It seems that many SQ installs have their mids/tweeters mounted on the kick panels under the dash. I was wondering what people's reasoning behind them was.

Some people say it's to keep the tweeter near the midbass, but why wouldn't you put the midbass closer to the tweeter, and keep the soundstage close to ear level? It's a known fact that the higher and less separated elements of the soundstage are, the better overall imaging is achieved. And I always thought if you wanted to keep the sound of the tweeter as close as possible to the midbass, coaxials would be theoretically ideal for that.

Some opinions from SQ experts would be great... I've done lots of installs but haven't focussed properly on SQ before.

Just quickly, but here are some things to consider

- Height isnt primarily determined by location. You can easily get height from low mounted drivers.
- Seperation is only a stereo problem. If your speakers play outside bands of localisation, this is not an issue (less then 250 or greater then 5-6k). Eg. Xover your tweeter higher, and you are not restricted to mounting next to the midrange.
- Pathlengths differences are very important, as is maintaining all speakers in the far field.

from my limited knowledge, this fad started in america, and its all to do with path lengths, say you have your tweets in the sail panels of your car, the left hand tweeter is say 1.5 meters away (for the sake of the story) and the right hand tweeter is .4 of a meter away, this is quite a difference in distance, but if you move both into their respective kick panels, lhs tweet is still 1.5-1.6 meters away, but now the rh driver is further away to, reducing the comparative distance between the 2... if ya get what i mean, what alot of people dont realise when they tackle this kind of install is that the pedal assembly in lhd cars is over to the right of the foot well creating alot of room for properly angled pods, and as alot of us know in rhd cars, the assembly is still over the the right, up against the kick, giving bugger all room in 9 out of 10 cases

learn to use time alignment wisely then you could have a better staging without making the kick panel. otherwise put the tweets in the kick panel and do your own manual time alignment.

learn to use time alignment wisely then you could have a better staging without making the kick panel. otherwise put the tweets in the kick panel and do your own manual time alignment.

response 2 3 4 wtf ?

hmmm...k

4th first... forget TA...its the domain of those who after not getting it right,and are left clutching at electronic straws...do it right and you don't need TA


3rd..its a fad...mmmmm k, or is mounting tweets and kicks right, a fad...think about it, which one relies on TA ?

2nd..I don't get that, and I have forgotten more than you know...you do what with the ??? and then you do what with the ???


k 1th


install right and forget TA etc if your basics are wrong, then no amount of trickery can fix
peace
cyberpunky (non TA user and winner)

CP you're such a troll

I think it's easy to be "holier-than-thou" when you have been in the game for so long, learn and forgotten so much, and had as much success as you have.

But I think even you'll agree that in order to perfect the ART of a discipline (e.g. car audio), you have to learn all you can of the SCIENCE behind it, and then forget about most of it.

I'm sure there was a time when the science of it all intrigued even you, somewhat - if I can quote from the link in your signature:

"Good Quality digital time alignment is a great way to improve imaging & staging if mounting front speakers in the doors. You can't always kick panel mount your fronts or use "horns", for many practical reasons ,in many vehicles, so time alignment can be used instead, with great (but expensive) success"

I don't think there's much point in having a novice achieve car audio nirvana with their first audio installation, if they have no appreciation of what they have achieved.

I think it's all part of the fun and learning to start off with your first Sony X-plod set-up, graduate to a 13 speaker install with 100-way time alignment, only to find yourself coming back to the quintessential passive splits/amp/sub combo.

I always enjoy reading your posts, but also enjoy pondering stuff that thematt, Pulse-R, muzzy66 etc. have to contribute, stuff that I will never appreciate or understand.

You may have reached the destination that we all strive toward, but the journey there is half the fun!

fixed

1. "raddeal", If that quote you have quoted was not quoted by Cyberpunky, I suggest you amend your post or I will amend it for you. I'm pretty sure there's something about deliberate misquoting in the 'rules'.

2. f3nr15, I am still in the 'science' phase, but strangely I find that the more improvements I make, the closer my system design is to Cyberpunky's system... strange? no, but I had to learn my own way. I will always use TA and Active Crossovers where I feel it's necessary. and yes, ideally you don't need it.

great, another stupid arguement waiting to happen

I have my mids as far from me as possible. it helps with stage depth and centre image.
midbass in teh doors is not good as there's a lot of problems with cancellation
tweeters I had in the kicks a couple of years ago, but found the stage height did suffer, and the benefits were fewer than the defecits. Tweeters now in the A-pillars and it's much better, still not optimal though. That may change when I put in the new tweeters.

how do you avoid unwanted reflections off the windscreen and dash with tweeters in the A pillars? obviously, one way is to specifically use the reflections rather than have the tweeters on axis, or tunnel a hole into each side of the dash like ~thematt~, but thats not really ideal for everyone..

the tweeters are crossed about 4k, and the dash mat I made happens to be reasonably absorbent. If the reflections are close in time, then they have little impact on the sound.

Hmm, some interesting replies so far. I'm beginning to get an idea but remember I didn't ask "should I mount tweeters in the kicks or use TA instead," that's for an entirely different argument, I want to hear more from the people who like / have had success with using tweeters in the kicks and why they do it.

What do you do to raise the stage height to a more normal position? There's many things that could be done sonically to raise the apparent stage height but have other detrimental effects to the sound.

See the thing that I don't get, is that the shorter, more direct and more level a sound path is, and the less obstructions in its path, the cleaner the signal and the better the resulting sound. That's undeniable fact. Yet there seems to be huge merit in SQ circles in mounting the high frequency reproduction (tweeters) in a torturous position with a convoluted path, indirect aim, and horrendous surrounds including reflective (plastics,) very absorptive (carpets,) and the fact that underneath the dash is greatly different on either side of the car resulting in very different characteristics on either side of the car.

I will concede that mounting the tweeter higher has detrimental effects on the midbass which is traditionally mounted lower in the doors, so separation is bigger and path lengths and characteristics are inconsistent.

On the same vein, it would therefore theoretically be better to mount the midbass and tweeter higher in the doors or near the dash... well it would be in my opinion. Let me know what you think.

sound stage near ear level ?? or speakers near ear level??....keeping spkrs near ear level isn't same thing


keeping mid and tweet close is always good because it can localise's source

we do it because it works and height is about how it works not looks..try stuff and see for u self





no its not...known to whom ?



no concentric spkrs would be far better..what are they ?


kewl
punky

huh ? did I loose to you ? or are you saying you *will* beat me ? I'm confused

you fixed something ?

nice work

punky

is that good ?

adding a smiley face doesnt actually make it less insulting..well to me anyway

trolls are good yeah ???

if you actually read what I write then you may be learning. I don't write for the sake of riddling.

you get it or you don't.

get bogged down in art of TA or do it right and forget TA your call..if your here to just talk sweet namby pamby $hit then you pass...if your here to contribute then guess again. you miss the basic stuff. I am not here to be your freind..get ovewr that. I only wish I had made you think but alas you prefer to poke at what I said rather than think...end your probs
punky

what I dont get is why you all look for a genie in a bottle rather that stick with the basics that we have known since the 80s ?

kicks dont give you a low stage. 6*9s do drag bass to back. your brother may look good but really won't help you win at SQ, because we dont look at stuff...we listen to it. Do you measure, align, tweak, adjust, and then go hmmm or work out why ?

I'm not here to tell you how its done but more to make you think. why would that work...why wouldnt that work ?
punky

oh did the word "fad" make you sad?... it was a figure of speech sunshine... dont lose sleep over it....
kthxbai

huh...yeah its all about what you said....thanks petal, but what americans do has never guided me kthxbai...<<<is off to bed and to toss and turn over...hmm... not sure.... just knows I gotsta loose sleep ifn you say so lol
punky

Wow... this is a cool thread...

mine are mounted on the dash/a pillar but its different for every car(i tried 8-10 different locations/angles).

i did quite well last years comps and am happy with how it sounds myself. other cars have had them mounted in the kicks which sound good too. i tried it but couldnt get it right.

Cyberpunky, Just my 2 cents here...


you Definently know what you are talking about and can prove it with your results and experiance, this is an interesting read for me, but it seems some of your replies are a little too agressive to what others have said. I know some people have the wrong idea... but maybe take it easy on some... as im sure you mean well. From my Point of view, it seems you are really taking a swing at them! maybe tell them in a nice way

Dont take this to heart either.. as this board has some good members on here that know alot, and you would have to be one of them


i cant wait to experiment with my new system, i found the boston tweeters sounded great in the kicks for me, the only problem is when people with long legs hop into the car

There are some harmonic cues, which can be slightly exaggerated with an EQ, to give you height where you had none before. If you have tweeters in the kicks, some minor (0.5 to 1dB) bumps should help substantially.

You can also raise the height substantially by modifying and/or utilizing the underside of the dash to act as a waveguide.

Actually, its not undeniable. And its not a fact. If something is closer, its becomes near-field. If your midrange crossover point is in the far-field, the last thing you want is your tweeters in the near. The crossover point will be very noticeable. As to 'level', well sound is emitted in a spherical wavefront, so it has no concept of 'level' or 'height'.

Maybe in your car mate, but not mine. They're almost symmetrical (work will be done to make them more so), and work very well indeed.

I said it before. Separation is non-existent if you cross your tweeters over higher, outside the passband for stereo cues (above 5k). If you crossover below that, then yes, it can become a problem, but IMO you're best leaving the midrange to play the midrange, and the tweeter for the harmonics.

I think a great SQ tweeter location could possibly be in between the kicks and the head height tweeter location.Basicly like where mine are ,haha

It really depends on the car and the drivers though Zion. Like some of the others have been saying - make temporary mounts, and test the best position for sound, while keeping within whatever style or stealth install you're going for.

Thanks for all the USEFUL replies people.
I am fairly sure sound has concept of height, despite a spherical wavefront because the wavefront is far from consistent so if you're at the extremity of the soundfield it's going to be pretty darn obvious that you are.

The ideas on crossover points are good, I hadn't thought about it that way before. And it IS true that the shorter, more direct and more level a sound path is, and the less obstructions in its path, the cleaner the signal and the better the resulting sound.

The longer the path length, the more reverberations and reflections that get introduced into the sound and the more path loss you have. If the path isn't straight and has to bounce off things it introduces more reflections, reverberations, and attenuation all depending on the surfaces it hits on the way to your ears. And quite obviously if the sound has to go through or around things on the way to your ear it's going to introduce all sorts of colouration that may or may not be detrimental to the final sound of the system.

HA HA HA I know what they are unfortunately Tannoy don't make many concentric speakers for car audio... coaxials were the closest thing that is actually used in car audio.

The important thing to remeber here is that in different cars, different locations can work.

The next thing to think about, is excatly how are the speakers located, are they on, of off-axis.

I tried tweeters in my kicks in a few positions, however, I couldn't get a decent height image, no matter what I did. Now with the tweeters in the A pillars, height is better, but, other areas suffer (image drifts due to sound reflecting off the street column) I never re-designed my A-pillars as the car will soon be sold.

Ill like to take Marty's car as an example of a car with Tweeters in the A pillars, with a strong center image, good depth, and nice width. But remember, his car suits this setup. Many others don't.

I dont care what anyone says, theory does not tell you everything, especially when you consider how bad a car environment is.

You can learn Maths formulas off by heart, but this doesn't always mean you can do every question related to that particular formula. Perfection comes from practice, and trying things for all sorts of different applications.

Hmmm, kinda, but not really. Firstly, height is a monophonic cue and doesn't require two channels of information to be present. A single center-mounted tweeter firing directly on axis is incredibly transparent, and gives good height to a stage. Fortunately, those of us who've managed to achieve it will also tell you that height is an environmental bound cue, not speaker location. Its the environmental effects, primarily waveguide oriented, that enables most height to be achieved. You should find that if you nail your crossover point blend, in terms of level/phase/FR and TA you shouldn't have any problems with height if you mount in the kickpanels.

The path length thing that you mention, is kinda right, but not holistically. Its all referred to as zones. One is the near field, and being frequency related, is a zone where all audible waves are of the same attenuation irregardless of distance from source. In this zone, direct field is the primary cue and the reflections/FR anomalies do not contribute much to the overall sound. In our cars, due to the relative distance from the source, midbass and subbass exist here. Lower end midrange too.

The other zone is called the far field, and in this zone, energy existence behaves much differently. Higher frequencies become attenuated very quickly, at around 6dB per metre, and the majority of information received begins to slide over to indirect waves as opposed to direct. This is primarily why stereo requires far-field listening. Its the indirect waves that enable us to setup the image and soundstage (relation between reflected and direct gives us perception of depth) and hence are incredibly important.

If we pull our speakers closer to us, we begin to quickly lose the ability to manipulate reflected sounds to achieve depth, and the ability to maintain a soundstage and an image are shattered. We get a 'purer' frequency response because of the lack of combing artifacts, reflections, reverberations and plain noise, but at the expense of the effect.

Cyberpunky, Just my 2 cents here...


you Definently know what you are talking about and can prove it with your results and experiance, this is an interesting read for me, but it seems some of your replies are a little too agressive to what others have said. I know some people have the wrong idea... but maybe take it easy on some... as im sure you mean well. From my Point of view, it seems you are really taking a swing at them! maybe tell them in a nice way

I aggree, just because you have a whole heap of trophies that say champion doesn't mean that at the end of the day that your still not a rude ASS

very very soon, im about to start my install.. the problem i have is... the tweeters sound the best in the kicks, and i still can get a good stage height if thats what its called and center image

however when people sit in the car.. there stupid legs block the left tweeter lol

How do people overcome this? there is stuff all space in the front, not much leg room, and the dash is quite shallow?

Unfortunately, its one of the problems with installing in a car s4turn You could either mount them there, and either tell em to move their legs, or put up with the weird sound, or find somewhere ALMOST as good, that doesn't have the leg issue. I found out my mid bass sound the best right behind my brake pedal... obviously not somewhere I can mount (with my skills, anyway)

c'mon man! thats what zip ties are for!!

for high-end fully custom SQ installs that are well planned , "having the tweeter and mid under the dash" must work if most Hi-end SQ installs are done that way, but for low-mid range budgets i would think that setup would be impractical and over the top?? unless of course you can do the work yourself, in which case its the cost of material....?

k so you are saying I'm rude ?

correct

I'm an ass ?

correct

I'm not your mother..if you want some *I'm sorry you guys are so retarded, that you can learn by being told, "nice crap"*

then my bad, but seriously, if you can't cop a little learn, before you talk, attitude, then that's your problem.



The facts are out there...I didn't invent anything...let alone the facts...

are you really so soft that some guy, you don't know, on the net, says try harder, lift your game, etc, you need to attack him ? He forgets his manor's and say's *oi its like this ?" and thats a prob ?

take it easy ? why ?

by your logic, I couldn't say to my retarded customer's *what??? you wanna fit 6*9s...you livin' in the past ??*

I DON"T mean well, I'm mostly here just to contradict you, lol, you are that special to me lol

later
punky

Wow, working out all the info in this thread is harder than my university work I'm procrastinating from now.

It's going to take a lot of testing and blu-tack to figure out where my tweeters are going to go I take it.

Not really. If you understand the physics enough, and know how to apply it to your environment, you can get it pretty spot on first/second time around. Blu-tac will enable you to make small adjustments, but thats about it.

If you need to substantially adjust your tweeter positioning, you obviously didnt fully understand why the first position was a poor choice.

thematt, thanks for the relevant and informed info. I now understand better how these things happen, and why people do things the way they do.

I think some of the others need to put their e-shlongs away, you're not acheiving anything by putting sh*t all over my thread. It's not a debate about whether you use TA or not, no doubt everyone has their opinions on TA and it has its place in car audio but that's NOT what we're talking about here. So give it a break.

Five Star, I'm not as experienced as Cyberpunky and thematt, so dont look at things quite as techicially. I can say though, its pretty easy to place your tweeters in a certain spot, listen for a bit, and place them elsewhere, and notice a difference, whether good or bad. Some people go to the extent of moving very slightly and retuning - but the chances of hearing the difference of a couple of millimetres is small, unless you already know what to listen for. Try a couple of places, and see which sounds best. Then, if you notice something weird, or someone points it out, try somewhere else. No-one has a 'perfect system' and even those guys with IASCA winning cars still try to improve them. Its about the journey as well as the destination

Oh, and nicely said Big_Valven

Very True! we all know what they say about fighting over the internet...

Thanks for that guys.

Places I can put tweeters in is limited anyway (until the fabrication ) so I guess it won't be too hard. I wouldn't mind having a quality installer near me for fine tuning though. That's not going to happen soon..

(sheeplol)

Tweter placement can depend on whether you have a feature that allows u to increase or decrease the tweeter intensity.Most passives have a -1,-3,-6 .If they are down in the kicks u may have to increase the intensity of the tweets.So maybe a passive tweet in the low and far foreward kicks may not be as good as a tweet in the same place thats been volume matched.

So Alpine's ltd concentrics don't count, or KEFs many car audio speakers, over many years, or CDT or....

k your right if tannoy dont do it it never happened ?
are you saying they (tannoy) never made any or not enough to rate, because you say they never made many???
does that mean they did or not enough for you?

a co-ax will never be a concentric for too many reasons to list here

punky

your thread ??? when did you get to own tweeter placement<<<missed that email.

Actually this is a debate, as thats how ppl discuss stuff. they debate pro's n con's.

If me pointing out how little *you* know, upsets *you*, get off the net, coz 5 minutes into anything *you* post, will get same result, and not just by me.


as for(loosely translated) *we all know what argueing on the net results in*...um Im guessing enlightenment of those who want to learn and a few shattered ego's...which one are you ?



<<<spent 3 month's finding right position for tweets...why ? because till I got it right it just wasnt right
punky

He created this thread to ask a question.

Obviously he doesn't feel that some of the posts being made didn't help him with answering that question. As the person who created the thread, I think he has every right to tell somenone (in a nice way) to be add to the thread constructively or not at all.

Personally, I don't care how old a person is, how big their ego is, or how much they believe they know - rudeness sounds the same from anyone, and isn't called for.

If you want people to listen to what you have to say, then speak with some respect. If you dont want people to listen, then don't bother talking (or typing in this case).

If all you want to do is bitch, cry and flex your ego, then i'm sure their are more constructive ways of doing it - try a shrink. They are paid to help people with such problems.

I really don't care about his or your feeling's(sorry). you ask, it goes were it goes...deal with it. As soon as he posted, he let it go. If he wanted to keep ownership he should have not posted and asked friends etc.

On the net, its anyones to own, just cause you started it, doesnt mean you control where it goes. Like life, you can ask a question hoping for a specific result, but when you ask, you have to deal with the fact you may get answers you didnt want.

no one owns a thread

ask and you set question free...it has a life of its own...you dont like results then big deal, suck it up

quote*harden the fu*k up* = chopper read

Chill out a bit Bruce. We all know you have a wealth of experience and knowledge, but unfortunately some of the new breed already know the answers they want to hear. Don't take it to heart, and I feel your frustration, but a friendlier approach just might get through to them (or not!)

Marc, i thought Bruce was taking it easy
alot more than he used to be hahaha

it's a pitty some of the people on here dont listen to Bruce at all.
i used to, well still do, and it got me where? a big pile of SQ trophys, State and Aust championships, even beat Bruce many times in competition. All cause i listen to him, and other's who have been there and done it and have had the results!

anyway back on the topic.
in my old car, Tweets and Mids were in the kicks.

why? pathlengths. dash shape. mechanical TA

i had excellent hight, unbeatable depth etc etc

and how did i get all that?
i spent 8 years and 1000's of $ playing around and changing stuff and learning.

but when it came time for that stereo, i bought solid reliable products, never once looked at the spec's and used my ears.
that whole stereo cost me like $2,500

hey bruce (seems like yesterday i was at wagga wagga still...good times lol)

my only constructive point - blutack is the best

i wish i hadnt put my tweeters into half a packet of bluetack each and started playing with them, also wish a little that i'd just left my sub stomp all over my mid and treble; because now I'm trying to make it sound better and its o so much more annoying. (besides, the celica is too soft for dBDrag when it comes down to it )

It was only this morning i was sitting in the car and realised i had seperation between tweeters and mid . tweeters mounted too high in the a-pillar, so then i face them up more...helps a bit, but then i realise how much my left mid seems to be dominating......and then i think about changing the positioning of the mids and it gets worse

cant wait to have my next car when i get to do it properly lol.

anyone tried positioning tweeters in the headliner? if not, to all the experts, would this be worth experimenting with, or just plain poo?