oh for the rear? You dont want a heavy bassey midbass in the rear ( no homo haha), it will affect your staging again.

you want the heaviest midbass and low end roll off to be up front so you will perceive the subwoofers notes from the midbass up front as the source if crossed over properly w the woofer and in good phase. If you do chose to run a pure midbass in teh rear, dont worry about limiting its high end, its not gna damage anything, and it will roll off on its own.. it does not require being band passes w hi and low roll off. Just worry about high pass x over for it and set it fairly high .. its only there to mimic an echo, a late reflection of the front sound.

you got the right ideas tho, heading in the right direction for a good system for sure.

 

Ahh cool, that's good info, thanks.

So ideally I want my rears to be focused on frequencies above that of my front woofers, but below that of my front tweeters in that mid-high range?

I was a little caught up looking for something to fill the gap between the front 6.5" woofers and the sub in the rear (more mid-low range). Maybe instead I should be looking at some 5.25" rears?

The reason I am putting a bit of thought into rears is that I think I will fibreglass up some mounts that fire them straight up rather than directly into the headrests. I was hoping that would make them a bit more "usefull" and I also want something smaller to practice on before I get onto fabricating the sub enclosure.

 

A Dynamat trunk kit and a double layer of Dynamat over the rear wheel wells (easy to get to by removing the rear glovebox and trim) and your car will sound a LOT better, even on the highway with bald tires. It's less than 15 pounds of added weight and totally worth the money and effort if you want good sound. It's a must-do if you plan to install a subwoofer in the back. I also put Dynamat on the rear hatch and to get rid of the subwoofer rattle. Everything sounds nice and tight back there now and I have zero rattles.

 

Head unit arrived yesterday, just about finished installing it after work, but it took a bit longer than I was expecting. Didn't realise that entire centre dash unit had to come out, and I also had to do a bit of soldering on the wiring harness. It's all ready to go back in the car now, but for today I'm driving around with a gaping hole in my dashboard. That stock Bose double din unit is HEAVY!!

 

Well the head unit ended up going in fine, I will be wiring up the mike and some other cables for phone integration during the week. Only issue is the FM Radio, I assumed that because the bandwidth range was correct I would be fine, but now I find out that US radios skip in steps of 0.2 Hz on an odd decimal. All the stations I usually listen to are on an even decimal. I’m working on that issue separately but it’s not a deal breaker.

Anyway I spent last week driving around in a top-sepc Audi with a Bang and Olufsen sound system. It had three way front speakers and a centre channel. The centre and the mids were mounted on the dash pointing straight up. Wow! It sounded pretty dam good to me. The clarity was far better than anything I have ever heard, every little detail was clear and crisp.

I’ve already decided against three way speakers because of the cost and complexity of setting them up, but after a bit of reading a centre speaker sounds like it could be worthwhile… Not for surround sound, but just to fill in the gap between my left and right channels. I’m not sure about this but I can’t help that thinking because the woofers are mounted so low in a Z, the sound will sound like it is coming from the foot wells rather than around dash level.

So many questions!

Is anyone using a centre in their Z? Does it make a difference? What size should it be, the same as my doors? Any ideas on where to mount it? Could it be amped by an Alpine PDX-F4 that was going to power four speakers already or would that negatively impact those speakers?

Any insight would be much appreciated. I will pull the trigger on the speaker setup in the next few weeks. I am currently clearing out my garage so that I have a workspace to strip my interior out do any fabrication.

 

Heres a pic of the head unit installed. I am looking for a low-profile, right angle USB extension cord that looks a bit nicer than the standard Apple cord.



Bought this gear today to get my Android all hooked up. I have a car dock that takes power and has an audio out. I have a double cigarette lighter socket to mount hidden, a USB adapter for one of the sockets, Pioneer Bus to 3.5mm adapter, 3.5mm extension cord and USB to Micro USB cord. I'll also get some black mesh sleeving from a computer store to tidy up the wires where they exit the dash and go into my phone dock.

 

If you look at the pic of the dash, I am thinking where I should mount a centre speaker, if I choose to put one in...

I could do a single 5.25" where the little storage compartment is above the head unit, or I could do two 2.5"s in the same spot, or I could two 3"s in some sort of pods above the air-con vents, or I could look to mount two 2.5"s in the little sunglasses compartment up high, might even be able to jam a single 5.25" up there...


The reason I am considering using two centre speakers is first, because it makes installation easier, and second because that means I have the option of powering them from the head unit. The head unit puts out 22 ish watts RMS per channel, if I use two speakers I can use two channels which will probably be enough power. If I use a single I can only use one channel and that's a bit on the low side I think. I hear that trying to bridge channels from a head unit is bad news.

Then there is the matter of getting the timing and EQ right. the EU version of my head deck has an auto timing adjustment feature, I have a feeling the US version does not have that, however it does have an auto-EQ adjustment like it's EU counterpart. I guess I may want to invest in a signal processor at some stage if I take this route...

 

Ordering the UP6i front components today.

Given their lower sensitivity compared to most high-end speakers I've looked at (88db), will 120odd RMS Watts be plenty of power?

The other question still hanging around is what to put in the rears, I'm was thinking about removing the rears from the stock locations and mounting them further back. Either in the front corners of the luggage compartment firing up, or on the forward face of the strut bar firing forwards.

I was hoping that would make them a little more useful.

Anyway I was looking at:

CDT ES-5 woofers: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-25-CDT-Aud...ht_3354wt_1120


Which are from the CDT ES-52i component set: http://www.cdtaudio.com/series/es_series/es52i.htm

Or Focal SV62 Woofers: http://www.ebay.com/itm/6V2S-FOCAL-P...09061978061559

Which are from the Focal 165V2S Component set: http://www.focal.com/en/car-audio-so...it/165-v2s.php

My only hesitation with the Focals is that they look like they may well overpower the DLS's speakers up front...

 

Why do you want a center channel? and rear speakers?

Are you going to watch movies in your car?

 

You said you chose not to go with a 3 way component setup because of the complexity of setting it up, but you're debating going with a center channel, which is much more difficult to stage correctly?

I think you're doing the right thing with your research, but honestly...... Skip the rear speakers all together, they do nothing but screw up the staging. If you want nice staging, build (or buy if that's your only option) a set of door panels, put your midbass woofer in the door, since they're not as important as midrange and highs for staging, and then build (or buy again) kick panels to house a true midrange and tweeter combo and get them as far out in front of you as possible. That alone will improve the staging tremendously. If you're not into building crossovers, go with a set of 3 ways that has a 3 way crossover with the set and wire them in. I would start out that way, and then use the crossover on the mids and highs amp to kind of adjust and smooth out the midbass response using the high pass on setups like that. If you can find a shop with an RTA anymore (seems like most places have forgot the value of an RTA), take it in and have them set the system up using the RTA to smooth in the midbass/midrange/tweeters, and then just control and adjust the subwoofer level as needed for whatever type of music you're listening to. You don't want (and probably can't achieve) a perfectly flat RTA curve for typical music listening, but you can bring everything to a reasonable level usually by just using the available crossover setting on the crossovers themselves (if they're adjustable), the amplifier and the headunit settings.

Try to keep every speaker as far forward of the seating position as possible. I know that's not feasible with the subwoofer, but you'd be surprised how you can make it seem like the subwoofer is up through proper staging.

Here's a quick test to see if you're even close on your staging: Close your eyes while listening to some good music. If you can point at any single speaker in your car because that's where the sound is coming from, it's not staged correctly. If you put a center channel in, more than likely, it will break up the staging and kind of dominate the sound, since it's so much closer to you than every other speaker.

 

no usb on the back of the deck?? that sucks..

 

I was very close to going the no-rear-speakers route, and this has pushed me over the edge I think. I can always add rears later if I don't like the setup.

My problem with kick-panels is that my car is right-hand drive. Therefore instead of blocking my foot rest like you guys, I block the loud-pedal, and that's not ideal... I can do door pods but they will not be as far forwards.


If I were only going with front speakers I'd be keen to try 3-ways. I haven't finalized the order for the DLS UP6i's yet, (it's taking a few e-mails to sort out shipping to NZ) So I could upgrade to the UP36i's. Then build door pods which mount the woofer and the midrange close to each other in the door and put the tweeters at the base of the A-Pilars as far forward as possible. Do you think that will get the staging about right or do I need to try and get the midrange's above the dashboard as well?

And yeah no USB in the back of the head unit, bit of an oversight there...

EDIT: Little bit more reading and it sounds like my best option is to massacre my a-pillars and put the tweet's and the mid-range's nice and close to each other. All focused on a point in-line with and between the two head rests.

The PDX-F4 bridged should give them about the right power (approx 240 watts).

 

Yeah good point, I just want to listen to good music while driving fast, will delete the rears and splash out on the fronts.

 

Liking this idea more and more. I can bi-amp this setup with the Alpine PDX-F4, and apparently that is musical goodness.

I've emailed dlsonline.com back to get a to get a price for UP36i's shipped to NZ.

From what I understand I use the high pass on my head unit at about 60Hz feeding to the PDX-F4. Then I high pass to the mid/tweet crossover at about 400Hz and hook those up to my mids and tweets (disconnect the mid-bass jumper for this). I low pass the same frequency (approx 400Hz) to the woofers directly from the amp.

I'll lowpass from the head unit at the same (approx 60hz) frequency to the Fi Q10 / PDX-M6 sub setup.

My question with this is that because I'm not technically bridging the 4ch amp now, is it going to think I'm running front and rear speakers and do something funny? Do need to run front and rear RCA's from the head unit to the amp or just fronts?

 

I didn't put the NZ/RHD thing together, makes sense.

And that EDIT: sounds like the way to go to me, just try to keep the a-pillar build ups as small as possible for asthetics.

 

Cool, just sussing out the DLS 3 way set at the moment. Apparently the UP36i is out of stock, they have offered me a UP6i and a UP2.5i set for a similar price and tell me this will be a better setup. But as far as I can tell all that means is that the UP6i crossover is useless and I will need to buy another one to split the mid and tweeter...?

 

Need some quick advice!!

DLS online recommends I use the UP6i 2 way component and a UP2.5i midrange. Power the UP6i woofer and tweet off one channel and the Up2.5i mid off the other channel.

To me this doesn't seem optimal... I thought that it was most important to get the 6.5" mid-bass free of a passive crossover and on a dedicated channel because it will suck the most power.

Then there are the crossover points. The stock 2 way crossover on the UP6i is set at 5000Hz, so my woofer will get everything below 5k, my tweet will get everything above 5k, and my mid will get the whole range (I guess I would high-pass it at 400Hz from the amp)

It just seems to me like 1) I'm not distributing the power from my amp effectively, and 2) my crossovers points are a mess.

Does anyone have thoughts on this setup?


PS:

My other concern is that if I get the UP36i, the crossover points are at 500Hz and 5000Hz. The max for I can low-pass my amp is 400Hz. So If I powered the mid-bass direct from the amp I would have hole in the 400-500Hz range...

EDIT: For reference
UP36i = 6.5" woofer, 2.5" mid, 1" tweet. Crossed at 500/5000
UP6i = 6.5" woofer, 1" tweet. Crossed at 5000
UP2.5i = the same 2.5" mid from the UP36i.
Pioneer PDX-F4 can high/low pass at up to 400Hz.

EDIT 2: Thinking about this more. I could use the UP6i crossover at 5000Hz for the mid/tweet, high-pass the amp to that crossover at 400Hz and lowpass the amp to the woofer also at 400Hz... That would solve all of my issues. Maybe that's what the guys at DLS were getting at, although it didn't sound like that in their e-mail.

 

Just to sum this up... I am generally happy with the hardware, my concern is my crossover points.

An Alpine PDX-F4 amp can cross at 400Hz with a slope of 12db/octive for both high and low pass.

With the above setup I would also have a DLS passive crossover at 5000Hz.

Woofer = 6.5" (unsure of exact freq. range but well outside of what I plan to give it)
Mid = 2.5", freq. range of 400Hz - 8000Hz
Tweet = 1". freq. range of 1.5kHz - 20kHz

Is a high-pass from the amp to the mid at 400Hz with a slope of 12db/octive going to give that speaker too much low-end? Should I ask for a DLS 3" mid which has a lower (250Hz) frequency range but is still rated to 8kHz at the top end.

I did find out that by reinforcing the rear chamber of the 2.5's, they will handle the lower frequencies better. Also, the 3's are too big to fit in the pillars so would have to go in the doors above the woofers.

I also found out that the JL HD600/4 amp can cross at 500Hz and can have either a 12 or 24 db slope, it's also got a bit more power but its sooooo expensive!!!

 

Just purchased a set of Gothia 6.3's after all that....

Will pick up dynamt and the cabling next week and start prepping the car while I wait for the speakers to arrive. I'll start a build thred once I get into the install.

 

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...q-install.html

Build thread started over at DIYMA. Thanks to all who gave me input specific to the Z, and to whoever it was who pointed me to that forum, a great resource for car audio in general.