Swapped speaker and amp, door speakers full range
 

Hi guys,

I ended up swapping all speakers, hu and did a mini Alpine amp (alpine ktp-445u). Door speakers are Infinity 6032CF (component)

The doors currently sound way to bright. There is a 0db and +2db switch and both ways including directing the tweeter or even blocking it, sounds way too bright and cant keep up with the rest of dash speakers (Alpine SPR-10TW tweeters and JL CZ-350x 4'')

These might be some basic questions because i'm new to this. The amp I have doesn't have a crossover for high frequencies, only low. I feel like the doors had way better punch with the original speakers in place. Is this a combination of doing preamp low on amp and adjusting base from hu?

My question is how to make this speaker only do bass as a factory set up?
Is it beneficial? Can I just cut the tweeter out to kill its high frequency?

Any ideas?

If you have upgraded your HU: You could hook the amp to the sub woofer output. Usually on the head unit you can adjust the crossover frequency. I would turn it up to the highest low pass frequency and test that first. Then I would turn the stereo up to the loudest you would listen to, then gradually turn the gain on the amp up till the speakers "match" with the ones powered by the HU.




I have six 4" speakers, four 6" speakers, and one 10"speaker. Sony CD, Power acoustic amp, lanzar 6.75 door "woofers", and a 10" fosgate. Been messing with my crossovers and gains a bunch lately...

I will try this once I have it back together in a few days. I feel like not setting a HPF at all gives nice deep notes, but high volume there is a horrible "blat" sound so i immediately turn it down. Turn up hpf too high and it sounds like an old radio. Then comes the whole issue of crossover adjusted perfect for windows up quality sound. But windows down loud beats is too strong, or polar opposite where low volume too hollow all around :sigh:

Trying to get a hang of audio balance since you can never do one without another, and now i don't know if i'm reaching my limit of needing a small sub.... yet. I know I can get the sound I want, but the fine tuning of crossover on hu, to crossover to amp and gain adjustment i find to be very time consuming and a lot of trial and error.

Is there an option in your HU to reduce speaker gains? Not sure if that will reduce the gains for the dash speakers as well though.

Also, I remember reading that you should just use one or the other (HU or amp) cross overs. Maybe disable the HU's cross overs and just utilize the amp's.

Comments:

I ended up swapping all speakers, hu and did a mini Alpine amp (alpine ktp-445u). [is this being run bridged powering the doors? If it is you are pushing 90W, min ohm load of 4ohm recommended]


Door speakers are Infinity 6032CF (component)
[these are coax speakers, 93db sensitivity, max RMS rating is 60W, 2ohm, if you are running these off the ktp-445u bridged, you are overpowering them potentially and possibly also overdrawing the ktp, run this unabridged at 45W@2ohm, and get 2 extra channels, we'll talk about that later for better results]

The doors currently sound way to bright. There is a 0db and +2db switch and both ways including directing the tweeter or even blocking it, sounds way too bright and cant keep up with the rest of dash speakers (Alpine SPR-10TW tweeters and JL CZ-350x 4'')
[how do you have these wired? on factory harnesses?]

These might be some basic questions because i'm new to this. The amp I have doesn't have a crossover for high frequencies, only low. I feel like the doors had way better punch with the original speakers in place. Is this a combination of doing preamp low on amp and adjusting base from hu?

[no]

My question is how to make this speaker only do bass as a factory set up?
Is it beneficial? Can I just cut the tweeter out to kill its high frequency?

[This could be accomplished with a coil, which is effectively a first order lpf, but you would do better with a proper crossover network]




[Your issue I think comes from running multiple full range drivers off the front channel(s), which the HU has crossover and level controls for but assumes that this will be one "speaker" logically from its point of view. with as many tweeters as you have in the mix try dropping the eq on the Hu from @3k by 2db & @5k-20k by 4db straight, or as close to that as you can and give it a listen]

where did you put them all? I want to see pictures. :)

Thanks for the feedback
I followed post 1 here:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42239

To make this exact set up in post 19, wire for wire:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...t=42239&page=2

Amp is set for a 4 ohm speaker from its dip switches.

Dash speakers are factory harness and sound absolutely delicious

I'd be more helpful with information but I'm slowly learning :)

sorry, I meant amp is set for 2 ohm*

can you take a photo of what you have the amp wires as, in post 19 it looks to me like he's got it unabridged. if you switched the dip switch to 2ch, then the amps trying to duplicate the signal into the other 2 channels.. but if they are not hooked up this shouldn't hurt anything.


did you try adjusting the EQ?

Finally had time to play with the car in storage. I was able to to do no crossover on HU and only 60Hz from the amp. Set for speaker level. Can't notice a difference between 2 and 4 channel. Much clearer but still sounds too bright from doors. How bad of an idea is it to try to rip out the built in tweeter?

Here are some messy pictures, sorry tries cleaning it up and just took off my bracket to take the photos.

Looks to me like you do not have it bridged, which means there's 2 free channels of power on that amp. I think you want dip switch #6 down for speaker level input. All of the switches look to be in the up position in the photo. Where did you end up setting the gain? when I was using one of these I actually set it to the lowest possible position on the dial when using SKPR.
as far as cutting the tweeter out, you possibly could, with some coax speakers the wire runs along the back of speaker.. but if it was me.. I would pull them and sell them on craigs list and just get a 6.5 or 6.75 woofer. I have made this suggestion in other threads before, but the Dayton audio woofers you can find on parts express are quiet good and quite affordable. also, if you get a 4ohm woofer you can bridge the ktp-445u and upgrade from 45W/door to 90W/door, which will get you a bit of a bump in midbass presence and thump.


Find someone with an 90s era Miata and convince them they want your infinity speakers.. that's what I did with my first set of infinity 6.5 coax speakers.

First one is actually down, just photographs terribly. I will double check with speaker vs RCA switch position. Gain is what I would say about 35%-ish of its adjustment.

Looking at this one, but Im pretty sure is too deep and would need a spacer to clear
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--295-198

I know actually desoldering or cutting out the tweeter is not the most ideal solution but thats what level of disappointment I was at since it was all new material for me.

Thank you for the support though!

I think @B-R-Z has the RS180 in his car,
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--295-374


I think to fit these you'd need to stop by a stereo shop and have them cut you out some adapter rings. In my experience they charge $20-$40 bucks for this. There's also this guys site, but idk if he's still active, I assume so though as his site's still up
http://carstereoadapters.com/

First, here is a link to download the manual for the Alpine amp:

http://support.alpine-usa.com/produc...45U.pdfhttp://

I think there may be a misunderstanding about how the filters work on this unit.

A "High Pass Filter" (HPF) is designed to allow all frequencies ABOVE a certain cutoff (or crossover) point to PASS THROUGH the filter.
Conversely, all frequencies BELOW the cutoff point are BLOCKED from passing through.

This amp appears to have two modes of operation:

1. Full range - The HPF is disabled and ALL frequencies (bass and treble) are amplified and passed through.

2. High Pass - Only the frequencies above the cutoff point (treble) are amplified and passed through. The frequencies below the cutoff point (bass) are BLOCKED.

If the goal is to send only the bass frequencies to the door speakers then the Alpine amplifier must have the HPF DISABLED. But, this doesn't achieve the entire goal because while the bass frequencies are now being sent to the speakers, so are the high frequencies.

If this amp is to be used for bass only, there needs to be some kind of crossover or "Low Pass Filter" ahead of it to block the high frequencies. Or, maybe this amp isn't the best choice for this application. An amp with a built in LPF or complete crossover might be a better choice.

As for disabling the tweeter, this is kind of a bad band-aid on the problem and not an actual solution. Even with the tweeter disabled, the bass speaker is still trying to produce all the frequencies being sent to it even though it's not very good at producing the higher frequencies. Best to only send the bass frequencies to a bass speaker if you want the cleanest reproduction.

Agreed, however he already owns this amp, also amps that are 15A that work in this application are somewhat limited. If I was looking to LPF the speaker, I would use 2 coils inline with the output side, or replace the speaker with something that has a desirable natural rolloff. or both.

@LimitedSlip s point is valid though, using a real crossover would accomplish the goal better than cutting out the tweeter. a .398mH inductor on each output would give you a 800hz 1st order lpf on each of the doors. you can get things like this from digikey. be sure to select parts that can be ordered individually, there are things on there with min order sizes of 1000 for example.


link to a first order crossover calculator
http://www.erseaudio.com/CrossoverCa...st-Order-2-Way

Yeah I have those. I used the white PVC adapters that someone makes, I forget their name. I think you need spacers regardless of speaker selection pretty much, right? They are cheap.

Bc I'm curious, are you running it on any crossover, or are you feeding it full range and letting it roll off naturally?

The amp has a high pass filter built into it for mids/highs. For the mid-range (RS180), I am using a coil enclosed in a radio shack project box which acts as a low pass filter, creating a bandpass filter.

i've got a better question. why the hodge-podge of equipment? infinity, alpine, and jl all have drastically different sonic signatures, and i suspect part of the issue is the intermixing of those signatures. there is absolutely nothing wrong with mixing speaker brands, but doing so requires forethought and planning with each brands characteristics in mind.

so you're using the oem deck with the infinity speakers wired to the alpine amp?

so you have a full component set installed in the doors? definitely not needed with speakers installed in the dash. only the midbass is needed in the door. the tweeter and crossover installed here is only complicating things.

later you mention that the oem tweeters are still installed with the implication that they're still powered?
what crossovers are being run on the alpine tweeters, and how are the jl mids wired and crossed over?

the first idea i have is to get a proper amp with adjustable highpass/lowpass capabilities. or if you're married to that specific alpine amp, and what i assume to be the oem deck, you will need to get an external crossover to properly route all the audio signals.

Ya the speakers mix match I know is not the best. I was shopping mostly by best deals i can find. All speakers have been swapped. To add to the mix n match the HU is a Pioneer DEH-X8800BHS.

All speakers are using the oem wiring, with the exemption of the re-pin to use the Alpine amp. Never once did I think about low pass filters through the whole process, just high pass filters. Honestly never even knew they were a thing.

The other learning curve was that some low pass filter is used with the original amp, which is why I thought "no worries, swap speakers, install amp and send more juice to the speakers". That combined with component door speakers really fudges up all the positives I have done and what it can be.

Always learning :)

if you're using the factory wiring, how did the alpine get wired in?

I simply repinned a few wires. Somebody did an in-depth post titled "reusing oem amp wiring" to that exact model of amp.

It's a fairly common mod, a few people on this forum have done it.
Running along a similar path to @daskaman I was running The 445u bridged running into a pair of cdt ex-30 with the woofers and tweeters from alpines spr-60c along with dayton audio 4 in in the front of the car as well as infinity 3.5 coax speaker's in the rear of the car. I ran that set up nearly 2 years before replacing it recently

so my recommendation would be re-wire the amp.

change the amp so the rear channel is going to the door drivers, using the subwoofer output of the radio to enable the in-deck low-pass x-over. ditch the door tweeters and crossovers. shoot for 200hz crossover.

then alter the amps front output to go to the dash speakers, connected to the 'front' output. this would allow you to tweak the levels between the door and dash better, as well as enable the high-pass for the dash. so the doors become more of a sub. the dash should be high-passed around 150-200hz. it can go lower, but free air dash speakers don't really reach that low, especially automotive-grade drivers.

the rear output of the deck can still go to the rear speakers, if you feel you need them. i haven't ran rear speakers in over 15 years, so i don't.

that might be. i'm not very up to date on the platform at all. i only recently stepped back into here because other forums i frequented are getting quieter, and it's cheaper to sit around and talk on forums than mod the car.

though it does nothing for the ideas i constantly have.