i just went out and hooked up the tweeters to my 880PRS head unit. the mids are being run off my zx550.2 and i have the tweeters off of head unit power.

right now i have the mids at 2.5k/24db and the tweeters at 3.15k/24db. sounds good so far. time to keep tweaking and listening though. :-) the tweets are actually getting pretty loud just off of the little power the head unit has.

i'll report back in a bit, i'm gonna go listen and tweak things and see what i can do. so far it's lookin and sounding good!

 

Wow... I wish my HU had the wider EQ so I could do the same... Do you notice a BIG difference from the passive setup?

 

oh hell yea. the whole set sounds cleaner and can even play a bit louder. the tweeters do fine off of just the little power they are getting from the head units internal amp.

going active is sweet! i have the mid playing up to 2.5k/24db and the tweeters playing down to 3.15k/24db. it sounds sweet.

is your box showing up today???? i wanna hear your impressions on your setup almost as much as i wanna sit in my car and hear mine, hahaha

 

im trying to go active too... :-(
trying to get my hands on a set of ID horns

 

nice, maybe someday i'll try horns. if you ever get them in i wanna see pics and hear your results.

 

most def.

 

that is a lot of power to the mids and not a lot to the tweets. Also that is a pretty big hole you have between your mids and your highs. You are missing all the frequencies from at least 2.5k to 3.15k and some. I would bring that crossover up on the mids to 3.15k and the tweet to 2.5k.

 

have you ever run an active setup?

tweeters don't need much power and my mids aren't seeing 205 watts each like the amp is capable of. they are seeing more like 50-75 watts each. i have a butt load of headroom

using a gap is almost always the way to go. crossovers don't completely stop all frequencies right below or above the crossover point. if you have them crossed at the same freq you'll usually get a peak at that frequency range. even when you cross over a sub, you sometimes need to leave a gap if your using a shallow slope like say a 12db slope. say you cross a sub over at 80hz with a 12db slope, you'll only be 12db's down at 160hz.

so with my mids being crossed at 2.5k, the mids are still getting frequencies above that point. the next octave up which would be 5k is still being played by the mids, it's just 24db's quieter. and the tweeter will be 24db's down at 1575hz. so if you have them at the same point you'll usually get a spike at that frequency.

but then there are cases where some people in some installs feel the need to overlap. in my case having the gap works fine. it sounds fantastic as it is.

 

Yes I have run active setups, You just proved my point, you have a big hole between those two frequencies. The signal at the crossover point is already -3db or 50% lower. Then you add in the 24db slope and you have almost no response at those frequencies.

You realize that every 3db down you go it is equivalent of reducing the power by 50% so when you say only 12db's or 24 db's quieter that is a lot quieter. So at the next octave the speakers are seeing <1 watt if you started at 75watts.

I am not trying to get on your case I was just trying to help out.

 

it sounds good so i'm happy with it. i'll play around a bit more though.

i'm not the first person to run a gap like that. it's very common.

 

Like I said I was just trying to help out. It all comes down to what you think sounds good since you are the one listening to it.

 

^ yea thanks. you have a alot of experience with this stuff? your saying a definitly have a huge gap that i should be noticing? i haven't noticed it but maybe i do.

 

i don't know if this means much to ya or if you have ever used an rta. but this is an rta from a guy using the same head unit i have with the mid crossed at 2.5k/24db and the tweeter with even more of a gap at 4k/24db. his final rta from the drivers seat is pretty flat there isn't a huge gap where certain frequencies are not played.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...ad.php?t=28583

look at post #6.

i know it's different speakers in a different car and blah blah, bu my point is that a gap in crossovers doesn't mean you'll have a big empty gap.

 

yeah I have a good amount of experience. I have been installing professionally for a about 4 years and am pretty into audio.

I would think that you should be able to hear that gap. I would try and to bring up the mid to the 3.15 and see how it sounds.

 

here is some information on under-lapping and over-lapping crossover points.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...er+points+gaps

it's a good read.

 

that doesn't seem to be very reliable source.

This is pretty reliable. http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/cross.asp

 

thats a very reliable source. those people know what they are talking about. some people on that forum have won sound quality awards. go tell them they aren't reliable sources.

 

ok so i've had this setup like this for about 5 days now. everything is still holding up fine with the power and crossover points i'm using.

the difference on this set between passive and active is a pretty good difference. the whole set just sounds so much more clean and detailed. there is a huuuuge difference in how the mids sound. they sound much more punchy down low and a lot clearer up top. there no more harshness in the upper end of the mid.

i do still plan to put more power to the tweeters. mainly so i don't have to crank the volume **** so high. if i wanted to play an older, really quiet recording i don't think i could get much volume or dynamics out of it.

but all in all it's still holding up and sounding great. i just wish it was warmer so i could get some real nice long listening time w/o freezing my but off.

 

glad you like it man too bad you're far away i'd love to hear your set up

 

yea i'm no "SQ pro" but i think it sounds killer. it sounds real clean and clear and does not fatigue your ears one bit after listening at high volumes for long periods.

today i got out of work at 5. so i went out and listened for a bit then went out and bought a couple new cd's and went crazy. i probably got a good 4 hours of listening time in today after work. i didn't really do any major tweaking because honestly it sounds fantastic just the way it is now. i just sat and listened.

i kept turning the sub off and on while i was listening (i can still hear the mid-bass plenty well with it on but i like turning if off sometimes just to hear the mid-bass more clearly). i have some really crazy mid-bass now after ditching the passive crossovers and hooking the mids right up to my Kicker ZX550.2. i have 205 watts available per mid which is sick. i still don't think they are ever really seeing more than 50-75 watts each but they are pumpin out some serious mid-bass with whatever power they are getting. they are also taking whatever they are getting just fine, no bottoming out or burning smells at all.

the highs are REALLY clear and detailed now and really do get plenty loud just being run off of the head unit. i never realized how much cymbals are used and how clear they can really sound.

at one point (now that i realized i can) i turned off the tweeters and mids and just listened to the sub. it became clear that i need to deaden my trunk and rear quarter panels. it's not THAT bad, but i definitely wanna kill some more noise. i also really need to make my plastic door card stop buzzing. it's getting REALLY annoying. now that the mids are getting more power the door skin is buzzing a bit again. it doesn't buzz constantly but when it does i notice it and it takes away from the sound. so i have some deadening to do once spring comes.

but i have never heard my car sound so good! and it'll only get better too. :-)