Capacitors on factory dash speakers
 

I noticed there is a capacitor soldered to the speaker assembly. I'm guessing it's to filter out the low frequency signals. I've already a set of dayton audio 3" woofers along with a inline 800HZ high pass filter ready to drop in and in the process of mounting them. They are 3" only so require different mounts unless I can adapt the factory mounts.

Anybody have an idea what the specs are? I'm looking to dissect the factory speakers to reuse factory connectors and mounting hardware. If the specs are right I can save my high pass filters for the rear speakers and pick out all the useful components before I chuck them out.

edit: hey are 10uF capacitors. Crossover point at 4ohms is roughly 4000Hz according to this chart. a bit high. I recall reading about someone stuffing an 8 or 6ohm 4" speaker with better results than any tweeter.

delete this mods. gracias.

'better results' is extremely relative.

i run the dayton 3.5" point source drivers in the dashboard location, crossed over at 200hz. i like and prefer the sound, but i also haven't run tweeters in a very long time because i find most designs too harsh sounding.

Good tweeters might be a waste on my ears anyhow. Not sure how much of it i could hear. Other than distortion or other unintended noises, sound quality can depend on who's listening. Only one way to find out is to actually play some music through them.

We'll see how it works with the factory crossover point. If it sounds no better than stock I'll slap on the ones I bought.

I just realized that it was your post that i read about the no tweeter thing. I've been lurking on parts express after reading that post.

if you start feeling different, check out madisound.com as well ;)

Edit: taking it to PM so as not to hijack.

@Griever423 dont worry about thread jack. I'm curious what advice soundman has on these as well.

The 3.5 point source drivers are rated at just 10W rms and 8ohms resistance, tho according to actual users they handle a lot more power (50rms) with very good results. I dont know about powering the door AND dash with 25w rms.. 25w at 4 ohms is roughly 12w at 8ohms. Divide that by 2 for the door speaker, now you have 6.25w to the daytons and 25w for the door's 2 ohm speaker. This does not sound like a recipe for good sound, but who knows? They still might be an improvement over stock. Try it and let us know!

I think these were designed to run in place of tweeters paired with woofers. I wonder how a small full range in place of tweeter in a 2-way speaker set up would sound hooked up to 100 watts.

you're making too big a deal out of this ;)

my daytons are ran off the 'front'(1/2) channel of an alpine pdx v9, a 5-channel amp rated at cea-rated 100x4, and 500x1 RMS.

what kills speakers is heat. plain and simple. many will say distortion kills speakers, but it's not entirely true. distortion is a leading symptom, but not a leading cause.. distortion is what happens when a driver is pushed past the mechanical and electrical limitations of any speaker, and the extra energy has to go somewhere, so it creates heat, and as a side effect, creates audible distortion.

speakers really only take what they need. as long as the physical attributes aren't exceeded by implementing proper crossover points, there's almost no risk of blowing out a speaker.

overall, wattage represents cone control-- the more watts, the better the amplifier can control and manipulate the speaker as it needs to produce the desired result, in this case, clean, undistorted sound.

it's no different than driving a 1200 hp car in traffic-- you're not using even half of that to move up with traffic, you just use as much as you need.

So you're saying its like a miniature conjoined twin to the woofer and amp. It take just a small percentage of the total nutrients consumed. Or a benign tumor?

Under powering has no other downside for the speakers other than less cone control?

I'm just learning this. Most I've done is change out head units and speakers on cars. Appreciate the insight.

i don't know enough about nutrient stuff to know if that's an accurate assessment!

underpowering just means that there's less of everything-it moves the speaker less, and presents less power, so there's less heat potential. it's safer to use less power than more power unless everything is set up correctly.

The technical term for this characteristic is "Amplifier Damping Factor". Here's more detail:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor

Quick definition: A high damping factor indicates that an amplifier will have greater control over the movement of the speaker cone, particularly in the bass region near the resonant frequency of the driver's mechanical resonance.

Damping Factor is not necessarily related to an amplifier's power output but larger amplifiers usually have a higher (more aggressive) Damping Factor. DF generally only comes into play when dealing with larger, more massive drivers like woofers and subs.

big amp goes WOOF.

little amp goes woof.

i've never claimed to be an expert.

See.. that's what I originally assumed, thinking a 4x50w (more like 4x36w rms)amp would be sufficient for my 100w rms components. Then I did a search for "how to pick the right sized amp" or something to that extent. What I found was a lot of conflicting information, but for the most part they say you should have an amp rated for +50% to double the RMS of your speakers. Just on the crutchfield website they got one article saying one thing and another saying to go 50% of total speaker RMS rating, both articles written by "experts." :iono:

I ended up going with a cheap 100w x4 amp by Dual Audio. I can try 100w per channel first, and if that dont work I could bridge it and push 200w per channel. If it does work, I have the option to add another 200w rms for future expansion without needing another amp.

I guess the only down side is not using your speaker's potential and possibly not sound great. I mean.. you've got to hear the thing first to determine if it sounds good or not. si or no?

pretty much

Cool beans :thumbup: