Planning to change out my stock speakers for aftermarkets and was wondering what style should I get, components or the ones that are all in one, like a 2 or 3-way speakers. Also, If I go with components, where is the best place to place the tweeters to get an all around surround sound in the Z.. in the stock tweeter location or down under the kick panel? Please give me some info or reviews for both tweeter placements. What's a good 3-way speaker setup that's not too expensive, looking to spend under $200 for a pair or so.. thanks in advance!

 

i dont know of any good 3 way comp set thats under 200 a pair, there arent too many really good 2 way comp setes for under 200 a pair.

but a few that i do lik that you can find for that much:

DEI Studio 6.5" comp set
Crysal SSC6 comp set
JL VR comp set

as for how to install them...

two way comp set, but bang for hte buck would be woofer int he stock location, tweet in the kick panel,

with more money you can put both of them in kciks, it would sound even better, but more expneisve

b

 

Perhaps he's not taking about 3-way seperates but a coax speaker with super-tweeter attached..they are cheap..and usually sound terrible IMO.

Go for a 2-way component set. Mount the tweet in the kick panel and if at all possible try to aim it up and back (towards the center of the roof seems to work for me). this can be accomplished with custom tweet pods..or you can try what I did.. Use black plastic polymer clay to mount and support the tweeter and simulate a pod..it works very well.

 

The tweeters anchor the sound. Being of such small wavelenghts the highs are very easy to "point" at and are very reflective. They will appear to be where the sound comes from. Mounting them and the mid-basses in front of the driver is the closest to the home system experence that's possible. Mounting a 5-6.5" midbass in the dash isn't possible though.

So I feel that the kick panel location is the wrong location for a tweeter. The position of your leg and even the fit of your pants are going to impact the sound minute to minute which would be distrubing to me. Every time you move your legs to shift the sound is going to change as the reflection pattern of the tweeter changes. Drop a passenger in and then remove her and the passenger's side sound is going to do huge huge changes.

Take your hand and place it over the tweeter of your home speakers, now remove it completely. Now use your hand between the tweeter and your ears and move it about ... the sound continues to change as you move your hand around - you can hear your hand moving within the sound field.

IMHO the best place to mount the tweeters would be in the dash pillars with nothing/as little as possible moving between you and the sound. Because the driver's side speaker is going to be ~3 feet closer to you there will be a difference of about 2.6 msec which is going to be a whole lot harder to hear than the pant leg effect. A second best choice is the stock location where I feel the sound is a bit too far off to the sides to be "perfect".

If I could find a source for a reasonable and professional looking A pillar pod they'd be in my car within a week.

Trying to mash/jam speakers into a sports car isn't easy and even the best solutions sound rotten compared to a proper home setup. The best part of the Z is that its 300 horses get me home faster to listen to a real sound system faster.

 

counter point:

differnet tweeters are designed to have different radiating patterns, some are a lot more directional than others. different speakrea also have different responses on and off axis. but as far i knew, most automotive tweeters feature WIDER dispersion patterns than midranges...

as for your comments about having things block the sound, when the tweets are in kicks, your feet or legs are not right on top of them, instead, they are about a foot or so away, and your ears are about 4-5 feet away. according to richard clark, in most cases, feet movemetn has a negligle effect on overall sound qauality. as by the time your feet gets in the way, the radiating effect of hte tweet is pretty wide already to be affected.

you mentioned waving a hand over a tweeter and listening, well, be more realistc to the car environment, place a mid and tweeter about 5 feet away from your head, ahd have someone wave they arm about a foot away from teh tweet in between, do you again notice a HUGE differenc ein sound?

additionally, have tweeters far away from the midrange often creates a layerd sound stage, not something desirable. high up tweeter also have the added issue of having it radiate off glass (horrible reflector), dash with hard plastic (also bad) and other objects that chang the sound.

basically, in the end, a wide radiator tweeter should go int he kicks or close to the mid, where as more focused tweets like the ones with directional waveguides, should go in the A pillars.

from what i know and learned, the midrange, not hte tweeter, is the single most important spectrum for placement and sound. You can test this, put a component system on the floor, first moet he tweet around by a foot or so, and see what you notice from the listeners prospective, then move the midrange the same way, and you will hear a drastic difference in where hte sound is coming from.

tweeters is not neccesaarily the best place in a Z for them, best would b esomehow right immedaitely next to the midrange, or put hte mid and the tweet together in kicks.

there is a reason why most iasca sound quality cars have tweets in the kicks, some of them do have a pillar mounted tweets, but they generally are:

1. focused radiator tweets, coupled with a lot of tuning
2. placed in the A pillar alpong with the midrange to raise sound stage, but this often creates an effect where you can tune it to sound perfect from the driver side, but bad from the passenger side.
3. a second set of tweets, super high passed, and attentuated, to raise the sound stage.

i am not knocking what you said, i am merely creating a debate based on waht i learnd over the years installing and competing .



but you can certainly ask my customer how it sounded with the tweet in the kick

 

i agree with Paul, i think speakers should not be obstructed by anything at all especially when it comes to the highs...the best placement would be the same place you put homes speakers which would be directly in front of you and ear level...since that's impossible, the best you can do is place the tweets on the A pillar pointing as much towards you as possible...placing tweets in the kicks, IMO, is a horrible idea compared to the relatively unobstructed stock a-pillar...more and more car manufacturers nowadays are even angling those towards the user and some are putting them on the dash so that the sound bounces off the widshield to the user

i'd place the tweeters as close to ear level as possible, the same with satellites you have at home...the woofer there really isn't many choices, eitehr the door or the kickpanel

 

wondering if you have heard a set of kicks before to make that comparison?

when tweets bounce of windshield, there is a horrible break up of tha pattern, not to mention phaze change and all that goodness that cuases cancellation and unsmooth response.

you meniotnd home audio, whcih also places speakres equal distant from the listener, so you dont get a skewed sound image, in the Z, placing the tweet on the a pillar woucl cause the path difference to be pretty bigt, thus skewing hte image

again, i am not making this up, there is a reason the best sounding cars int he world, 90 percent of them feature mids and tweets in the kick panels

b

 

by the way, i am willing to back up my talk, if someone dont think kicks sound good, i will build a set for you, ship it to you for free, you install it, litsen to it for a few days, if you think it sucks, send it back to me, i will cover all shipping charges, if you like it, keep it and pay for it :P

 

unfortunately no because 99% of auto manufacturers place them on the a-pillar...so with that i'm left wondering...if it sounds better in the kicks like you say it does, why wouldn't they just place it in the kicks or even where the woofer is at in the door? it would save money and manufacturing costs just placing them in there rather than manufacturing tweeter housings

i would imagine the sound hitting your legs or center consols or your pants rustling would produce a similar albeit to a lessened degree, the same effect

that's where digital time alignment comes in handy

i understand what you're saying though, placing the tweeters in the same realm as the woofers would have better imaging in a sense that all sound is coming from the same place instead of highs on top, mids on bottom, but that's only because you can't place the woofers up top as well...if you could, you'd have much better imaging with both ear level...and thus you in either case you sacrifice something...IMO, i'd rather be able to listen to rich highs at ear level and play around with DTA, while sending focus of the mids up vertically which my 8017 can do...in that sense, i can hear everything from in front of me rather than separated and layered which is undesirable

i didn't think you were

although to have one of the best sounding cars in the world would not only require a lot of money but also a lot of fine tuning...i think without that, your best bet for the everyday man is having the tweeters in the stock location...to each his own

 

here is my answer:

car manufactueres are there to make cars, not to make car audio environments, its simple that the easier plae for a manufactuer to stash a speaker is in the door or dash this kind of mentality can be said about more than just audio, there are a lot of things you can do to improve your car with aftermarket, like, hmm why didnt manufactuers put on bigger more free flowing cat backs? why didnt they put in better suspensions? etc etc..

its cool to note that BMWS for the longest time, did have kick panel mounted stock speakres

when i say best sounding cars int he world, i understand they require a lot of money, but, doing kicks is NOT a lot of money...and its omeshign that can drastically improve the sound quality of a vehicle. i build them all day for 2-300 bucks. as for tuning? if your headunit has some normal adjustments, it will be fine but on a side note, i know someone who spent less than 1500 and won a lot of sound quality competitions, and thats less than a lot of members here spend on audio i listend to his car and it really sounds fantastic: this is a few years back, alpine middle line headunit, eclipse point source coax in kicks, id 10" sub, and a kicker 4 channel amp with a small eq

glass is a material that does cuase break ups and phase changes when its refected upon, a human leg does not, nor does carpet really, but hard plastiv, metal and leathery surfeace does...

time alignment will help, but it will only help for the driver, it will sound completely messed up from the passenger side if you have it time aligned for center stage on the driver side. i prefer to have a vehicle that sounds good to every passenger

in the end, i would just say, find a local shop that does kicks, and take a listen to a certain car they have, or go to an sound quality competition and listen to a car...and you will see whati mean

again, i would love to change your mind by building you a set haha

cheers

b

 

I've had the Z for 2 years and have had 4 different sets of components up front...they all sounded better with the tweets in the kicks..and yes I tried placing them everywhere under the sun.

90% of "what" manufacturers? They only high end speakers I have seen that recommend placement away from the mids is Focal. I've spoken to many a tech support center for CDT, Morel, JL, Diamond, and MBQ and others who recommend keeping the tweets within 8" of the mid and as equal distance as possible from both ears..ie: Kick panels. Go on a forum site that is dedicated to car audio first..not one that is an afterthought of a 350Z car support forum, or one dedicated to home audio, and then pose this same question.

 

16psibrick build me a set for free please...I am tired of using polymer clay to hold my tweets in the kickpanels!

 

no fair, you already believe in them lol

focal isoneof the manufactuers tha thas wave guides in their xpert and high end tweets, i wonder thats why they recommend mounting away from mids. or maybe they are just werid cause they are french lol

in the z, i think it would sound even better to have a midrange down in the kicks...

6.5" midbass sealed in the door, 3" mid and 1" tweet in the kick...man that sounds so good

b