Help with upgrade!

[SirBrass]

What's the rated RMS wattage on the 2-ways?

[etherealfall]

180 I believe

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[Zippy]

From what I see, your issues with the polk components is due to under powering them. They are rated 125 watts and you are putting 65 watts to them. This will cause what you are describing, no mid bass and shrill highs. Replacing the Polk with Morel will get you more of the same problem. If you want them to sound like they should, you are going to have to replace the audison amp. Since you are using JL amp for the sub, take a look at the JL HD600/4. Your installer should keep the gains way down on the 600/4 and maybe decrease the signal in at your head unit. It will sound way better than it has. You will have mid bass and your tweeters will not sound shrill.

The Alpine head unit has the ability to run full active. You can isolate the frequencies for your tweeters, mids, and sub at it before they go to the amps. Front RCAs will be tweeters, rear RCAs will be mids, and sub RCAs will be sub. I'm thinking your installer did this. It will sound better than using passives crossovers with the physical distance between your highs and mids. However he did not take into account the lack of power.

[etherealfall]

Fair point Zippy. Will bring it up with the installer. Thanks for the advice.

[labskaus]

Originally Posted by Zippy

From what I see, your issues with the polk components is due to under powering them. They are rated 125 watts and you are putting 65 watts to them. This will cause what you are describing, no mid bass and shrill highs. Replacing the Polk with Morel will get you more of the same problem. If you want them to sound like they should, you are going to have to replace the audison amp. Since you are using JL amp for the sub, take a look at the JL HD600/4. Your installer should keep the gains way down on the 600/4 and maybe decrease the signal in at your head unit. It will sound way better than it has. You will have mid bass and your tweeters will not sound shrill.

The Alpine head unit has the ability to run full active. You can isolate the frequencies for your tweeters, mids, and sub at it before they go to the amps. Front RCAs will be tweeters, rear RCAs will be mids, and sub RCAs will be sub. I'm thinking your installer did this. It will sound better than using passives crossovers with the physical distance between your highs and mids. However he did not take into account the lack of power.

Too much bullshit in One post. The Problem is A total different One.

Lack of Power...
The Problem is the damping Faktor. Too less Power will Not automaticly end in shrill tweeter and no Punch.

Shrill tweeter...
Problem with can be solved by eq

No punch
Wrong volume, too weak mounting, wrong Filter settings so Many possible reasons.

Adjusting the gains
There are several guides in the Internet and on Youtube how to do it right. If in doubt, let it be done by someone experienced.

In sum, i think your installer did No good Job and has to improve the Installation or his skills.

Of Course You can Upgrade your stuff or invest some knowhow to get the best out of your stuff.

[SirBrass]

Ideally you should use an amp which can push per channel an rms load which is within 75%-150% of the rated rms power per speaker for the speaker pair.

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[SirBrass]

For example, my jbl ms-62c components are rated for 80Wrms. My JL 5 channel amp provides 75 Wrms per speaker channel. This is within the 75-150 percent ideal & is thus fine & won't underdrive the speakers.

The gain had to be turned down for my JL 4" coaxials, b/c they were rated for 50 Wrms & thus the 75 Wrms per channel was riding the edge of too much power. Good thing is that with gain turned down, the speakers can be driven plenty well with good, clean power and the amp doesn't have to work as hard.

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[soundman98]

so what does it mean if i'm pushing double the rms into a speaker?

[SirBrass]

Means you should have your gain turned down.

Over driving isn't as big of a problem as underdriving. If you're unsure, take your car to a custom shop & let them use things like a pink noise cd, real time analyzer, etc. to tune your system.

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[Zippy]

Originally Posted by labskaus

Too much bullshit in One post. The Problem is A total different One.

I'm an electrical engineer with over 15 years experience. Please elaborate on what is "bullshit". I've heard the Polk MM6501 set in person and would describe the set as warm and inviting, not shrill and lacking punch.

Originally Posted by labskaus

Lack of Power...
The Problem is the damping Faktor. Too less Power will Not automaticly end in shrill tweeter and no Punch.

Damping Factor is a measure of an amplifiers control over a mechanical motion of the speaker attached. A rating of 50 is sufficient to control a subwoofer with a 3" voice coil. The Audison SRX4 has a damping factor of 140. Please explain why you think this is an issue.

Lack of power will cause both shrill highs and lack of punch from midrange/midbass. The higher frequencies require short movements in the voice coil to reproduce sound. As a result, they require less power to be reproduced by speakers. This will cause what some describe as a bias towards the high end or a shrill sound. With midrange/midbass you are requiring the speaker to move a greater distance to produce the lower frequency waves. Too little power will cause those frequencies to not be produced. Since the lower frequencies require more power to be produced a lack of power will also drown them out. IE no punch to them.

Originally Posted by labskaus

Shrill tweeter...
Problem with can be solved by eq

Agreed, but this does not address the lack of midbass. It can also be solved by flipping the switch on the passive crossover to -3db if it is used.

Originally Posted by labskaus

No punch
Wrong volume, too weak mounting, wrong Filter settings so Many possible reasons.

I'm fairly certain that the OP has cranked the volume all the way up and is still complaining about a lack of midbass. Not a volume issue.

Too weak mounting...Car audio component speakers are designed to be mounted free air. Yes, sealing the doors and sound deadening them will produce more midbass; however they should be able to produce midbass without it. The fact they are not tells me that they may not be getting enough power.

Wrong filter setting...This may be an issue for the midbass if he has the headunit crossed over too high or the amp crossed over to high. The Polk set will produce 40-20K according to the manufacture site. I doubt that 40 hertz will be a realistic expectation, but they should be able to get to 60-80 hertz easy. Also this will not cause the shrill sound of the tweeters the OP mentioned.

Originally Posted by labskaus

Adjusting the gains
There are several guides in the Internet and on Youtube how to do it right. If in doubt, let it be done by someone experienced.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by labskaus

In sum, i think your installer did No good Job and has to improve the Installation or his skills.

Of Course You can Upgrade your stuff or invest some knowhow to get the best out of your stuff.

I agree that the installer is the issue here. Without being able to see how everything is wired and set, I'm stabbing in the dark. The installer could have not bridged the amp with the passive crossovers causing 65 watts to each component set just as easily or it could be that the installer crossed over at the amp at the low end too high and has the gains up too high causing the highs to be shrill. More information is needed to get to the true cause of the issue, but from what I've heard so far I'm leaning toward it being related to a lack of power.

Ideally powering a speaker with more power than it is rated for will get you better sound quality by reducing distortion introduced by increasing gains and giving the speakers a better dynamic headroom. Any quality installer will tell you that they will gladly run a 1000 watt amp to your tweeters as long as they have the ability to reduce the input levels through a DSP or EQ.

[etherealfall]

So a bridged set up, would that yield enough power?

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[labskaus]

Originally Posted by Zippy

I'm an electrical engineer with over 15 years experience.

Congrates ... so ou know electricity. Do you have done some thing with accoustics? Let me guess ... the only frequencies you have experience with are those on highvoltage wires? This makes you of course an expert in this discussion ...
I am doing car hifi competition for over 8 years - and I am far far away form being an expert.

Originally Posted by Zippy

Damping Factor is a measure of an amplifiers control over a mechanical motion of the speaker attached. A rating of 50 is sufficient to control a subwoofer with a 3" voice coil. The Audison SRX4 has a damping factor of 140. Please explain why you think this is an issue.

Most digital Amps have a low damping factor, so they can not control speakers well. I prefer damping factors >>200 and a high slew rate. This leeds to perfect hights and a midsub down to 40hz without any problems (3 way setting). Because we are talking about a 2 way setting, the midsub can not be cut early, so there will always be less punch.

Originally Posted by Zippy

Lack of power will cause both shrill highs and lack of punch from midrange/midbass. The higher frequencies require short movements in the voice coil to reproduce sound. As a result, they require less power to be reproduced by speakers. This will cause what some describe as a bias towards the high end or a shrill sound. With midrange/midbass you are requiring the speaker to move a greater distance to produce the lower frequency waves. Too little power will cause those frequencies to not be produced. Since the lower frequencies require more power to be produced a lack of power will also drown them out. IE no punch to them.

Disagree ... the AMA amplifiers (class A) for example ... i think 50Watt and a high damping factor. They can keep a subwoofer busy (!)
and "bias towards the high end or a shrill sound" bias is a function to controll the switching point of an amplifier from class a to class b

Originally Posted by Zippy

Too weak mounting...Car audio component speakers are designed to be mounted free air. Yes, sealing the doors and sound deadening them will produce more midbass; however they should be able to produce midbass without it. The fact they are not tells me that they may not be getting enough power.

This is a strong mounting:





Most people use cheap plastic rings where the speaker can move a bit. And only some few of the car speakers a build for free air, most are for big volume and some others are for close volume (tweeters, midrange but also midsub)
And you need deadning material ... otherwise the power of the speaker will be consumed by dissortions and vibrating walls.

Originally Posted by Zippy

Wrong filter setting...This may be an issue for the midbass if he has the headunit crossed over too high or the amp crossed over to high. The Polk set will produce 40-20K according to the manufacture site. I doubt that 40 hertz will be a realistic expectation, but they should be able to get to 60-80 hertz easy. Also this will not cause the shrill sound of the tweeters the OP mentioned.

Please do not forget the flank ... -6db/oct has a different behavior as -12db/oct. Cutting at 40Hz with -12db can lead to less punch, while cutting at 80Hz with -6db can sound great.
Shrill sound can be a peak in teh range 2000 to 4000hz. Maybe he should check with some RTA program/app (?)

Originally Posted by Zippy

Ideally powering a speaker with more power than it is rated for will get you better sound quality by reducing distortion introduced by increasing gains and giving the speakers a better dynamic headroom. Any quality installer will tell you that they will gladly run a 1000 watt amp to your tweeters as long as they have the ability to reduce the input levels through a DSP or EQ.

Nope ... any quality installer will rely on quality products he knows well. nobody puts 1000W to a 50W Highend tweeter. The bigger the coil the more overpower ... subs up to +100% ... tweeter up to +50%. You have to meet the the best amplifier point (were the amplifier work hardly stable without any curve). mostly this something between 50 to 80% performance depending on the amplifier (-> therefore overpower)

[labskaus]

Originally Posted by etherealfall

So a bridged set up, would that yield enough power?

Depending on the set up ... amplifier, speaker, volume etc ... you can not tell in generell.

[etherealfall]

Well the Polks are rated at 125W @2.7ohms and my amp is 4 x 65W @2ohms. If I bridge them, would that be sufficient?