LophatXB

Replaced the factory tweeters with some old infinity's I had saved, cleaned up the highs really nice, and now mixes well with the infinity component 3 way 6 1/2s I put in in the rear doors. All the highs are really crisp now, just the way I like it.






And my SPLASH of a splash screen I use, after I did the 3.0 update for the Premier Navi.

randomsuper

funky looking tweet.

liltofuboix

iTrader: (1)

nice. tweet is kinda strange though i agree. but none the less it looks sweet

XD40tC

I want more highs!

LophatXB

Yeah, I know it is a very old design, imagine that tweet is nearly 15 or 16 years old. It still sounds great, after a couple days of listening to the whole system it really, really sounds great. Very clean and crisp highs that Infinity used to be known for. I have heard their new stuff,(kappa series), are not as good as they used to be.

kidd

tweeters do last forever. i've got an old pair in my truck. i'm thinking of using in the rear of my xb. facing forward i think they'll help differentiate between the front and rear channels.

Slody4Futbol

you don't want to add tweeters behind you.. tweeters along with other highs should be placed in front of you.. they are directional..

at concerts all the speakers are facing you.. they don't put the highs behind you.. if so the sound would be muffled..
when you talk to someone.. you don't stand back to back.. it would be harder to hear each other

it's just how our ears are shaped, so many cars built for sq don't even run rear speakers.. i'm not running rear speakers but everyone who gets in my car always asks what i have in the back doors for some reason

nodsetse

^ Totally agree.

If an SQ person wants to add "rear fill" there are proper ways of doing it that won't destroy the front stage, but I haven't seen anyone here at SL who's done a correct implementation.

randomsuper

i installed some components in my rear doors but mounted the tweet low on the panel close to the woofer. i just aimed the tweets up. added a nice amount of rear fill without messing with the front.

Slody4Futbol

ewww.. highs in the back.. i put components in one of my older cars but did not install the tweeter

randomsuper

lol. i'm telling you, it's subtle and sounds nice. not overpowering at all. you gotta give the people in the back something!

kidd

i want to be surrounded by music.

LophatXB

I understand about SQ and rear fill. The speakers I have in my rear doors used to be in my old truck but were mounted high up and you could really hear the crispness of the system at all angles. I did commit a cardinal sin in my old truck with those speakers by having the tweeters covered by some cloth, cause I had a stealth install since my old ride was an Amigo and I drove with the top down almost all the time and didn't want people seeing the speakers. It actually benefited the sound of the system cause it muted the rear tweets just enough to really blend the sound of the whole system. The one thing I notice with the Xb you don't hear the tweets too loud in the rear door, when you are in the driver seat unless you have the front passenger seat forward a few notches and have the driver seat leaned back, like most of us taller cruisers. But with the system balanced so the rear speakers aren't quite as loud in total volume as the fronts I don't get get too much sound of the rear tweets mixing with the fronts. I did notice today even more how I love the sound of the front replacement tweets over the factory tweets it is really, really clean and crisp. And even though the rear speakers are behind the door panels, when I have the rear doors open when I vacuum or wax the car you can still hear how crisp they are compared to the factory speakers which had no tweets in the rear.

nodsetse

^ That's not how rear-fill is done in a true SQ system.

Let's start with what "rear-fill" is really intended to do. When you're at a live performance, even though the performance is in front of you, some reflections of the sound come from behind you and lend an ambiance effect, such that you get a sense of the environment, the space the performance happens in. There's no direct sound behind you, only reflections from the direct output that originated from in front of you.

In a car with only front speakers, the direct sound from them reaches the rear of the vehicle, and is then reflected back to the front, like it does in a concert hall, enough that there's often no need to implement rear-fill speakers.

If a person wants their system to mimic a larger space, such as a large concert hall in a big vehicle, then a rear-fill solution might be warranted. The thing is, you can't just put speakers behind you and get the correct effect, because that doesn't do a decent job of reproducing the desired environment. In the concert hall, the sounds reflected off the rear wall are delayed relative to the direct/original output, they're bandwidth limited, and attenuated.

So, the correct way to implement rear-fill is with midrange/midbass speakers only, limiting their output to 3kHz at 6-12dB/Oct., such that their frequency response rolls off at the high-end, just like at a live venue. They should also be at least 6dB (9dB is often better) less SPL than the front speakers, to mimic the attenuation caused by distance. Since the car is much smaller than a concert hall, the output of the rear-fill speakers needs to be delayed relative to the front, at the rate of approx. 1ms per foot of distance desired. Also, rear-fill doesn't have to be stereo, mono will work just as well, if not better.

I've yet to see anyone here implement rear-fill this way (mids only, 2nd order 3kHz low-pass filter, ~10ms delay, -9dB SPL relative to front), but there have been many winning SQ competition vehicles over the years that had such implementations. It's a lot of time, money & effort to get right, so it's no wonder that most don't bother.

Just stated FWIW.

Slody4Futbol

^^^ x eleventy-billion

kidd

that sounds great, being that you listen to alot of live music.

DJ_FroZone

iTrader: (2)

Can you post up how you did the install on the tweeters i just took of my factorys and its got four wires... and it seems the door speakers are conected to them as wel..

LophatXB

Well, when I took the stock ones out I had to find out in the factory plug which connector split out from the stock woofer to the tweeter. Once I got that situated, I used the wires and crossovers that came with the Infinity tweets. They came from an old tweeter/mid combo. The old mids were only 4 inch and the surrounds were deteriorated and I left them in my old car when I donated it. Since the tweeters were in perfect condition and they are the old KAPPA Infinity tweets, I have always loved their highs.
To mount them I had to rig it a little to make it fit without out cutting the door panel. Since the Infinity's are bigger than the factory, I was able to use screw at odd angles, that kept the tweets in tight and didn't cut or damage the door panels and they stayed.
I can be a kind of Mcguyver when it comes to making things fit and work, so I used those skills and everything worked out very nice. They are in there nice and flush, and sound so much better than the factory tweets.

KaneoheKoa

I'd have to disagree with Nodsetse about the fronts providing enough sound for a good balanced rear fill. In a live performance the speakers are facing toward the audience, with reflected sound coming from the side and rear walls, ceiling and floor. In many cases, the reflected sound is nearly as loud as the house mains. In the world of pro-sound, the room is considered part of the overall sound mix. Walls are generally reflective of mid and high frequencies, due to the materials used (drywall, concrete the most common).

In a car setting however, we have a number of differences. Speakers are now facing each other, firing into a soft sound absorbing materials (mainly, our legs). Tweeters are generally directional (even dome tweets), with the best sounds in a 90 degree cone from the tweeter axis. Not a lot of sound reaches the back to be reflected. Compare the character of sound front speakers between a front seat listening position vs. sitting in the back. Not as crisp or detailed in the back seat. Even less will reflect off the rear surfaces to get back to you. All that plush fabric and thick cushions are there not only to make it comfortable to sit on, but also absorb sound. Oh, and the headrest absorbs sounds from the rear too!

Did a little hands on research to find out what happens in my 2nd gen toaster with only front speakers (Infinity separates, in factory locations).
Front seat volume: 90dB.
Rear seat volume: 84-85dB. Loss of 6db.
Rear cargo area volume: 82dB. Loss of 8db.

When the mic was facing forward (by the driver's head), the level was 90dB. When facing backwards, it was 82db, a loss of 8 db.

There's not a lot reflecting from the back of the car with only front speakers at that volume level. With the volume much higher, then the sound is more encompassing. But at lower levels, the difference between front and back is very pronounced. Also, sounds coming from the back are duller than the front, unlike a live performance space. Even with rear fill from the back doors doesn't help: they are too low in the door and are absorbed by legs or the seat cushions. Rears need to higher up, in the C-pillar position (the Japan only model has speakers there).

The verdict? Front speakers alone at low to moderate levels won't give good rear fill. You need speakers in the rear c-pillars to give you that fill. BUT, they have to have their own amp and use the fader to bring them up the a level that just fills in that empty sound behind your head, but no more. Make them as loud as the front and you lose your front stage.

Sorry for being a bit strong, but we sound techs get a little passionate about sound (25 years in medium venue live sound mixing, currently "driving" a 24-4-4 digital mixer, driverack, 2 1000watt powered mains and 2 1000watt dual 12" powered 4th order subs).

LophatXB

This thread brought up a lot of debate about how a person likes to hear his music. Honestly, like some people I wanna hear music kind of like I hear it in a good set of head phones, when you close your eyes you can hear things that you don't normally hear through regular speakers. In my old car I had my stereo tuned how I thought sounded the way I wanted to hear it, without all the expensive sound processors and such needed to achieve that headphone type sound. The same tweeters I have now in my XB were pointed forward and slightly to the center of the vehicle. I didn't have really big mids in the front, like I said they were only 4 inch, but they were in the dash and the stock positioning had them firing forward and down toward my legs. My so called rear fill speakers were in panels behind my seats up around headrest level. They were Infinity Kappa 3 way speakers, and with the way I had them covered it muffled the tweets enough to keep them from being over powering. I had two 6 inch pioneer bass tubes as my mid bass and one 10 inch sub in a simple 4th order bandpass box. I maybe had a total wattage of around 450 including the deck. All the mids and tweets were powered by the deck and I had the fader partially leaning toward the front than the rear. The mid bass and the 10" sub each had their own amps. And I spent many hours tweeking the equalizer settings, mid bass and bass setting to achieve the sound I was looking for.
In the end I could close my eyes and have the volume at a reasonable level and hear what I was looking for as close as I could get without any additional sound processing. The final verdict was that I was happy with how it sounded. And for the music I used to test was mostly Van Halen, some live stuff and some studio stuff, since I had seen them three years in a row at three different venues, and listened to them in head phones a lot I knew what I as looking for in how I wanted my car stereo to sound and to my ears I came really, really close to the sound quality and staging that I wanted.