioned! (You know I was actually already planning to get one of those tiles today (srs) Im going down to jaycar to get some sound dampening for my floor so was looking at the price on jaycar online and saw the tiles on the site last night!)
Re-enforcing the stock baffle sounds like a decent amount of work, so might as well just go MDF as Im pretty sure my woofers sounded much better last time I made the MDF baffles! I was trying to bring the woofers closer to the grille last time which is why I converted my MDF baffles into fiberglassed angled baffles....which was a bad idea...

I just wish mitsubishi hadnt made the speaker grill with such a stupid angle!

There could be a way out for you yet, you could mod the cross-over, I don't know which component to change, but there is always MEA. They will help endlessly.
Thats a much cheaper way, as you could source the parts and solder in a couple of different -db drops using switches you have now.
The parts would be available to change it to a -6 default and - 9 or -12 on the switched circuit.
The stupid part about my new KR2's, is the day after I ordered them I got my 2338's as sweet as.....
And its only taken all these alterations to now truly exceed what I had before.
I also got pinged for low midrange on my first comp, but I had it (x-over) set wrong, now I have the manual... Look out...lol.

There is also a little gadget to connect to your electricals to remember settings (radio,ecu etc.), suitable for welding on the chassis, anywhere when you normally disconnect the battery. Not sure what they are, I think they run off a 9 volt battery, the tongue zapper.

I'd be pretty disappointed in Alpine if the advanced settings were dropped by disconnection, but I know one of the Qld MEASQ attendees, lost all his setting on a car service. He was pretty pissed. Shame really alpine could be so much better, all of tuning ability and no memory, They didnt get my money, but for a few other reasons besides, like file support.

I probably could mod the crossover, but whats stopping me is the fact that my speakers should be producing much more midbass than they are with the stock crossovers (So the dealer said). Ive also read online that the Hertz HSK's are supposed to be VERY midbassey so that leads me to believe the crossovers arent the problem! I bought them for their awesome midbass, but its just lacking in my install! So Ive gotta figure out what is wrong with my install before I will start modding/changing the crossovers i think....My hertz crossovers also dont have a high/mid flat/mid etc, that the focals have, rather they just have the tweeter db adjustment..... so cant really mess up the settings here.. :/

I have 2 weeks of holidays now though so hopefully I can figure out the problem! Thanks for the help!

Hey Rory, I have been quite audio active of late and I was quite Impressed by the depth and experience of the reviewer Damon Dupriez,
His reviews have led me to explore items reveiwed and have since purchased. He has done a Comparison of 6.5 Splits in the 3-600 dollar catergory, included were HSK's that you have.
It can be found here. (http://www.mobileelectronics.com.au/reviews/65_two_way_components_review_under_600/)
While their overall quality build and sound are very good. He does comment


On the bass delivery front the drums and bass guitar were taught and controlled, but to my mind a little cold and lacking in weight.

I just hope you aren't expecting too much from those speakers. Especially from a car that has the larger driver set so low in the doors.

I have been experimenting a little myself and Grelise has been having some fun as well, see here (http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59728&p=1409510&viewfull=1#post1409510), I am not sure, but you may have seen this already.
Good luck and enjoy your 2 weeks off. And Hi Fooz, he's probably watching and taking notes, he's got some nice hardware thats about to dressed in gold and get driven hard as well.
Marty

Thanks SH00T. I might be expecting too much of them, but I would be suprised...... Ive been a couple of cars recently with stock audio systems that seem to have similar amounts of midbass as my 150wrms HSK's :( So im pretty sure something isnt right!

Anyway ive just been down to bunnings, got my supplies so im ready to remake my baffle! Also went to jaycar and got some accoustic tiles, although the ones I got are round and kinda jellyish (http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=AX3665)..... I looked at the square tiles, but they were like an inch and a half thick and made from foam.....which probably wouldnt be that great if they got wet, and they probably would, plus I wasnt 100% sure they would fit. Didnt realise the price til I got to the counter though...... $40! Dayumm, these better do something :P

Im thinking that even just the repositioning of the speaker in the new baffle will help as currently I can only see half the speaker when the grille is not attached.... so im guessing half the sound is hitting the skin and just bouncing back or getting lost in the door! I'll let your know how the baffle goes!

I can only see half the speaker when the grille is not attached.... so im guessing half the sound is hitting the skin and just bouncing back or getting lost in the door! I'll let your know how the baffle goes!

Lining the speakers up with the holes will make a difference. This will be the little extra you are looking I think. And if you want a bit more, get rid of the plastic that covers the speakers. Its the biggest change, you'll get in clarity and sound, beats all the other adjustments, like dynamat, larger cables, MDF baffles. So line em up and let em sing...

Have fun....

is it better to line them up facing the hole in the door trim, or get them as close to that hole as possible but pointing back at your face?

As a speaker of this type has a 30deg dispersion, angling the speaker toward the listenening position is highly desirable, but angling it inside the dooor card would mean more sound hitting the door card again, causing cancellation/doorcard resonance.
External angled door pods would be able to do both, direct the the sound unimpeded. TL/W door card suit this setup better IMO, but then a power window control modification would be required.
Every thing is trade off/comprimise, you just have to find the right comprimise with the most benefits, sound result/time spent/money spent/aesthetics even street cred according to your priorities.
So there is no right way or wrong way to do any of this, I am just sharing some of the benefits I have gained with minimal cash/better result trade off, but as I have altered the looks of my door cards, I don't expect everyone to follow suit, or even like the result - so it appears. ;)

A bit of topic -
Once you have raised and aligned the speakers, reassemble the door leaving the speaker grill off, listen for half an hour, then tape the grills in place and listen again, then you'll understand how I reasoned the OEM looks / sound result trade off. I like to know what your thoughts are then.

A bit of topic -
Once you have raised and aligned the speakers, reassemble the door leaving the speaker grill off, listen for half an hour, then tape the grills in place and listen again, then you'll understand how I reasoned the OEM looks / sound result trade off. I like to know what your thoughts are then.

Out of curiosity, how far 'out' are the factory plastic speaker baffles in terms of where they position the speaker relative to the grilles in the TL/Ws?

From your own experiments, would you say that the following two adjustments (ie. w/out removing the factory grille) significantly improve the sound of the mids:
a) aligning the height of the speaker with the grille/hole by creating a new baffle to mount the spkr higher, and
b) bringing the speaker forward in the baffle (adding a couple of spacers, or equivalent) to bring it closer to the door card?

[Apologies if I'm covering territory you've already discussed, just trying to make sense of this.]

Sorry guys I was trying to edit my post and I got interrupted by a customer, Door card are different through models, and my fisrt baffle that I upgraded from was made by some one else from a OEM TJ baffle. I have a TW
TL/TW might be too high.....So you'll have to look for yourselves......
Thats for posting at work,

Err....
The speaker needs to be lowered (unfortunately) with a new baffle. So we are finding. But it takes 5 mins to take a look and check your model.
And mounted proud so the sound is made as close to the cabin as possible.
From these two changes, the decrease in door card vibration is evidence enough. Energy stays as a sound wave release almost directly into the cab.

So a properly made baffle with consideration to speaker placement allows more sound waves into the cab.

The removal of the cover is like taking off a gag. Its just something you have try, even temporarily, its has so much more clarity, definition, energy, volume, and thump and lift the mids substantially, if you are having problems with over bright speakers.

Please, Can some one get a pic of their car, remove a speaker grills and put the card back on, and we can look at the OEM speaker placement through the speaker hole.

I'll try to a shot of mine over the weekend. Lowered and proud mounted. The excursion rubber just misses the 4 trimmed tabs on my door card.

Err....
The speaker needs to be lowered (unfortunately) with a new baffle.

OK, my bad, misunderstood this - thought it was sitting too low, not too high, in the factory baffle. I'll see if I can remove grille & check positioning (& do the photo thing) over the wkend.

OK, my bad, misunderstood this - thought it was sitting too low, not too high, in the factory baffle. I'll see if I can remove grille & check positioning (& do the photo thing) over the wkend.

Actually, my speaker is sitting too low in the baffle!! (Think I may be using a stock tf magna baffle with my verada door trims though, so thats probably why!)
Here's a pic:

http://picturestack.com/102/929/8mtSpeakerVerSMj.jpg


Edit: Sorry about the pic size, can make larger if needed :P

Im still experimenting but i figured this out long ago :) After everything i have learned seems best for staging and midbass to FG the stock plastic baffles funny enough

Had no problems tearing these trims apart in the name on midbass and science :)

Made a huge difference though whatever method i used to. Plenty of sound and clarity being blocked by the evil trims!

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00073.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00115.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00119.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00130.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00131.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00118.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/PIC00117.jpg

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/a416/hdach3/101_0026.jpg

MR SPL, you have the same sound tile thing that I bought yesterday!! Woooo!
Thanks for the pics!! Will help with my baffle making!

I work at jaycar mate :) Assistant manager so i get stuff dirt cheap. So gone overboard with deadening, cables, solder lol everything i can get at work

The tile did make a suprising difference to clarity and reflections so not a bad buy

Sorry guys I was trying to edit my post and I got interrupted by a customer, Door card are different through models, and my fisrt baffle that I upgraded from was made by some one else from a OEM TJ baffle.
TL/TW might be too high.....So you'll have to look for yourselves......

MR SPL: Haha niceeee!
Also good to hear about the tile!! :D

Progress pics!
I used some 1" MDF and used this as a spacer...its kinda ugly but very solid!!
http://picturestack.com/114/132/QU3IMG0258xLy.jpg
http://picturestack.com/114/132/fVmIMG02594CK.jpg

Only done the one side so far and still need to do a couple more things to it (Paint etc), but is coming along nicely!!
Dont know how to resize (/cant be bothered finding out :P) so sorry for the large pics and blurry pics (iphone)!

Looks good :) make sure you use plenty of sikaflex between the baffle and door and you should be good to go :)

I bought some rubber seal stuff from bunnings yesterday, was gonna run this around the edge at the back of the baffle, would this do a decent job? (6mm thickness, 9m width)
I would go sikaflex, but that makes the baffle semi-permanent...and my power windows been screwing quite regularly recently so it would be nice to be able to remove the baffle fairly easily if I ever have to......

Yeah should be okay to use as long as there is a PERFECT seal :)

So the jist of all this ,is to make up a mdf board to replace the factory one ,and then make up another spacer ,thick enough to nearly touch the door trim ,replace speaker grill with spaeaker cloth(for looks )...and this is all in the name of better sounding and more directed bass ??

Not being too much into sound ,but i have a set of 6 inch splits in the front ,and have always thought the bass from the door speakers a bit weak.

Will do my best :P Ahaha thanks MR SPL!

Thats pretty much the jist of it :) Also changing from plastic to MDF brings down vibrations and resonance quite a large amount! All adds up to nicer quality listening

Thats pretty much the jist of it :) Also changing from plastic to MDF brings down vibrations and resonance quite a large amount! All adds up to nicer quality listening


Thanks,another project in the wings....lol

Thanks,another project in the wings....lol

Like you need anymore of them! lol

Also keep in mind people if you don't sound deaden aswell as seal the service holes then this really is a pointless exercise. .

Nice job.....

I did this to the inside of the door card.
Trimming these up will help protect your speaker when reassembling the door. You could also tape over rough edges, I drag the knife backwards over plastic cut cut to remove burrs.

http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z467/Shootmarty/Audio%20Mods/IMG_0998-1.jpg

http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z467/Shootmarty/Audio%20Mods/IMG_0995-1.jpg

It was only later I cut out the speaker grill and protected them like this

http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z467/Shootmarty/Audio%20Mods/IMG_1066.jpg

Or this is unprotected
http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z467/Shootmarty/2011-06-22153713.jpg

My bars are similar to this
http://emartsuperstore.com/scott/new1051-14org.jpg

But Fooz suggested puttting kick bars underneath the black cloth, But I haven't got the room.

A good alternative is D pull handles.

Now I can see how much lower the TL/TW speakers are to earlier Magna's.
So they both have their bad points, earlier the grill raised so much its hard to position the driver, and the TL/W is just Low, but set in closer.

http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z467/Shootmarty/Audio%20Mods/IMG_1066.jpg

http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/z467/Shootmarty/Audio%20Mods/Diamantedoor7.jpg

I am sure that if you leave a gap here or there wont ruin the whole effect, I have gaps, and yet every change I've made is very noticable.

I dont know why everybody trys to seal a free air speaker in box that you'll never seal. Get the cone close to the opening. Eliminate the backwaves at the rear, and stop as much rear speaker noise coming through as possible.
This is usually done by using a good sound absorbing material in a large diameter around the speaker to avoid wave cancellation interfering with the source. Use dynamat to its strengths, sure its a sound deadener, but it works best by adding weight to a resonating panel, its the panel that creates the noise, the added weight just stops the ringing, there are better sound absorbing materials out there, like the rear pads you guys have.
You'll never seal the door completely, plus your speakers are free air speakers, the sheer amount of loose air in a car door will do absolutely squat to to acoustically suspend the speaker to aid in audio quality. If they were meant to go in a box, reinforcing your Plastic baffle and sealing the rear would be the choice, and they say it on the Speaker Packet.
Get the majority, the external skin of the door, place your pad, a good tip is to surround the speaker to get any back waves that are missed by the pad, and reap the rewards.
A good (honest) sound profesional will back this all the way.

Just my opinion, and if you think I might be in the audio industry a little bit, you just might be right.

Also keep in mind people if you don't sound deaden aswell as seal the service holes then this really is a pointless exercise. .

This reminds me of a respected member telling me to use more dynamat and cover every hole, the lot, 100%, even the holes where the door card plugs go.
My thoughts are this, If I got perfectly covered doors and cut a whole in the dynamat the size of a tennis ball, and sit in the drivers chair, car running or not, and the listener wagered $2 to $1, to pick the door, I'd make a packet, or find no takers, more like.

This reminds me of a respected member telling me to use more dynamat and cover every hole, the lot, 100%, even the holes where the door card plugs go.

I've read a number of times that covering a single panel more than about 25% with dynamat or the equivalent is a waste of material & $. And thinking about it, I don't really u/stand the benefits of covering the inner door panel with the stuff... unless it is vibrating an awful lot (& against other door components) causing excess noise, but even then, you can use other materials to fix this problem. The most frustrating myth about dynamat is that it will make your cabin quieter... it doesn't seem to do this at all. The most useful advice I've read around the audio installation stuff is using the right material for the job, & being aware of the limitations of some of the fairly well marketed products.

Too true, I had a huge post about that but edited it down and didnt think it was the trouble, but you are dead right. Take dynamat for example. as there site says.

DYNAMAT XTREME
Description:

Dynamat Xtreme is a patented, lightweight elastomeric butyl and aluminum constrained-layer vibrational damper.

Dynamat on the inside door will stop vibrational resonances.

A free air speaker in a door, make about the same vibrations backwards as it does forwards, (thats why the pads are used by those guys, I used mass loaded vinyl, it was $15.00 enough for two pads and quietened my rear number plate too.)
These wave will compete with the waves emitted by the front and can quite often cancel them out, hence surrounding your speaker in about 200mm outwards, will limit the backwaves, ensuring nice clean and sound waves are heard from the cone without competition, there is no need to get to carried away, as more cancellation is created by sound bouncing back to the speaker, reflected off the sides of the center console, for example.

As for the 25% coverage, thats a great point, Imagine a bell you find at a service desk, rings very well, put on a 5cent sized dob of blutack. A lot quiter, then put four ribs of blutack on the bell. Much better, keep adding blutack, but there will be a point you will reach, where you will be wasting blutack to hush the bell.

Dynamat is OK to surround the speaker with, its not great at absorbing sound itself, but does do a fair job, but as it absorbs panel vibration, its convenient for most. Pity its so damned heavy.

Anyway - back on topic, I have solved all my midbass issues, all the fabrication work paid off, and I have a really nice sound coming from low down the doors.

You guys might be a bit luckier than me with the TJ door having the speaker grill higher up than mine, I had to go to the effort of using another set of parallel crossovers (now 4 in total) and the other 2 channels (3&4) to power the mids, the gain on the tweeter channels (1&2) are at their lowest point, and the mid channel gains were set at 1/10th, but, with the help of Megatron's excellent ear, we set the gain to about 0.5/10, it's not really cheating, its just using what I had to acheive the result required.
So I am using all 5 channels to run a total of 5 speakers. With 2000 watts on tap......
I even gave my 6x9's to Sparky, hell, I dont need em anymore.
I did try the mids full range with out the crossover, but as the mid can play some frequencies the tweeter can, it lowered my stage height, so the extra crossover's were needed for quality purposes.

Looking forward to your further thoughts/results in this challenging area of sound reproduction.

As a speaker of this type has a 30deg dispersion, angling the speaker toward the listenening position is highly desirable,

http://picturestack.com/380/944/FEtC0798FigurvgL.th.jpg (http://picturestack.com/380/944/FEtC0798FigurvgL.gif)
is the 30 degrees dispersion simply off the outside edges of the surround at 15 degrees to vertical if the speaker face is horizontal, or is it 30 degrees off the axis for 60 degrees total dispersion, or is it measured from an angle off the cone face?

If thats a serious question, move to point B, otherwise continue to point A.

A.
Why dont you try turning off the Sub, putting on a song with a kick drum beat, stand outside the car, open the door, and move your head around the speaker and feel where the kick is and and where you cant feel it. Either way, you'd look pretty funny waving your bum in the air. lol. You can do us all favour and measure it for us. ;)


B.
Here's a picture.
http://www.soundsphere.com/images/retail/frequencies.gif
In the last diagram, the outer lines represent lower frequencys. The frequency we are interested in roughly dispersed like so, sorry I dont have a protractor.
This picture also helps demonstrate how higher angled speakers sound better in a car envronment.


No seriously, The whole point is, if your speaker is not aligned with the hole, set too far back, with the door absorbing the waves, and you if use the plastic speaker grill, your mid bass will probably suck. We want to feel that percussion wave and depth.

Yep, serious question, was going to try and make a 30 degree paper "cone" type thing and position it so I could get the speaker to still sit behind the grille, but be as far fowards in the door and poined back towards the driver as possible if that makes sense, so the sound cone doesn't hit the door. just wondering where its best to measure the angle from. The lower frequencies are spread more and the higher it gets the more directional it is? Or do the lower frequencies only follow the outside edge and are less present in the centre of the cone? (red lines on conventional speaker)
Do whizzer cones in the centre throw tle angle of the lines out again?

You're a bit out of my depth, as I am a end user, not a sound designer/engineer, I am just beginning to learn about car audio dynamics, getting the sound out of the door cleanly is my first goal.
But, wizzer cones are for full range drivers as they assist in higher frequencies, I dont see why you wouldn't get splits, as the verada sail pods are an ideal place for tweeters. And they'll lift 'your stage'.
As for the cone, I take it this could be described as a shrowd, to prevent pressure escaping into the gap in the door skin, I dont think you'll have the luxury of dictating any angle of the 'cone' once you angled the driver, but its a good idea none the less. Just stick to two cones tho.....
As for the wizzer, don't let what I said stop you playing with the idea.
However once you have successfully angled your driver, and you're happy with your cones, I think any discussion about dispersion is a moot point, as you only have two cones.
Perhaps you need another driver.

Let us know how you get on.

Ive got a pair of vifa splits to go in, and since id only seen that little cone in the centre on factory speakers I googled to see what it was, a full range plus a tweeter seems a bit weird to me so maybe its not as full range as a regular home theatre full range speaker? Will have to find out. Plan on putting the tweeters in where the verada tweeters go. http://picturestack.com/470/268/uL31002968alP.th.jpg (http://picturestack.com/470/268/uL31002968alP.jpg)

The paper cone/shroud isn't to direct the waves, just to use as a template to see how far foward I can get the speaker and angled as far back and upwards to the driver as possible, with the paper cone as a visualization of where the sound waves will be to keep them clear of the door trim. Not really sure how to explain it. Left, fowards, angled. ----- Right, conventional.
http://picturestack.com/470/269/Pl21002970J7p.th.jpg (http://picturestack.com/470/269/Pl21002970J7p.jpg)

Also, what fabric are you using over your speakers? I used home theatre speaker grille cloth over the 6x9s in the parcel shelf once just to keep dirt out and thieving eyes away, but over about a year it faded and left more washed out red than black colour.

oops double post

The vifa splits seem to have a bit of a following, it would be good if you get good results out of them compared to what the other guys are running, If you plan to do what is drawn on the left, the results will be impressive compared to the standard install, but its not hard to improve on the standard, so the guys are finding out. I dont know at what frequency the benefits of a wizzer start at, but as a treble enhancer, it makes you wonder what they are doing on a mid, and why the majority of splits don't feature them.

The verada tweeter positions are pretty good for factory positions, I used the verada tweeter mounts as well, as the tweets I have had a hole in the back so mounting was a dream, I used a couple of washers as a spacer to aid installation.
I also remove the black plastic tweeter grill, but my tweets had their own guard. My black plastic triangle may get more modification yet, in the form of removing some of the plastic on the windscreen side of the triangle, in an effort to push the stage further forward, in the aim to improve depth, so the singer appears to be on the bonnet, wish me luck there, I might need it. The stage depth is currently at the windscreen.

Weirdly, without the dashmat on, the height of the staging, or where a female vocalist, in center, appears to be is 1 inch above the top of the dash, with the dash mat on I gain 2-3 inches in height, much higher than height than any of my speaker actual height.
So with a bit of playing around, they are ideally placed, and some (other car model owners) spend hundreds to intergrate their tweeter in a similar positions.

BTW, the 380 has so much space and mounting options due to sheer amount of space available near the OEM tweeter mounts and the huge amount of flat area available in front of the A pillar, its Ideal for a three way front speaker system, I'd love to see some one give that a go. Great results for minimal effort.


I got the speaker cloth for free from the guy who made my baffles, I have no idea on its quality, it was an offcut. Its only on the mids in the doors, so I wont have an issue with fading, its a pity your tint didnt do more to stop the fading issue.
But for the price of cloth compared to speakers, $10.00 of cloth every year to lenghten the life of the 6x9's seems like good deal to me.

The vifa splits are an excellent set! I got timi pretty much the last set now they are discontinued :(

The vifa splits are an excellent set! I got timi pretty much the last set now they are discontinued :(

That's a shame... what sort of $ were these when they were avail at Jaycar?