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I'll warn you, the 3-way and 4-way door speakers from almost all manufacturers are poor and an amp will emphasize it even worse. I've been there, done that and replace that. Here's my point... if you go into an IMAX or HD movie theater, you won't find a single tweeter. It's all 6 to 12" woofers and they produce plenty of high frequencies.
You're right about coaxial 3-way and 4-way sets being a waste of money but your example is really bad. Any hi-fidelity sound system utilizes tweeters, and most Imax theatre have them in a horn setup, two seconds on google or 5 seconds staring at any decent movie theatre speaker will tell you otherwise. Also common sense should tell you that anything with a larger moving mass will have less control in the higher frequency ranges.
The only good 3 way set-ups are typically 3-way components with an 8 inch woofer, 4 inch mid-range driver, and a tweeter. But most of those are pieced together, there's no good pre-made 3-way setup I know of for sale, and they typically just split up the upper mid-range on the coaxials, which is just silly.
In fact you'll almost always get worse sound staging out of a coaxial speaker set than a decently aimed component speaker set due to the directionality of higher frequencies.
Also you said you had components in the rear... am I reading that right, where did you mount the tweeters, and why did you bother with rear components?
As far as using roofing seal for sound deadening, I wouldn't recommend it, especially if you live somewhere it gets hot. After 2 or 3 summers it'll start to slide and ooze as it's actually not rated as high in terms of heat resistance. It may not seem like it but especially on the roof and firewall the sheet metal itself can get up to 160+ degrees for extended periods of time. Plus when you consider price per square footthere isn't much a difference between an asphalt based material (roof sealant, some dampeners), and butly based sound dampening material.
It may seem like for the price you may as well, but if in 2 or 3 years it comes oozing out of the doors onto your interior it'll be creating more work for you than it's worth price wise. Any dampener or noise barrier that is asphalt based is going to fail anywhere that gets above 100 in the summers. Any dampener needs to be butyl based, in the comparison above, the reason for the disparity is also in the difference of materials, asphalt doesn't have the same visco-elastic properties as butyl based deadeners. Also there's about a 50% failure rate with asphalt based products, it may work for a few people, but the cost of clean-up far outweigh the savings due to the inherent risk.
If you just want to plug up holes in the door panels to seal up the area around your speakers, just use egg crate foam and a high heat adhesive and call it a day, much less risk and more or less the same results, plus the egg crate foam acts as a half decent noise barrier.
There was a decent thread on DIYMA back in the day about durability as well, start partway down page 7 and keep reading from there, it's outlined pretty extensively why any asphalt based deadener, like roof sealant, is a bad idea in a car environment.
Also do not use the peak power handling specifications, that's typically a thermal peak and not an idea of sustainable power handling. You always want to reference RMS numbers and match those. RMS is a better metric of actual max power output without clipping the audio signal, both at the amp, and at the driver. Peak wattage is meaningless and useless when it comes to actually powering the driver.
Used to be just a comparison site, but the guy who did the comparisons back in 06 actually created his own sound deadener and now the site is used to sell his product, but his findings back in the day were pretty legit, unbiased, and he made multiple attempts to fix his testing and did his best to admit failings and oversights on his part.
Check out this image of some of the goo coming out from an asphalt based sound deadener.
I saw what you built in your car. Please offer your perspective.
Exactly. A teacher doesn't walk into a room of students & then walks out because their knowledge isn't what his is. Every single Lexus owner in here loves their car/s. Especially my SC400 guys. I do not want to damage or ruin my baby. I ask out of ignorance in hopes of learning a great deal. Share your knowledge for people like me. I have the money & lack the direction Audio wise.
Originally Posted by eknine9
The rear deck is just there to provide filler sound for the front. The only reason people get 6x9's over 6.5's is cone area. Cone area is the amount of moving surface on the face of the speaker.
a 6x9 has 42 square inches of cone area
a 6.5 has 33 squar de inches of cone area
Basically the more cone area, the more air the speaker can move (to a point, other factors affect this as well), so all things being equal a 6x9 can get louder than a 6.5, but this doesn't mean that a 6x9 is preferable for the rear deck. Many people have moved away from the 6x9's as the uneven shape means the force is distributed unequally and the surrounds begin to tear faster than on 6.5's, however, whatever you put in will probably outlast you and the manufacturer warranty and any extended warranty you might get, so it's a non issue except in OEM situations. More surface area also means more response at lower frequencies but less control (or more slop) at higher frequencies. So really you're just trading out precision at the higher end of the midrange for more bass, but if the 6x9 has a tweeter capable of going a touch lower than normal it can compensate for this anyways.
All that being said, I would never use a 6x9 as anything more than rear fill and thats only in a car that had stock 6x9's. The Sc doesnt, so you're doing extra fab work just to fit it in. I wouldn't bother, it's not going to affect your listening experience in the front driver seat enough to justify the work as compared to just replacing the rears with a 4 inch driver, or a 6.5 mounted directly to the deck. No matter what the rear is only going to be fill, it won't provide precise imaging, and any higher frequency drivers most likely won't be hear up front due to the directionality of higher pitched frequencies and how many surfaces it will have to bounce off the reach the front. So just a slap two 6.5 drivers in the rear deck and use them for mid-frequency fill and call it a day.
Personally I'd aim for a stand alone midrange with no tweeter and run it off the amp you run the front speakers off of, something like this to offer good mid-range and bass fill. I know which drivers I'd use actually but I don't know if I'm allowed to post off-site links to specific products. But it's:
>SUNDOWN AUDIO NEO-PRO 6.5 V2
As long as you use a cross-over of some sort to filer it's output to be outside of the range of the subwoofers output you should be able to avoid any interference issues.
The front speakers are a little weird though, they seem to be 4.5 inches or so and it's hard to find that size aftermarket, so best bet there is probably a 5.25 with a custom baffle. I wonder if the door panels will fit above a 5.25 ring baffle with a speaker mounted to it, because if not then the best bet would be a custom door panel, possibly fiber glassed and custom tweeter mounts, but I can't imagine a 5.25 with a ring baffle not fitting under the stock door panels, but I guess that's something I still need to find out.
I love Sundown. I might get a Mechman HO Alt & grab the Night Shade Serious 10" for the trunk @1500 RMS (nothing for a NS serious). I will check them out. Will they drop in like the Pioneer?
Exactly. A teacher doesn't walk into a room of students & then walks out because their knowledge isn't what his is. Every single Lexus owner in here loves their car/s. Especially my SC400 guys. I do not want to damage or ruin my baby. I ask out of ignorance in hopes of learning a great deal. Share your knowledge for people like me. I have the money & lack the direction Audio wise.
I love Sundown. I might get a Mechman HO Alt & grab the Night Shade Serious 10" for the trunk @1500 RMS (nothing for a NS serious). I will check them out. Will they drop in like the Pioneer?
From what I remember the Nighshade requires more depth than the SC has to offer. Gas tank is right under the subwoofer in the rear deck, if you want to run a night-shade it'd need to be in an enclosure. But lol, lets be honest, if I had a Nightshade I'd be slapping it in a ported box and letting it dig deep till it shook my 92 to bits. Sundown is probably my favorite car audio company. I remember when they just started and Jacob was posting some of the boards for his amps on Realm of Excursion. I even ran one of the prototypes for his SAE-1000D way back in 07. The thing was a champ, it was supposed to be a simple 1000 watts at 1 ohm but it benched at 1186 at 60 hz on a -3dB sine wave. I was running an SAX 100.4 to my front components, was Phoenix gold rsd 6.5's with an active crossover.
All this talk is making me want to get a jump start on an audio build. That SAE 1000D might still be sitting around my parents house. I never quite got around to selling it, would be a trip to find it and see if it still turns on this christmas.
From what I remember the Nighshade requires more depth than the SC has to offer. Gas tank is right under the subwoofer in the rear deck, if you want to run a night-shade it'd need to be in an enclosure. But lol, lets be honest, if I had a Nightshade I'd be slapping it in a ported box and letting it dig deep till it shook my 92 to bits. Sundown is probably my favorite car audio company. I remember when they just started and Jacob was posting some of the boards for his amps on Realm of Excursion. I even ran one of the prototypes for his SAE-1000D way back in 07. The thing was a champ, it was supposed to be a simple 1000 watts at 1 ohm but it benched at 1186 at 60 hz on a -3dB sine wave. I was running an SAX 100.4 to my front components, was Phoenix gold rsd 6.5's with an active crossover.
All this talk is making me want to get a jump start on an audio build. That SAE 1000D might still be sitting around my parents house. I never quite got around to selling it, would be a trip to find it and see if it still turns on this christmas.
Thanks for the reply. Bro, the NSV Sub's are monsters. No way I would even insult such a sub, as to put it free air in a deck.... I've decided the I will remove the stock sub, which I think is still good, & run a 10" NSV @ maybe 1500 RMS. I know that's underpowered for these freaks of nature sub's, but now we'd be talking big deep cycle in the trunk and front, Mechman Alt (they make bolt on HO ALTS for the sc4!), big 3 upgrade.... Then I'd run 2 10" @ 2000 RMS each.... Let's not talk about base head.. I was just trying to keep my SC safe on the streets, without needing a Viper Alarm with proximity sensors! Lol
There is a member on here called biggu I think who parted out his car over the summer.
It had a Mechman HO alty, and I don't think anyone bought the alt from him. I'd suggest hitting him up to see if he still has the alt, you might be able to get a deal on it compared to buying it new.
There is a member on here called biggu I think who parted out his car over the summer.
It had a Mechman HO alty, and I don't think anyone bought the alt from him. I'd suggest hitting him up to see if he still has the alt, you might be able to get a deal on it compared to buying it new.
There is a member on here called biggu I think who parted out his car over the summer.
It had a Mechman HO alty, and I don't think anyone bought the alt from him. I'd suggest hitting him up to see if he still has the alt, you might be able to get a deal on it compared to buying it new.
Biggu's was for a SC300 for sure. I'm pretty sure he sold it too.
Hey eknine9, I appreciate you posting those threads for the OP, and me. Just to clarify, my DD that has the audio system is a Cobalt SS and my climate is below 60 degrees about 75% of the time so no gooey mess on my doors at all. Never thought about hotter climates though, I'd steer clear in that case. If it's in the budget definitely buy pro stuff because it dampens better. But Dynamat wanted $200+ for enough to do my doors, that wasn't in the budget.
Could you clarify the egg shell idea? Would you attach it to the inside surface of the outer door panel? I'm leery to put any kind of foam between the perforated panel and outer panel because water drains through there and down the window. I remember seeing threads on DIY that people's speakers got rusty from the foam holding moisture. Just curious if you have tried this with good results. Thanks
Hey eknine9, I appreciate you posting those threads for the OP, and me. Just to clarify, my DD that has the audio system is a Cobalt SS and my climate is below 60 degrees about 75% of the time so no gooey mess on my doors at all. Never thought about hotter climates though, I'd steer clear in that case. If it's in the budget definitely buy pro stuff because it dampens better. But Dynamat wanted $200+ for enough to do my doors, that wasn't in the budget.
Could you clarify the egg shell idea? Would you attach it to the inside surface of the outer door panel? I'm leery to put any kind of foam between the perforated panel and outer panel because water drains through there and down the window. I remember seeing threads on DIY that people's speakers got rusty from the foam holding moisture. Just curious if you have tried this with good results. Thanks
You're right about the moisture, it needs to be treated before being put in the car, but if you live in a really moist area, it's suggested to use some stuff called Deflex pad. It's mentioned in this guide about sound deadening, both the egg shell foam, water treatment, and Deflex pad.
As far as the purpose of doing so is that it scatters and absorbs a lot of audio frequencies, so instead of these waves being reflected back and interfering with the speaker they end up not making it back to the speaker and causing less interference, which can tighten up/clear up some of the mid-range frequencies.
As far as the dynamat, yeah it's expensive, I personally don't really like it either as I prefer second skin products. I'm not one for paying retail prices either though. I remember sitting around waiting for a group buy or some to pop up on the classifieds way back in the day and I eventually got some leftover SS damplifier for a steal. I much prefer Second Skin products to Dynamat anyway, as Dynamat extreme is the only effective dynamat anyways.
So I found a very cheap local installer. Best prices I've ever seen. He told me that the rear deck speakers are 6.5" and that his neighbor he installed for had 6.5's stock with 8" Sub in the deck.
Here is one of the sources he used to verify. I'll have him check for sure when he installs my fogs. But are 98+ Sc's 6.5"s stock? Would save me fab work, since I really want 6.5s and not 4s.
It's the first I've heard of those sizes, but it's comforting to think that maybe, just maybe, Lexus came to their senses by '98 and increased the size of the speakers to adequate dimensions so they don't need as big of a sub just to sound passable. Seriously, is 4" paper cone drivers not the most pathetic setup that's ever been sold to consumers as a "premium" stereo?
12-15-14, 03:56 PM
. Please offer your perspective.
