Speaker install...HELP!!! | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Speaker install...HELP!!!

bighitter

New Member
Joined
February 25, 2005
Messages
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City, State
Chicago, IL
Year, Model & Trim Level
'99 XLS
I just installed a set of coaxials (Infinity Kappa 572.5cf) in the rear doors of my 99 XLS. I have an Alpine HU that I think supplies roughly 18-20 Wrms per channel. No amps. The sound improvement is not as good as I expected it (particularly the bass). Now I don't expect alot of bass out of this set of speakers, but they don't even sound that much better than the Ford stocks that I pulled out.

Can someone confirm this is because I'm not supplying very much power to the speakers from the HU? The 572.5cfs are rated for 100Wrms and I'm feeding them much less. Also, I installed the crossover that came with the speakers. Is it filtering out some of the lower frequencies? Can I cut out the crossovers until I get an amp?

Also, I'm hearing a slight hissing sound when I play the radio (FM), but it goes away when I play a CD/MP3. Can I chalk this up to bad reception? (Stupid question, I know, but the directions for the speaker wiring diagram weren't very good and I basically had to guess which outputs from the crossover went to the woofers and which went to the tweeters).

I still have the trim panels off the back doors so hopefully one of you guys can respond. On deck for the afternoon is the components for the front doors...

Thanks in advance for any feedback!
 



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Really I've never gotten a lot of bass out of any coax speakers I've installed. The closest came with my most recent MA HK68 coax's off ~125w. With that little power you really aren't getting to the power range of the speakers - meaning you have to have more power to get the speaker to have more output.

If the x-over included is a passive model, it probably only splits the signal between the woofer and tweeter, for instance a 5k hz hi/low pass x-over will send frequencies above 5khz to the tweets and below 5khz to the woofers. Any high-pass x-over for the set will have to come from the HU or external amp.

You should have noticed a good improvement in high end response over the stockers though, I believe the stocks are a whizzer cone style speaker, and your coaxials have two drivers now to handle the specific ranges of frequencies. I'd suggest if you aren't doing so right now - investing in a more powerful external amp at least for the front components, or a nice 4ch amp. Maybe that's on the horizon for you though?

The hissing? I dont know, if it only does it for FM reception it could just be the nature of the deck, higher fm sensitivity?
 






Yea you aren't going to get a bass improvement. You might want to hook them up to an amp, but it really would make a huge difference is you bit the bullet and got a sub.
 












bighitter said:
(Stupid question, I know, but the directions for the speaker wiring diagram weren't very good and I basically had to guess which outputs from the crossover went to the woofers and which went to the tweeters).

They use four different sizes of female connects on the leads from the crossover which should match up to the four different sizes of male terminals on the tweeters and woofers. It would be pretty obvious if you switched a tweeter and a woofer, but if you just had one woofer out of phase that would cut your bass. They should be a big improvement over the OEM speakers, even with deck power.
 






Install completed

Thanks for the feedback. I may have been jumping the gun on my original post. After I put the first speaker in I had a listen to only that speaker. Individually, none of the speakers really impressed me, but after all four were put in place I could definitely hear a major difference. Besides the overall volume increase, the sound was much, much clearer and more full.

Originally, I thought my next step would be to hook up a four channel amp solely for the speakers, but now I'm wondering if a mono amp and stealth 10" sub would add the "last piece to the puzzle". I'm not looking for bass you can hear a block away, but decent bass really does make the overall system a heck of a lot better (for any style of music). I don't think I could handle any more volume (even at 50% volume is was too loud to listen to for more than a miunte or two). Would an amp provide more clarity to the sound quality in addition to making the system louder? I'll take sound quality over volume any day. I'd love to hear what you guys think. Thanks.
 






Just compare your harmonic distortion of your head unit to any amp you would get. But then again if its the same harmonic distortion and you triple the power going to your speakers it will sound better becuase you won't have to turn it up as loud for the same power. IE Less power less distortion. That is why alot of audiophiles like at least 4 volt pre outs, allows you to keep the gain down on your amps.
 






normally more wattage will net you more loudness. With a quality amp you'll retain good sq at high levels as well.
 






I had some Infinity Kappas and when I removed the crossover there was more bass response.
 






were you trying to get some extra added bass from your back doors ? yea i would say pull those x-overs there not needed and well if your wanting a little bass try popping and amp on them, what size speakers are they ...and with the hissing.. try making sure your antenna wire is secured to your HU
 






how do you eliminate the x-over? it has one input wire and two output wires, one for the woofer and one for the tweeters. without the x-over, i have the input wiring from the HU and a speaker with 2 inputs. how does that work???
 






run your self an amp for your mids highs .. then run rca's for your HU you may want a y spilt race for your HU if you want to run lows or subs as well but i would say about a 5 channel amp for all that

crossover is built in the amp but can be turned off
 






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