Hey guys, first of all I'm not a sound guy at all so I apologize in advance for not knowing the technical jargon or why it may sound the way it does. But here's my take on how my 6.5" BA speakers are doing. Perhaps maybe you guys can help me out on how to improve it and suggest what I can do about a few problems I have so far. By the way, these speakers are my only modification so far..

First off, the tweeters are really bright and very strong. They are mounted in the stock location. I have to bass to +5 and the treble to +2. When I play certain CD's that have a lot of treble, it kinda really hurts my ears and almost gives me a headache. It sounds good when I play hiphop or something with a lot of bass. Even though my preferred music doesn't have a lot of bass.

Second, when my fade is at 0, everything just sounds like absolute crap. I have the stock rears. It doesn't sound good unless you fade it to the front +3 at the minimum. +5 is also good, but my gf doesn't like the way it sounds..how everything is coming from the front and there's no rear fill. I kinda agree with her that I do like being surrounded by music rather than the stage effect you get when you only play from the fronts. I do have an extra set of coaxes, alpine type-r's that I was trying to sell. Should I just install these in the rear and will that be sufficient enough? I hope that will solve that problem but I wanted to know if you guys had any other options.

Third, the speakers sound kinda crappy unless you crank it to 22-23 on the volume on the stock radio. The max volume on the radio is 31 for reference. Is this a sign that I will need to power these with an amp (which is what i plan on doing down the road) in order for these babies to sound good all the time? I told a friend of this problem and he said that usually a sign that you need an amp is when you crank it loud and it starts to distort. So he said my problem is backwards so he doesnt know what's wrong. But even at max volume, these speakers sound pretty good.

I am constantly fiddling with the stock stereo now. Even today I was listening and was thinking, that doesnt sound right, I'd better make sure the fade is up to +3, and it was. I guess I'm not completely satisfied with these speakers as of yet. My future plans are to install a AVIC-Z1, power the fronts with an amp, and now possibly install the alpine type-r coaxials in the rears. I hope this is just an issue of my stock head unit and factory speakers. Also, I noticed that in the door panel for the speaker grilles, half of the holes are covered by plastic. (fake speaker grille!) I was thinking of drilling the holes to make them real. Anyone else consider/do this?

 

without readin through your post, i would guess that you probably dont like the trebble on the boston acoustics..

this is one of the rason why i dont like BA speakres, espically hte PRO and the Z series, some of the brightest tweeters this side of MBQ, and with them in stock location, i cant imagine what that would sound like.

some poeple do prefer the "detailed" sound of these speakres, but i cant stand them, i want to be able to blast high pitched female vocals at full volume with out making my ears ring or bleed

also, havingt hte stock radio is a big bottle neck, as i always ay, you can spend 3000 on separkse and if oyu keep the stock radio, you still wont get a good response out of it, i tell people this but no one believes me

so my suggestion is:

1. get an aftermarket deck, make some finer tuning

2. move the BA tweeter from stock location to kick panel completely off axis, this will alleviate some of the strong highs coming out of the tweeter and make thigns sound a bit better

b

 

thanks b, I was wondering if you could clarify what you mean by completely off axis?

I'm surprised that these BA speakers were known for the treble. I wish I had done more research before installing them.

What about the other two problems I had, any suggestions?

 

off axis meaning pointed away from you, just make a hole in your kick panel, the stock plstic piece, flush the tweeter in, pointed completely side ways at your feet trust me

BA PRO and Z both use metal domes, and i have long felt they were way to harsh to begin wtih. i have acutally intalled probably two dozen of Bostons over the years when customers bring htem to me and hoenstly, have not heard a set that i liked... but again, i emphasize that its all due to personal taste, i like laid back, smooth upper midrange and highs, and the 3-5khz of most metal dome speakres blows my ears off hehe


your other issues can both be solved by getting an aftermarket deck and an amp to power the speakres...

using stock headunit and amp to power anyhting aftermarket will almost certainly net you crappy sound, regardless of speaker

b

 

cool, thanks!

 

#1 Turn down the treble. If you don't like the highs of the tweeter .. why boost it to +2 .... Try running it at 0 bass -4tweeters. Adding eq into the stock HU already stresses its limited output capability.

#2 Check the settings on the crossovers of your speakers, make sure that thet are not set to +3dB

#3 Change out the HU .. get more control

 

Amen. I have a pair of BA Z6 fronts and SX65 rears (both in the stock location) powered by a JL 450/4, and at higher volumes the Z6 highs are so harsh that they're painful to listen to. Messing with the EQ doesn't help because the sound quality suffers if I drop the high frequency ranges. I have to use the crossover setting on my deck (Alpine 9835) to drop the levels on the fronts so my ears don't hurt. Curiously enough, I can run the rears at full levels without any problem. I imagine it's because they're made from different materials.

Sorry to threadjack, but I'm seriously considering replacing the Z6 fronts with a set of Focale K2P or Utopia. Would that be a wise choice, or are Focale speakers just as harsh as BA speakers at high volumes?

 

focal are much better, but not hte most laid back sepakres either. DLS owuld be a great bet for smooth laid back highs

if you are interested, send me a PM though i think ALOT more sound qualiyt can be gained by doing a set of kicks makes such a huge difference in the Z its not even funny...

i recently had the chance to demo a set of k2ps in the stock locatins of a Z, and then showed him a set of much cheaper and used speakers in another Z i did in the kicks, and i can honestly tell you the used speaker set up sounded better

b

 

4 rules for Boston Pro and Reference speakers.

1. Never run with nothing less then 75 watts.
2. Never mount the component tweeters more then 6" away from the woofer.
3. Never run off HU power.
4. Never listen to people that tell you they are too bright.

Trust me when I say with zero processing of any kind on any of my Boston tweeters they are never too bright. I actually had to pull my tweeters out at a competition to show a guy they weren't silk domes. Now, if you don't listen to my 4 rules on Boston speakers you'll always have problems.

13 years of competition in sound quality - all with Boston Pro and now Reference speakers. I have Z6s in my Z, Pro60s in my daily driver, and enough Boston speakers lying around to probably open a store. My Z finished 4th in Unified World Finals for Sound Quality Modified class, 4th RTA, and side note - Phat Car. 05 & 06 I redid the stereo.

So - get a HU and amp and start to solve your problems. Definitely do not put the component tweets in the stock location of a Z - horrible for imaging, staging, and sound. Put the tweets in the kick panel facing back and slightly upward. Get a set of Boston ambient tweeters (these will match your Pro60 crossovers perfectly) and place in stock location - enjoy excellent sound quality.

 

i know sooner or later someone would come in and get defensive about bostons...like i said, it comes down to personal preference...

i completely believe you when you say bostons are not harsh and that you have had success with them as again, its your ears doing the listening...but...since we are on the topic of sound qualiyt competitions and i have had some experience in that, i do wanna mention that:

1. many iasca competitors, including world champions, i have talked to, agree that boston pros and Zs are indeed on the more harsh side when spekares go. so its not like only a few isolated people who are insane thinking bostons are a bit bright...

2. over hte past 10 years, how many iasca, usac or unified world champions do you know, have ran Bostons for their front stage?

again, this is not to bash that bostons are bad speakres, it hink they are excellently made, very good quality...its just my personal preference puts them on the bright side...some may call that detailed and lively...but for MY ears, they are always harsh out of hte bag...

and for everyday installtion, where the customer may not have access to a good EQ or installation locations...it compounds the problem

 

I personally know at least 3 world champion cars with Bostons over the past 10 years. And I can honestly say never once has anyone ever said my highs were harsh, bright, or overbearing. If anything the limits of my systems has been the mids since I typically run 2 tweeters per woofer. Again in 13 years of running Boston pro and now reference speakers - never once has anyone ever said my highs were bright. Lets conservatively say I have 5 judges a year hear my car. That's 50+ times I've had my car judged and probably 40+ judges hear my car. Add in at least 2-3 people per event hearing my car that adds another 100+ people. Not one comment ever on my highs. I know the limits of my system, I've heard the best cars in the world, and I've had the toughest critics sit in my cars.

Trust me when I say if you don't meet my first 3 criteria when using Boston Pro and Reference speakers the highs will sound harsh and overbearing. Boston's need a ton of power, they need to be mounted correctly, and they need to have good power (not head unit power). If you get those correct they can and will sound excellent.

If anyone is reading this and in the Cincinnati area I'll let them listen to my Z and they can listen all they want. Not harsh.

 

like i said, i do believe you completely.

and your 3 critieria does make sense...curious as to waht and where are you running yuor front stage and if you have any eqing on the front stage, can you give me a rough idea of the curve you are using?

just curious, since you like bostons so much, what are your thoughts on more laid back and smooth speakres such as Morel, AVI, DLS, etc? not detailed enough?

again, not trying to start anyhting, merely curious as to a fellow SQ-head's take

 

I have zero eq on my fronts. For competitions where I have 2 certain judges I bump my mids up with a PEQ at 120 and 400hz one notch on a wide Q as those 2 judges just seem to love strong overemphasised mids. Otherwise I have all EQ at zero.

My setup is 16V Eclipse 8053, Boston GT24 amp, Stinger Expert Series wire, Boston Z6 fronts with type M ambient tweets in my 350Z. I run the fronts off the 'rear channel' off the headunit for the better range of PEQ settings. No rear speakers in the car. Time alignment is the only processing I use to set the staging to the driver.

As far as other speakers go there's a lot I like actually. I do find the lack of detail on Morals and DLSs to be lackluster but their overall smoothness is great for some genre's of music (blues, country, fusion, anything with a fretless or standup bass). Image Dynamic speakers with horns are amazing if setup properly but require a ton of work to install and typically a 10band + eq for tuning. Their lower line (CS maybe) are good for the price but the overall linearity of them seems dismal and only sound right when played at higher levels. In lower level they seem 'dead'. CDTs are pretty damn nice as well and I've often thought of getting a set just to be different but for the life of me I still can't bring myself to buy them. Diamond Audios speakers can sound alright if put on a different crossover then theirs. The Hexs have way too overboosted mids that get way to muddy sounding. The silk dome tweeters are obviously the way to go on theirs but can lack the detail on precise highs like bells and cymbals (like the begining of Pink Floyd's Time).

In no way do think Bostons are the best as they do require some criteria meet to be used properly. If someone is not willing to go to those steps I typically recommend a lot of different brands.

I do find though that people's complaints about Boston's speakers (especially their highs) is due to bad installation and power/amping, not the product itself. I've had many disagreements with Boston people over what they tell people about the Pros and Reference Zs as they say they preform well with low amp power but they've never shown me an install that backs that.

Boston is not for everybody as their products typically require a little extra over other brands. If you can meet those requirements though the speakers are AMAZING and will last a lifetime. I've got a set of old Pro 6.2s from like 94 in my GFs Jeep that still blow me away with how they preform by today's standards. What's even more amazing is that Boston still has replacement parts/speakers for them and they've been off the market since like 95.

As for sound reproduction - the reason I love Bostons is their detail and ability to reproduce music as it's played. They will play any genre of music, at any level, and they will play it as well as it's been recorded. This matches myself well as I listen to everything imaginable (rap, metal, classical, j***, rock, r&b, blues, country, and everything else). If I listened to only a few types of music I'd probably be in other brands as we all know - some speakers make some types of music 'sound better' but I'm not one to like to change how things are recorded.

I should also mention that I've recently changed amps to Boston from Xtant in the Z.

 

cool deal if i am ever in the area i will have to stop by and take a listen i ahve yet to hear a car that sounded great to my ears with boston pros or Zs...but we obviously have different criteria in listening preference.

are you also a fan of MBQ Q series? waht about focal utopia Be?

to this date, the best sounding car i have heard belong to Mark Liggett, the year he wont expert finals, when he ran a combination of pioneer prototype (later PRS) drivers and premiar amps

have you heard , i forgot hows, maybe Mic wallace or someone elses, with modded CD-2mini horns, where they had an eq set up where the curves ont he eq are all over hte place, and then invited people to listen, htey would comment on how good it sounded, and then look at the crazying eq settings and comment about that, at which point the owner showed them that hte eq was completely disconnected and the horns running flat?

anyway, i too think horns need quite a bit of eqing to sound good, but i wonder how much is that is in our heads

 

hey b, maybe next time in the area you can relocate my tweeters for me?

 

I'm sort of having the same problem with my pro60's....however I'm just not satisfied with the sq these have to offer. I have a kenwood ddx8017 and a JL 300/2 pushing the speakers. Will I need to upgrade to a 300/4 or 450/4 if I decide to get the ambient tweeters? And where exactly is the kick panel?

 

Those BA ambient tweeter are referred to as Neos and they don't require a seperate amp. They actually have their own crossover unit and they operate at 8khz and above. So, your main tweeter would give up the frequency range to these ambient tweeters.

CDT also makes a wide assortment of ambient tweeters (stagefront)

 

ok, so what's the exact name of the tweeters? the only ones i found are called the Neo Type-M.....and where can I buy them from?

 

They have Type M with metal dome and Type S with a soft dome. The cost about $150 on Crutchfield, or you can brave Ebay or another online dealer. Check out CDT Audio imaging systems too.

 

i just installed mine last week. I have the tweeters in the axis mount with nazar door pods. then i have the imaging tweeter molded into the stock location. They sound amazing. clean and clear at high volumes. I am more than happy with my set-up.