I've read in probably every thread dealing with tweeter location that the sail panels are harsh, to go with A-pillars if you have a sound processor with time tuning ability, and kicks if you don't.

I'm just curious, if there a reason that A pillar (literally 3 inches from the sail) aimed in the same direction as the tweeters in the sail, would sound any better at all?

Does the windshield reflection help with SQ substantially in this case, or is it just having a stuffer dampened mount?

I was even considering molding the sail panels out, it wouldn't be that tricky to do, and I think I could tie into the "pipe" theme that Nissan has going on with the door handle and air vent.

I do not have sound timing capability at the moment (potentially ever) and obviously will play with location with double sided tape, but just noticed a lot of advice being thrown around and I can't figure out what the real difference is.

 

I have my Morel tweeters in my sail panels and I don't have electronic time alignment. My tweets sound perfect and every person whose ever heard them has said the same. Matter of fact our other shop car has Focal tweets molded into the kicks and they sound "harsher" then my Morels if anything.

 

Interesting, more encouragement to try a slight molding (just to get a slight angle from them.

 

If you think the Focal tweeters sound harsh when placed inside forward-kicks, try placing those Focal tweeters in the sail panel (you won’t believe how harsh they sound in the sail panel).

Focal tweeters definitely deliver superior sound, but the Focal's tweeters' high output requires careful installation and configuration.

--Spike

 

From the sounds of it (more reading) its mostly a staging issue, and the sacrifices made by installing the tweeters anywhere else will be similar to the advantages of mounting the tweeters in the sails assuming the tweeters themselves aren't harsh in nature.

I'm just going to mold the sail panel so they look decent and fit appropriately, and wrap the entire tweeter flush mount in grill cloth so it blends in more.

 

^^ The problem with mounting in the sail panel is you blast the driver and the passenger, without any way to stage the high-end sound (the sail panel mount is “in your face”, literally). If you stage for the car’s driver, the passenger hears the imbalance, and vice-versa.

If you mount the tweeters in kicks, inside the doors, door pods, or A-Pillar; you can more easily stage the sound for the simple reason the speaker is farther away from the listener than if mounted in the sail panel. Think of how you position your home theater speakers in your living room.

Another problem you face when mounting a speaker in the sail panel is its tight space that doesn’t accommodate much depth that better speakers require. So if you do mount a better speaker, you’re still faced with custom fabrication. That’s an additional expense for a compromised mounting position.

If you have the time and inclination, try taping the speakers in different positions in your car. I think you will hear what I’m talking about.

--Spike

 

I guess the answer is to try it like you say, which I did plan to (I'm going to just install the mid basses and slap the door panels on "roughly" with the wires coming through the speaker grill area (cutting them out so it should be close) and put the tweeters all over.

I'm actually pretty good with FG work from fixing surfboards over the years (and a hovercraft I never finished ) so molding the sails would be cake, I'd rather avoid more complicated stuff, but getting the tweeters there is cake.

The decision I have to make is whether I want to buy a sound processor or not and run active (with tuning).

I bought a nine.4 luckily so I have the option of going that route in the future and running a time phased setup with lowered tweeter output. That said, I think more depends on your components than anything, followed closely by how you tune your EQ etc.

Thanks for the explanation!

 

Perfect as in how? Without time alignment/processing. It will not sound great, from an SQ staging point of view anyways. Might sound perfectly fine for everybody else. But for me without that stage it won't sound like anything.

Spike pretty much nailed it.

For me I don't care about my passenger side. I have mines tuned for driver side only. Plus most passenger does not know about the sound stage setup anyways.

Active is well worth the money if you're in SQ.

 

I'm interested in knowing what is in your car. I am being sincere when I ask you to please share.