Originally posted by expo5.0
My set-up i'm working on now has a 4" and a tweeter in my custom kickpanel, and then two 6.5" mids in the door (fiberglased and imaged)
i will be putting a 4" in the rear facing out the back of the truck so that there is good sound out the back when watching movies on the big screen etc.
that all leaves one more set of tweeters with no definite location yet.
where would you add the 2nd set of tweeters? it can go in the lower door between the 6.5s and that would put all 5 of the speakers in the door and kickpanel region all very close together. Or it could go a ton of other places. I thought about up on the center of the dashboard firing up, o maybe in those little defrost things, or maybe in the center console (but i doubt the imaging would be any good there), or i guess it could go out back by the 4" but i think thats probably a waste.
what do you all think?
OK! When i initially read this thread i thought... man this guy has a bunch of speakers just thrown all over the place.... But then i realized it was YOU (sorry drew) and that u actually have taken into consideration imaging and soundstaging. I guess ive just grown accustomed to seeing so many isntalls where people just throw speakers all over the vehicle, making it very loud, but also very poorly imaged. ANYWAYS- It is my understanding that you plan to show this vehicle, correct? Plus you will be watching video from 2 places. 1) the rear of the truck. 2) the front seats. As a result you will need basically 2 seperate sound stages. 1 for the cargo area and one for the driver/passenger front seats.
SOOO - for the rear sound stage:
I would avoid putting 4" speakers in the rear doors aimed towards the back. This is going throw off the front sound stage tremendously. Plus with that giant sub enclosure, some small 4" speakers arnt even gonna project sound out past the sub enclosure to the rear of the vehicle. Your best bet is to get a nice pair of COAX's or perhaps 2 pairs of COAX's and mount them somewhere on the rear enclosure or on the rear hatch itself. This way when u r tailgating or showing the vehicle, you will be able to watch DVD's from your big LCD monitor and actually be able to hear the movie as well. I would also make these speakers defeatable, so they dont always have to be on.
NEXT: The Front Stage and your tweeter issue.
You are going for, essentially, the same front stage dynamic that i will have next month. I will be running a 6.5" midbass in the door and a 5.25midrange along with a tweeter in custom kick panel enclosures. SO: the problem with this particular set up, in terms of SQ and imaging is the overall LEVEL of the soundstage itself. With the tweeters and midrange speaker mounted low in the vehicle, it will bring the entire soundstage down to your feet. You want this soundstage, ideally, to be level with the dash. The easiest way to accomplish this is to place a second set of tweets on the dash right below the a-pillars. An ideal location in the explorer is the side-window defroster vents. Placing the tweeters here and aiming them towards the window will allow them to reflect off the window back at the front passengers. You will also want to de-attenuate these some (-2db or so) so that they blend in seamlessly with the main tweeters mounted in the kickpanels.
Also my reasoning for completely eliminating the rear fill all together is this: You have 4 big subwoofers in the back of your truck. Any backseat passengers are only going to hear subs regardless if u have a pair of speakers in those rear doors. SO they will complain about it no matter what. Unless u wanted to put as many speakers in the rear doors as u have in the front, its a useless effort to try and please any rear seat passengers. SO i say: Dont try and please the rear passengers at the expense of the front sound stage.
Focus yer attention soley on the front stage and providing a decent soundstage for people watching the movies from the back of the truck
