Speaker Installation

[swidd]

Thanks talnk, turning on the hp filter with ~80 hz allowed me to push the volume an additional 3 clicks before distortion. The spx does not distort at all, without any filters, so this will let me to a greater degree match the rear spr to the front spx, for a much louder ride on road trips :)

[talnlnky]

Originally Posted by swidd

Thanks talnk, turning on the hp filter with ~80 hz allowed me to push the volume an additional 3 clicks before distortion. The spx does not distort at all, without any filters, so this will let me to a greater degree match the rear spr to the front spx, for a much louder ride on road trips :)

Reason has to with the way the motor (magnet & voice coil) of the speaker is designed. When A speaker is played to play a note it moves, when it is told to play a lower note it has to move more in order to play at the same volume. The problem is that the further the voice coil moves away from the magnet, the less stable the cones movement becomes.... this means the cones has these micro-vibrations which cause sound... and the created from these little vibrations are not meant to be produced. That means it is distortion.

by setting that highpass @ 80hz, you have reduced the amount of lower frequencies that are sent to that speaker significantly. You get less midbass, but at the same time, you are reducing how much the cone has to move, which means you reduced a lot of distortion.... allowing you to hear the 80hz and up content at a higher level before reaching the same distortion level as before.

Cheers for going deaf quicker!

This limitation of speaker motors holds true for about 99.9% of midrange speakers, and 98% of subwoofers currently made. The JL W7 was one of the first very durable subs that didn't have this limitation because the designers actually tried to make a sub without distortion due to movement of the voice coil. There are a handful of companies now that have subs that use "linear motor" designs... Some seem to be better approaches than others, but all are better than the 100+ year old design that all other speakers use.

[Alien Mantis]

Originally Posted by talnlnky

Reason has to with the way the motor (magnet & voice coil) of the speaker is designed. When A speaker is played to play a note it moves, when it is told to play a lower note it has to move more in order to play at the same volume. The problem is that the further the voice coil moves away from the magnet, the less stable the cones movement becomes.... this means the cones has these micro-vibrations which cause sound... and the created from these little vibrations are not meant to be produced. That means it is distortion.

Very true.
Which is why it is always best to feed specific frequency ranges to the drivers that are designed to play them.

An ideal setup would be to split the signal into 4 separate parts:
Highs, mids, mid-bass, and sub-bass.

Most people do highs, mids, and bass.
That forces the midrange speakers to try and also play some mid-bass.
( which results in distortion at higher volumes )

If you can separate the mids from the mid-bass, you will have cleaner music.
I heard an SQ system that had two tweets, two 5 1/2" mids, two 8" mid-bass, and one 15" sub. Three amps totaling 1,700watts RMS. Crossovers separating all the freq's.
This system was CLEAN. Near perfect sound. The speaker placement, acoustics of the vehicle, and "imaging" kept it from achieving total perfection.
But it was close.

I've heard louder systems, but none that sounded so tightly balanced.
Total system cost was around $3,000.
( which included installation, wiring, and custom enclosures/amp rack )

( WAY more than I ever want to invest in a car audio system )



But you do get what you pay for if you do it right.