Hey all,

I have a set of focal k2p's, and love em!

I have seen an add on kit somewhere, does any body have any info on these and the price as i would like to run 2 mids in the front of hilux surf.

nate

Are you talking about the 165KBE's? Where it turns them to a 3 way set? Retail is $650. You want it cheaper you'll have to head into your local Focal stockist and see what they can do for you. Or alternatively buy second hand on here, I think there could be a set for sale

as louie said..

its the 165KBE you're thinking of.. its a dedicated midbass extension kit for the Focal range..

there is a set on here for sale, or you could pop into your local stockist..

Hey guys,

thanks for the quick replies, yeah that would be the one i'll check the sale section out now

Thanks again!

nate

Just a quick question

would adding the bass extension kit the 6.5" k2ps make a lot of difference?

From your experiences would bring a different dimension to the front stage?

thanks in advance

nate

there's even a set on ebay!

Im thinking of gettign a set of these, but I want to keep a stock kinda look, which wont happen in my front doors to add to the current speakers. As they lower frequencies, would these sound OK in the back doors, or are they designed to be places together, like a pair of splits??

I suppose the obvious answer is YES they will sound BETTER in the front, but I want to know if they will sound nearly as good in the back, or if that would just be a complete waste of a good speaker set.

cheers

my opinion would be that it would be a waste but it would be possible, maybe just put them back there and see what they sound like if its no good move them up front.

otherwise if you haven't got them yet it might be better to just get the focal 165KP component set with the midbass drivers for the rear. for about he same price. maybe less

ohh and don't buy focval gear off ebay as it most likely is a fake.

Cheers, Grant

Has anyone noticed that both on the French homepage and the Australian Focal website that the KBEs have been deleted?

Only reason why I sold mine was the fact that the mounting depth is around 77mm and just wished they would of fitted in the kick panels as my footwells arnt the most spacious

Some wise people within these forums once told me not to put a set of midbass drivers into my rear doors to improve midbass. Putting the midbass' in the rear doors will pull your sound stage back and you also want to pull the sound from your sub forward. The 3-way set is definately designed to be run together and sounds really sweet.

hey thats my car!!!, yesh the midbass helps, but i found it had to be run actively to get the power into them to achieve the levels i require, hope it helps

Mounting the midbass in the rear doors (NOT the parcel shelf) is a clever way to increase stage width by utilising the cone-of-confusion. However rattles, vibrations and air leaks will instantly pull the state down and backwards. The amount of effort you'll need to go to, in order to have great rear mounted midbass, is beyond that which most people are willing to committ to.

the kbe is d/c as a standalone but if you look closer on the aus site it shows the KBE included in the 3ways.

Interesting, I would have thought that stopping rattles, vibrations etc would be the same as in the front doors, or probably easier. Still weighing up my options and plans for what I want to do, ive got some 5inch focals in the front, and the midbass is a bit lacking. I was thinkign that together with the add on, I would get awesome sound from the smaller splits, but still great midbass from the dedicated add on. Might stick to the original plan of sticking the front 5inch splits in the back as I have crappy stock's there, and gettign soem new 6.5 inch for the fronts.

The 165KBE has always been a part of the 165K3P set.. its just been available as a standalone for others with the 100KP's or other focal splits who want to add a dedicated midbass..

Hi guys

I have been hearing about the axis and positioning of the focals, or something to that notion, I will be setting my front stage up very soon and would like to get a bit of info on angles, and positioning. I do know it ultimately depend on what i like but i little info would be great. It is going into a hilux surf, and was thinking of putting the mid bass drivers down the bottom (obvious i know!) and the tweeter at the in the triangle thing, same level as the bottom of the window.

Thanks in advance

nate

I just came across this from the focal website...

A powerful system comprising two bass drivers, two midrange drivers and two TN52 tweeters, with four crossovers. Install the bass drivers in the rear doors or in the parcel shelf, then install the mids and tweeters in the front doors. Use either a two-channel amp (2 x 150 RMS would be ideal) or a 4-channel (4x75 RMS at least). The crossovers for the rear speakers can be used to hand-over to the front speakers when using a 2 channel amp, or all speakers can have their own channel if using a 4-channel amp. This system provides a complete integrated system of matching speakers in the cabin of the vehicle. The ultimate.

Suprised they even say you can put them in the parcel shelf, but seems like the rear doors will be fine

its still not the same hit as having the midbasses in the front up with everything else, then again mine have 225rms into the midbasses, 125 into the midranges and 125 into the tweets, sounds great, no issues

Running passive, I assume?

Angle of the midbass is not a major priority - the impact would be minimal (if noticable).

Angling of the midrange however, is aboslutely critical and the biggest factor influencing the performance of the K2P mids. Some sets use low midrange-tweeter crossover points (such as Morel Elate, @ 1.8khz) which lie more or less around the point of beaming (where off axis response becomes an issue). The result is that when mounted heavilly off axis, these don't suffer as badly because the tweeters essentially take over before off axis roll-off can become a major issue. The down side of this, however is that at such low frequencies all but a handful of tweeters (mostly Scanspeak and Seas home audio tweeters) will display horrendus distortion figures and significantly reduced power handling when played down to such low frequencies, resulting in a coloured midrange.

The Focal's (at least in the case of the K2P / K3P) use a high crossover point and a steep slope of a steep slope of 3.2k/3.8k (cant remember which) @ 18dB /oct. The result is far reduced tweeter distotion and power handling, but at the sacrifice of mounting flexablity. With a 6.5" mid typically beginning to beam around 1.5khz, you have a bit of an issue... if mounted heavilly off axis, then you will see a massive loss in midrange production (could be as much as 10dB) by the time the mids reach the 3khz+ crossover point. The steep slope also means that they don't get much extra assistance from the tweeters (as opposed to say dyn's, with a 6dB slope) and so you end up with a 'black hole' froma bout 2khz up to the crossover point where you have a significant loss in information. Don't even bother trying to EQ it up either... EQ is a problem patcher rather then a problem fixer, and the drop off will be too significant to allow EQ to be effectively solve the issue.

The solution is to get the mids running as close to on axis as possible... on axis the 165K2P has one of the best midrange responses of any car audio mids i've seen, with a nice smooth response from about 100hz to about 3.5khz, and an upper end response comparable to many 4" mids (hence why they use the 6.5" rather then 4" as a midrange in the K3P set).

The tweeters aren't as simple.. they aren't bad, but they do have their flaws and it's pretty much impossible to get the 'perfect' out of the box without EQ. On axis, they play hapilly to 20khz, but get peaky from about 5k-6k upwards. It's not bad, but it's noticable and will give give the sound a slighly bright tone. 45deg off axis the top end peakiness is greatly improved (almost eliminated), however the side effect is a rapid roll-off above 14khz. If I had to choose between the two I'd probably go on axis, because the on-axis peakiness is nowhre near as dramatic as the off axis roll off, but an even better option (if you can) would be to try to reach a middle ground - somewhere around 20deg off axis should bring the top end down JUST enough to take out the brightness, while minimising the amount of high frequency roll off, providing the best overall trade off.

As far as angles go, that'd be the path i'd go if it were my own car. I've heard the 2-way K2P's in a good listening room, and at about 15deg off axis, they are the best sounding car set i've heard being more accurate then sets costing 2x-3x the price.

On axis they are good but a tad bright, and 90 deg off axis they are poo poo.

Thanks Muzzy,

I still am a bit confused, yet i do understand everything you have said. And yes i will be running them passively, with about 150wrms going into each.

In regards to the axis angles, where is the starting position of the speaker, if mounted in the door? and then do you gauge the angle from that point?

And would this be the same for the tweeter?

I just want to get my system sounding sweet as it has been a long time coming.

But i suppose i just play around with it as well, but it is nice to have this info before i start and do something stupid and make the speakers sound like poo

thanks in advance nate

On axis essentially means the speaker is pointing directly at you - full line of sight.

The off axis angle refers to how many degrees the speakers is away from that position.

I.e. if you could theoretically draw a line in 3D space connecting your face to the centre of the speaker, then turn the speaker 15degrees away from that angle, you would be 15 degrees off axis.

Typically speakers in a car door have little or no angle, meaning they fire practically straight at the opposite side door, and perpendicular to your face (hence about 90 degrees off axis). This has a heavy negative impact on performance above certain frequencies. The frequency at which this begins to influence is dependant on the speaker itself. Typically the larger a speaker is, the lower the frequency at which it will begin to be effected by off axis mounting.

For example, on a 6.5" mid it usulaly begins somewhere around 1.5khz, while for an 8" it is typically around 1khz, and for a 1" tweeter usually it's up around 14khz-15khz.

Thanks dude,

that really helps, thankyou for taking the time to explain that!

just got my KBE set so it is time for the install!

thanks again nate