4 speakers vs 8 speakers

[goku87]

So I was thinking of getting two pairs of the SPX-17PRO hooked up to PDX-4.100 but then I thought of getting four pairs of the SPX-17REF hooked up to a PDX-4.150 (two in each door, and two in the back on each side). It would take some modding, but it seems like it might be fun. I've done some cool stuff but never messed with making new door panels. Would the added sound be worth it? Or no? :iono:

$5 says talnlnky is gonna say speakers in the back are pointless. :wink:

[IllusionX]

speakers in the back are pointless.

on the serious side... doubling only makes +3db. so it's really pointless to have more than 1 pair of speakers. at least, in the front.

UNLESS every DB you get accounts for what you are trying to do....

[WolfWings]

speakers in the back are pointless.

on the serious side... doubling only makes +3db. so it's really pointless to have more than 1 pair of speakers. at least, in the front.

UNLESS every DB you get accounts for what you are trying to do....

Some of us prefer only driving speakers in the back, because it lets us locationally position the music in the rear and hold conversations in the front seat easilly. Not everyone goes for raw volume, some go for clarity or specifically 'relegating' the music to background instead of foreground even if we run it relatively loud. Between my enjoyment of music as 'background' noise, and the fact I usually have a CB or other two-way conversation going in the front seat, I actually have good reason to pump most of my music through my rear speakers.

As for paired-speakers, yes and no as to if it's worth it. Two speakers that combined have the same cone-area as one larger speaker will generally move more air (thus, more dB) from the same electrical power, but that requires aligning them and positioning them relatively precisely so their combined activity has constructive instead of destructive interference. There's expired patents out there describing the math (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4119799.html), but it's questionable if it could be even done in a car's interior short of a full-sized van.

For the Yaris? Just get one good pair of speakers wherever you tune the majority of your music to (front or rear), don't worry about the other pair of speakers, and get a bunch of sound dampening installed. Removing all the road noise and wind noise will do a lot more to improve things than upgrading to a bajillion speakers.

[sqcomp]

Then we have the issue of imaging and accuracy. I would surmise that if one is doubling up on speakers like this without any processing one is not looking for SQ...

[reaper]

speakers in the back are pointless. i've got the Type-X REF 6.5 running off the 4.150 in my car. and if you buy an 'active crossover' you can run all 4channels to the splits. eg; channel 1-left tweeter, channel 2- left mid, channel 3-right tweeter and channel 4- right mid ;) most good quality active crossovers boosts your deck frequencys too, making everything louder!

[IsLNdbOi]

Some of us prefer only driving speakers in the back, because it lets us locationally position the music in the rear and hold conversations in the front seat easilly. Not everyone goes for raw volume, some go for clarity or specifically 'relegating' the music to background instead of foreground even if we run it relatively loud. Between my enjoyment of music as 'background' noise, and the fact I usually have a CB or other two-way conversation going in the front seat, I actually have good reason to pump most of my music through my rear speakers.

^
This.

I guess not many here carry passengers in the front passenger seat and hold conversations with those passengers.

[sqcomp]

That's funny.

[IsLNdbOi]

You're sad.

[talnlnky]

So I was thinking of getting two pairs of the SPX-17PRO hooked up to PDX-4.100 but then I thought of getting four pairs of the SPX-17REF hooked up to a PDX-4.150 (two in each door, and two in the back on each side). It would take some modding, but it seems like it might be fun. I've done some cool stuff but never messed with making new door panels. Would the added sound be worth it? Or no? :iono:

$5 says talnlnky is gonna say speakers in the back are pointless. :wink:

I don't have to... you already know it, Plus... they do have a point, they stimulate the economy by ensuring money transfers hands quicker than needed.

New lesson... the volume won't get much louder, but you'll pay twice as much... it'll actually even worsen basically every aspect of sound quality. Just buy better speakers instead... Go with some high end drivers and make your own component setup and then just go active on the crossovers.

[goku87]

I don't have to... you already know it, Plus... they do have a point, they stimulate the economy by ensuring money transfers hands quicker than needed.

New lesson... the volume won't get much louder, but you'll pay twice as much... it'll actually even worsen basically every aspect of sound quality. Just buy better speakers instead... Go with some high end drivers and make your own component setup and then just go active on the crossovers.

alaska not being a prime spot for audio, we are limited to 3 stores that sell car audio stuff, aside from best buy and walmart lol. needless to say, selection is limited. so, if you had unlimited funds, what kind of speakers would you buy, and why?

[ChinoCharles]

I've got 8 Type X's and I love it. Sounds great.

[sqcomp]

here we go with the unlimited funds thing...

I'd look at four different setups, and if I had fundage I'd prolly buy them all.

I'd mount some JBL pro audio compression drivers on some custom made horns...

I'd keep my current setup of Hybrid Audio in there and magically make Scott give me the newest designs he's working on...

I'd like to get my hands on a Rainbow CS 360.30 to give it a shot. $12K anyone? I thought the Focal Be set was expensive!

Then there's the Critical Mass Electrostats for the car. I thought 12K was expensive...how about the $260K setup?

[goku87]

yeah, thats pretty much rediculous. cool stuff though. didnt even know about it! lol

http://www.woofersetc.com/p7178/CS-36030-Reference--Rainbow-Reference-69%22-3Way-System.htm

[TheRealEnth]

Thank you for the idea of placing the music in the rear... i put it around -4 and it sounds great, i can crank it up to around 45-55 and its loud but i can still talk with a normal volume. =D

[talnlnky]

alaska not being a prime spot for audio, we are limited to 3 stores that sell car audio stuff, aside from best buy and walmart lol. needless to say, selection is limited. so, if you had unlimited funds, what kind of speakers would you buy, and why?
I would pay to have some components specially made. I would want something like a 7" driver with around 12mm 1way linear x-max with a super low inductance (Le), a 4-5" speaker to play the mids, and a small tweet for the highs. And the install would be where 70% of the money would be spent... I'd have the midbass and mid installed in the doors, but in ported boxes... would require a crazy amount of fiberglass skill to do properly... but would be SOOOOO incredibly worth it in the long run.

if there actually was a budget .... I'd probably end up with take my drivers (individual speakers) from companies like Seas, Scan Speak, Morel, and then run an active setup... each speaker gets its own amp channel.

My current set of gear is pretty darn good, better than just about any component setup you could find in stores... and it wasn't that expensive.... $150 for midbasses, $100 for my mids, $30 for the tweets. the crossover will add some costs ($50) and then there are the amps $250 (used), deck $160 (used, retail was $1500), 30band stereo eq's $175 (used), Active X-over $45 (used and broken, had to solder a spot to fix it). Buying used gear can save a lot of money, though you have to make sure that the stuff was taken well care of. All my equipment, including 00awg cable and rca's was less than $1000, but if you were to buy similar quality gear in a shop, you'd pay probably 3,000 - 4,000 just for the parts.

Only once have I bought a speaker from a brick and mortar shop... and that was an $800 eclipse sub back in 01. You can get a lot of great stuff for much less if you look around... Small companies aimed at the DIY crowd usually have some of the best designed subs on the market, tho, many of those companies go through times of hardship when they start to grow too fast so you have to be careful.

The best sub I've ever used/owned hands down was only $370 and was from a little company in Seattle... unfortunately they went out of business because they tried to grow too fast a few years back.

[PatrickJohnson]

I should point out that even though you are only going to get 3db, +3db is actually doubling volume. having said that, unless youare going to run more power to the extra speakers, you won't even notice THAT much volume...

[sqcomp]

Which sub company was that again Taln?

[pennyracer]

hi from what i understand rear fill music is only 2% of your sound no need to pump to much highes in the back the front stage is ware you want to spend the most time and money on i went from arc 6 1/2 " 2 ways up front and 5 1/4 " in the rears changed the fron to focal 3 ways wow what a big big gain still not sure if im going to go focal 2 way or maybe 8" focal 2 way for a litle more mid bass i use a arc audio 300x4 highes amp and little more for the 2 arc 10" subs getting ready to buld a fiberglass sub floor that hols 3 or 4 10" for a bit more kick :) it gets off real well already bit i want lots more i would like to hear some good input about using 3 or 4 diamond 10" subs powerd by my arc audio 1000x1 sub amp i have installed now and works very well it will run a 1 ohm load i have herd good things about diamond but is it better than the arc 10" subs i run now

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/DSCF0018.jpg


http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/speakerpod.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/IMG00002.jpg

[sqcomp]

dammit penny!

Punctuate properly.

...just my rant for today.

[goku87]

hi from what i understand rear fill music is only 2% of your sound no need to pump to much highes in the back the front stage is ware you want to spend the most time and money on i went from arc 6 1/2 " 2 ways up front and 5 1/4 " in the rears changed the fron to focal 3 ways wow what a big big gain still not sure if im going to go focal 2 way or maybe 8" focal 2 way for a litle more mid bass i use a arc audio 300x4 highes amp and little more for the 2 arc 10" subs getting ready to buld a fiberglass sub floor that hols 3 or 4 10" for a bit more kick :) it gets off real well already bit i want lots more i would like to hear some good input about using 3 or 4 diamond 10" subs powerd by my arc audio 1000x1 sub amp i have installed now and works very well it will run a 1 ohm load i have herd good things about diamond but is it better than the arc 10" subs i run now

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/DSCF0018.jpg


http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/speakerpod.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/IMG00002.jpg

those door panels are awesome. how did you do them? got any in-progress pics with a diy? :biggrin:

[talnlnky]

I should point out that even though you are only going to get 3db, +3db is actually doubling volume. having said that, unless youare going to run more power to the extra speakers, you won't even notice THAT much volume...

thats theoretical...
+3dB if you double cone area
+ 6 dB if you double cone area & rms

Human brain/ears perceive 6-10dB (different for each person) as a doubling in sound, not 3dB.

What I've left out so far tho is that for tones above 200hz you start to have issues with cancellation of the sound waves when you run more than 1 speaker. The more speakers you put in the car, the more convoluted the situation becomes.

So... if you need a way to throw some money away... yeah... you will get some gain, just not the gain you'd want.

[talnlnky]

Which sub company was that again Taln?

company was Adire audio... they mostly did OEM design work.... they designed speakers for some of the bigger companies... you could go to best buy and buy there products, but never even know it.

[pennyracer]

dammit penny!

Punctuate properly.

...just my rant for today.



did not know i was going to get graded on my post !! :evil:

[pennyracer]

here are some build pics

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoublelayerinnerdoorpicture-1.jpg


http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoublelayerouterdoorpicture.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoorfiberglasspodswork-3.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoor1stlayerfiberglass.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoor1stlayerfiberglasswork-1.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoor1stlayerfiberglasswork.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/yarisdoorfiberglasspodswork-2.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/speakerpod.jpg

http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc74/boydstir2291/IMG00002.jpg

[WolfWings]

thats theoretical...
+3dB if you double cone area
+ 6 dB if you double cone area & rms

Human brain/ears perceive 6-10dB (different for each person) as a doubling in sound, not 3dB.

What I've left out so far tho is that for tones above 200hz you start to have issues with cancellation of the sound waves when you run more than 1 speaker. The more speakers you put in the car, the more convoluted the situation becomes..

You get sound wave interference at all frequencies, actually. There's a reason the current world's loudest car (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/world-record/car-subwoofer-world-record-set-at-1805db-298304.php) is a single speaker driven by four amps in parallel to provide the power. Not even a pair, or a quad, just a single massive subwoofer.

6db is roughly twice the physical sound pressure change, but it's 10db for an apparent sound volume doubling for our ears, that's what the scale is actually calculated against: Every 10db = double the loudness to our ears, which ends up being about 3.16x the physical pressure at each doubling of apparently loudness.

And you get a lot more than 2% of the sound from the rear speakers, the problem you have to bear in mind is that sound is not a single fixed entity: You have various frequencies to deal with, and the most easilly damped frequencies are the highs. Those get muffled severely by your front seats when played through the rear speakers, though you can adjust for that. You are still (in effect) playing the speakers through a pillow, so it's vastly less efficient than using a good set of front speakers.

A single pair of front speakers is the most efficient setup for stereo listening.

I'll say that by itself so it's clear I'm not trying to say otherwise. But it is possible to set up a pair of rear speakers to sound very good too, if you have a reason to invest the added expense and time to do so. It's far more expensive either in time or seperate equalizer components for the rear and front than just slapping a good pair of speakers in the front and calling it a day.

[talnlnky]

You get sound wave interference at all frequencies, actually. There's a reason the current world's loudest car (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/world-record/car-subwoofer-world-record-set-at-1805db-298304.php) is a single speaker driven by four amps in parallel to provide the power. Not even a pair, or a quad, just a single massive subwoofer.
yeah... but its a lot more noticable in the lower octaves than in the mid to upper octaves.... I reccomend against people doubling up on most speakers.... subs to a lesser extent due to the frequencies they are playing are harder to cancel out due to the longer than cabin size of the wave lengths.

6db is roughly twice the physical sound pressure change, but it's 10db for an apparent sound volume doubling for our ears, that's what the scale is actually calculated against: Every 10db = double the loudness to our ears, which ends up being about 3.16x the physical pressure at each doubling of apparently loudness. ECHO Echo echo.....


I'll say that by itself so it's clear I'm not trying to say otherwise. But it is possible to set up a pair of rear speakers to sound very good too, if you have a reason to invest the added expense and time to do so. It's far more expensive either in time or seperate equalizer components for the rear and front than just slapping a good pair of speakers in the front and calling it a day.Exactly.... MORE WORK to make them sound as good. 90% of people pay to have a shop just lazily throw 4 speakers & a deck in their car.... 8% will do the lazy install themselves, and about 1-2% of people will pay for a well thought out install, or actually do it themselves properly. Obviously most people don't put in the time for a proper 2 speaker install, so why would they want to put in even more work for a 4 speaker install?

4 speaker setups have a lower SQ potential than 2 speakers, UNTIL you start getting into DVD setups.


Also.... I went to the Official DB Drags website.... and here's what they show for the loudest vehicle ever..
http://www.termpro.com/asp/worldrecords.asp?ListMethod=1&Org_Select=1&Season_Select=2009
Its in the 3+ subs category.... the single woofer category wasn't nearly as loud.

[pennyracer]

someone help me understand this thread ? so are we talking 2 way coaxil speakers or two seperates for highes ? it seems from what ive looked into the power rating on a two way or three way speakers are not super high so my thaught was ad a few more speakers to break the power up so you not working the hell out of two speakers rather than three speakers or more im not here to argue i like to just get the info so i understand things better for some who knows what works and maybe have done it also i have looked up some spendy speaker sets for thousands of dollors and they all seem to peak out at 200 rms thats seems way low maybe im missing something here im still trying to decide how money to invest in the rear highes on my liftback i only run 5 1/4" 2 way arc audio speakers for rear fill right now i will match brands so it will have to be focal speakers just not sure if i will take the time and money to go seperates or coaxil in the rears i am thing about running focal 8" two ways they sell and make a full speaker ecloser built whithin the real quarter panels just depends on the gain for for the time and money invested to do such a job

[talnlnky]

someone help me understand this thread ? so are we talking 2 way coaxil speakers or two seperates for highes ? it seems from what ive looked into the power rating on a two way or three way speakers are not super high so my thaught was ad a few more speakers to break the power up so you not working the hell out of two speakers rather than three speakers or more im not here to argue i like to just get the info so i understand things better for some who knows what works and maybe have done it also i have looked up some spendy speaker sets for thousands of dollors and they all seem to peak out at 200 rms thats seems way low maybe im missing something here im still trying to decide how money to invest in the rear highes on my liftback i only run 5 1/4" 2 way arc audio speakers for rear fill right now i will match brands so it will have to be focal speakers just not sure if i will take the time and money to go seperates or coaxil in the rears i am thing about running focal 8" two ways they sell and make a full speaker ecloser built whithin the real quarter panels just depends on the gain for for the time and money invested to do such a job

I was under the impression that the OP was talking about co-axial speakers.... but even if he wasn't, I generally consider mids & Tweet in a component set at 1 speaker as it is doing the work of 1 coaxial unit... and they play different frequencies.

splitting up power between speakers might prolong life.... but only if you run them on different amp channels, or you turn the volume down. If you run them on the same amp channel you'll just drop the ohm load and (most likely) will double the power. Therefore running the amp hotter, and making it work harder.

Point remains... the more speakers you add, the more complicated the install gets... complications in stereos are generally not a good thing.


Also... just about any speaker setup with 100rms will get crazy loud on the mids & highs.... there's not really any market for a set that can take 200+ rms.... Keep in mind, the voice coil size on most door speakers is around 1" in diameter.... compared to subs which are 2, 3, or sometimes even 4". The thermal handling of a 1" or smaller voice coil isn't very high, and to make it take more power would require a longer, thus adding weight, which reduces the efficiency and makes it play lower (which isn't always desired in door speakers)... So, its possible that a 100w speaker could get just as loud as a speaker that is 200w rms. There's really a lot of variables.

If you want to go real crazy and be really loud.... look into Horns... aka HLCD's or Compression drivers.... basically, the tweeter setup you see on DANCE CLUB speakers. Their frequency range is generally 800hz - 18,000hz. You basically just need a good midrange, something like a 6.5 or 7" speaker that can really belt out the 60-2000hz tones is what you'd want.


Another option, tho it'd require new pods to be built would be to put your midrange in a sealed box, and your midbass in a sealed or even better, a ported box. That will help get you a few more dB's... but like I said.... it complicates the install, and will bring up new problems.

[goku87]

Exactly.... MORE WORK to make them sound as good. 90% of people pay to have a shop just lazily throw 4 speakers & a deck in their car.... 8% will do the lazy install themselves, and about 1-2% of people will pay for a well thought out install, or actually do it themselves properly. Obviously most people don't put in the time for a proper 2 speaker install, so why would they want to put in even more work for a 4 speaker install?

I feel like you are grouping me with the "most people" group. That hurts. :cry:

[talnlnky]

I feel like you are grouping me with the "most people" group. That hurts. :cry:

probably.... tho in my defense, in your glow gauge post you were unwilling to work in the rain.... sounds like most people to me.

[goku87]

well in my defense, im made of sugar. i would have melted. :P

[talnlnky]

well in my defense, im made of sugar. i would have melted. :P

but once the sun came out.... you would've solidified and all would be good... cept you'd been in the shape of a pancake.