I've just finished fitting the mw170 midbass in my doors.
Now I'm going to fit the mids and tweeters in the kickpanels.

I mocked this up out of scrap to check speaker locations and angles for pedal clearance and leg interference just to see what was possible and practical.

BTW I have already moved the accellerator 45mm, the brake 30mm, and the clutch 15mm to the left.

Click to view attachment
From passenger's seat.

Click to view attachment
From driver's seat.

I settled on this configuration as likely to be the best comprimise as it offers enough angle whilst still leaving some foot room and the legs don't obstruct either speaker when driving.
Any less angle and both drivers are aiming at the centre console.

I'm also applying an idea I have that if the nearside speakers are off axis and the opposite side is on axis to the listening position, this could help compensate for relative intensity differences due to unequal pathlength.

The next step is to build a jig that can actually hold the md140/2 and md130 drivers so I can listen to them and maybe tweek the positions a little.

Does this look like a good starting point?
What are the issues regarding whether the tweeters go on the top or the bottom?

looks great man having the tweets on the top or bottom would mostly come down to trial and error. if they're on the bottom, they're further away and closer to being equally distant from your ears. but then you dont want the mid range blocking the tweet at all.

P.S. how the HELL did you move your pedals? I'd love to do that in my car to get a lil more clearance

^^ times about 50 million!!!

just make sure the tweeters wont get fudged by anyone's legs..namely yours

This configuration was as clear of the legs as I can get in the kickpanels with speakers this size.

I did a search and found these that appear to be very similar.

http://www.mobileelectronics.com.au/forums...c=60910&hl=

I asked Richard if there was any issues with the mids blocking the tweeters and he said there was no problem.

P.S. how the HELL did you move your pedals? I'd love to do that in my car to get a lil more clearance

I removed the pedals from the car and bent them in a vice with a big hammer.
It's tricky getting the bends right so that the pads stay square.

This wont work effectively. What you're relying on is, all speakers experience what we call 'beaming', or a decrease in the power response as the frequency increases. What happens is the on-axis response gets sharper, like in a torchbeam.

Below beaming however, the response is fairly even across the entire axis, and hence neither on-axis nor off-axis will result in attenuation. A 1" dome tweeter, for example, will only start beaming (and get drop-off in its power response) after about 8-10k. There are no fundamentals above this range. Detail retrieval may seem to change, but that is entirely because of the environment, not the speaker. I know plenty of cars that have speakers firing directly at the centre console with no audible difference in frequency response, either from the left or right channels.

Having both speakers in the kicks is a good idea, for pathlength differences, but you'll need to ensure the tweeter has a longer pathlength then the mid. Also, keep the mid off the floor, and try to get the tweeter lower. Something like, mid higher and closer, tweeter lower and further, you'll find works very well.

I will also warn you with that mid. I have the same one in my car at the moment, in the kicks, and they are one of the worst speakers to get proper image with I've ever heard/used in that position. You'll be playing forever to get it done properly.

The way around it is, concentrate on the environment. The underside of your dash is the biggest benefit to your mids response, so use it as a waveguide. Fire the tweeter across the mid too, if possible. Helps prevent problems around the crossover point.

What did you think of my mockup?
It seems to satisfy your recommendations in the third paragraph.

When you say to fire the tweeter across the mid at what point should the axes converge?

I know what a waveguide is when it pertains to a CD horn but how do I utilise the underdash for this effect?

mounting is all speculation .
To replicate another awesome sounding car was a great idea.

The aim is to try to have both sets of speakers (left and right) to be on the same relative angle to you.

For example, if the right mid/tweet is 60deg off axis, then you also want the left mid/tweet to be 60 deg off axis measured from the listening position. The result is that the freq response of the left and right side speakers will be audibly better 'matched' in the upper treble (and possibly upper midrange, depending on setup).

The benefits of this are two-fold:
1 - Your sound will be more neutral (i.e. there will be consistent tonality from both sides of the car)
2 - Your imaging will be sharper, and more solid (your image will drift a lot less, because the strength of different frequencies will be consistent on both sides)

Which angle you decide to settle on (from a pure SQ perspective) should be determined by two things:
1 - Whether you want it to perform from both sides, only care about the driver side
2 - The characteristics of your specific speakers

Then of course, you also need to consider things like drivability.

I'm definately going for a symmetrical system so to achieve equal off axis alignment of left and right speakers for driver and passenger then you would need to aim all speakers half way between both listeners so the old aim them at the dome light idea would seem like the go.

I can't get enough angle on the speakers to achieve this because it doesn't leave enough room to put my foot on the accellerator.

The closest I can get is near side 30deg off axis, far side on axis.

Click to view attachment
From the passenger's seat.
Damn legs.

Click to view attachment
From the driver's seat.

When I get the driver's side up to this stage I'll wire them up and have a listen before I get the fibreglass out.

Instead of just playing around with angle, try this instead.

Sit in the car, and mark on the drivers window where your ears are when you face forward (you'll need some help here)
From that point, go forward 3 inches, down 2 inches.
Aim both drivers at THAT point.
Repeat for both sides

You'll be surprised at the results, if done properly.

Please help explain a bit more,

Sit in the car, and mark on the drivers window where your ears are when you face forward (you'll need some help here)

> The right ear or the hollow spot in between both of them?

From that point, go forward 3 inches, down 2 inches.

> about where my mouth is?

Aim both drivers at THAT point.

> All the drivers in the doors, kicks and dash? eg all of that side should converge at this point? I gather that this is the drivers on the opposite side of the "mouth position"?


Repeat for both sides

> so aim passenger drivers at drivers mouth and drivers side drivers[speakers] at the passengers mouth?

Thanks
nigel

Do you mean point the drivers side speakers to this point in the passengers seat

No no!

Draw on the window, the point where your ear canal is. Go forward 3 inches, then down 2 inches on the window. Mark THAT spot (on the window). Now aim the opposite drivers at THAT spot, on the opposing window.

The only drivers you should be worried about are the ones that contribute to imaging. In your case, that would be the midbasses and the mids, and maybe the tweeters depending on your crossover point.

This project has been on-hold for a few days while I attend to other things.

In a previous car I had 2way splits aiming approximately at that point maybe 50mm forward.
I found that the reflection on the glass from the left side into the right ear smeared the centre image.

When I wound the window down the image fixed in the centre but unfortunately the stage height dropped about 30cm.

The mid bass is already completed.
There was limited scope to angle it as it is such a big driver but it is aiming slightly up and back.

As the mock up is angled now the mid and tweeter are pointing at a spot about 150mm behind that point.

I'm going to wire them up in the next couple of nights so I can finalise the design and finish them on the weekend.






This project has been on-hold for a few days while I attend to other things.

In a previous car I had 2way splits aiming approximately at that point maybe 50mm forward.
I found that the reflection on the glass from the left side into the right ear smeared the centre image.

When I wound the window down the image fixed in the centre but unfortunately the stage height dropped about 30cm.

The mid bass is already completed.
There was limited scope to angle it as it is such a big driver but it is aiming slightly up and back.

As the mock up is angled now the mid and tweeter are pointing at a spot about 150mm behind that point.

I'm going to wire them up in the next couple of nights so I can finalise the design and finish them on the weekend.

Thankyou
Now I see how my poor comprehension skills missed that point in your first post.
Thanks again
Nigel

Just heed my warning on the Dyn mids. They are a pig to image, so dont expect miracles.

I got an extremely sharp image in my car a while back, but at the expense of tonality. The Dyns seem to suffer more then most from reflections.

blah blah blah...dude, shiny copied me lol

If you want to work it out before you commit, then just use back strap and listen, listen...then listen, and then listen some more.
I spent months getting mine right, but I didnt have ppl on the net telling me why it wouldnt work *shrugs*

anyway as your angles etc, look exactly like mine, Im pretty sure your almost spot on, however randomly you came to that config.

mock em up, listen, then decide
peace
Cyberpunky

I've got them running using the x360 c/o for now and straight out of the box they sound much better than the sys.240gts in my other car.

I've only had a few minutes to listen so far.
The height is lower than ideal at normal volume but raises as the volume increases.

There is a strong centre image with female vocals.
I actually thought the image was left of centre at first but as I listened I realised that was because I'm used to my other system that images right of centre from the driver's seat.

The process of arriving at a final design was not exactly scientific but more a process of seeing what could actually be built and still drive the car.

I started with the driver's side due to the pedals causing the most difficulties so I moved the pedals as much to the left as I could.

I sat in the driver's seat and looked at the kickpanels and took note of what part of the panel wasn't obscured by my legs or the pedals.
This was a diagonal strip sloping down parallel to the front of my shins.

I've often read that the tweeter should be the furthest away and that the midrange should be kept as close as possible to the midbass so this led me to place the midrange above the tweeter.

I had to overlap the midrange over the tweeter to keep the tweeter above my ankle.

I just put as much angle on the speakers as I could without interfering with the accellerator.
Any less angle and the farside speakers would be on axis with the side window in front of the listener. I have found the resulting reflection confuses the imaging.

There is really very little scope to alter the design without going backwards or making the car undriveable.