Anyone using the 6.5" kenwood excelon components (kfc-xr61p) in the fronts? I have them in both front and back. Running on an alpine 7998 HU through a JL 500/5 amp. I notice that the front tweeters are very harsh and not easy on the ears when turned up to any decent volume. I'm not talking ear drumb bursting, just a little higher then normal. This seems to be consistent with different types of music when the highs come along. Good examples would be Alicia Keys, Usher's Yeah!

The tweeters are mounted behind the stock plastic grille where the originals were. When I fade to the back tweeters in the back have no such problem. The back are being pushed by less wattage and are firing against the chairs so not sure if this is a good comparison or not. My stereo installer and I tried to EQ the harshness out and even turned the crossovers all the way down for the tweeters with no luck. Anyone else have these speakers and have similar problems? What could it be???

 

Are those tweeters hard or soft dome?

 

Hard dome???

http://www.kenwoodusa.com/product/pr...productId=2428

 

or metal dome...

The boston pro's have a aluminum dome tweeter and they are wayyy too harsh out of the box regardless of eq settings thats why I asked.

however...

Yours do not have them.... on the cross over there is a way to adjust the tweeter level. This is from the kenwood website:

"- Tweeter Attenuation Adjustment: 0dB/ - 2dB/ - 4dB"

you guys messed with that?

 

yup turned it all the way down (-4). No luck

 

damn it, Im not sure now....


perhaps the amp is doing stupid things. Maybe try swapping amps?

If that doesnt work call kenwood and ask what the deal is.

 

Thanks for tryin to help out. I was actually thinking of taking everything apart and seeing how the tweeters sound with no cover over them. I'm talking about the stock triangular part covering the tweeter. Maybe some strange stuff is happening since they are being covered???

 

I put the Excelon 6 & 1/2's coax's in my rear speaker enclosures. The tweeters are adjusted to fire at the drivers head. I usually have the bias set to favor the rear and get a nice clean sound from them. I'm using the stock, non Bose amp. Recently I put a sound deadening vinyl material over the floor pan in the rear and eliminated a lot of the noise coming from the rear of the car. The sound seems to be coming from about 5 ft. behind me, especially with live broadcasts, and sounds great. Still have lower level noise at highway speeds. I left the fronts stock as I felt any additional gains in fidelity would not be justified, unless I went to a full professional sound deadening installation. I bought the car for its performance not its luxury so that's not an option for me.
I'm assuming your Excelons are coax like mine so you can rotate the tweeters away from aiming directly at the listener. Also, are the original front tweeters still in place? Are these Excelons separate Tweeter-woofer config.? A good, metal dome tweeter in the front OEM position (aiming at the drivers head) would probably be too harsh for some people.

 

I put the Excelon 6 & 1/2's coax's in my rear speaker enclosures. The tweeters are adjusted to fire at the drivers head. I usually have the bias set to favor the rear and get a nice clean sound from them. I'm using the stock, non Bose amp. Recently I put a sound deadening vinyl material over the floor pan in the rear and eliminated a lot of the noise coming from the rear of the car. The sound seems to be coming from about 5 ft. behind me, especially with live broadcasts, and sounds great. Still have lower level noise at highway speeds. I left the fronts stock as I felt any additional gains in fidelity would not be justified, unless I went to a full professional sound deadening installation. I bought the car for its performance not its luxury so that's not an option for me.
I'm assuming your Excelons are coax like mine so you can rotate the tweeters away from aiming directly at the listener. Also, are the original front tweeters still in place? Are these Excelons separate Tweeter-woofer config.? A good, metal dome tweeter in the front OEM position (aiming at the drivers head) would probably be too harsh for some people.

 

I put the Excelon 6 & 1/2's coax's in my rear speaker enclosures. The tweeters are adjusted to fire at the drivers head. I usually have the bias set to favor the rear and get a nice clean sound from them. I'm using the stock, non Bose amp. Recently I put a sound deadening vinyl material over the floor pan in the rear and eliminated a lot of the noise coming from the rear of the car. The sound seems to be coming from about 5 ft. behind me, especially with live broadcasts, and sounds great. Still have lower level noise at highway speeds. I left the fronts stock as I felt any additional gains in fidelity would not be justified, unless I went to a full professional sound deadening installation. I bought the car for its performance not its luxury so that's not an option for me.
I'm assuming your Excelons are coax like mine so you can rotate the tweeters away from aiming directly at the listener. Also, are the original front tweeters still in place? Are these Excelons separate Tweeter-woofer config.? A good, metal dome tweeter in the front OEM position (aiming at the drivers head) would probably be too harsh for some people.

 

Sorry for the triple post yesterday. This website was having problems. Went to the Kenwood site given above and now understand your setup. I'm probably stating the obvious but my last sentence pretty well covers it.

 

My A/d/s coaxials do not sound too harsh and they are well covered up by the plastic peice on the door. I asume the stock tweeter is removed?

 

These are components guys so they have seperate tweeter which I put into the stock location. So the stocks are taken out. I don't know how they aimed them inside the stock enclosure so I think I'll have to tear the door apart and check it out. Do you guys know if you have to take the whole door off just to get at the tweeter enclosure?

 

You dont have to take the whole door apart, I believe if you push up or down or some direction the panel will slide out... I took mine out so long ago I forgot how I did it

Regardless of how they are aimed and if you have tried to eq the highs down....I would say at this point that those components are just not for you. I think you are used to much softer highs then what those kenwoods are giving you...

Short of going with a different set of components...you might could try putting a resistor in line between the tweeter and the crossover. Ive never heard of that being done... but conceptually it would work I suppose

 

you might have an easier time taking the door off.. The problem is the rubber thing on top of the triangle will get stretch or ripped if you pry or wiggle too hard...

It's not real difficult to take the door off.... Make sure your window is open... Then it's like 4 screws and then pull from the bottom and unhook on top..

sounds like maybe blown tweeter(s)? either that or you have some sort of gain problem which is more likely.. I'd be surprised if simply removing a cover would actually make them sound less harsh.. if anything, I would think it would even sound more harsh without the cover.. If you have another set of speakers maybe you could just swap those in at the amp to see if your pair is defective..

--mike

 

Mike,
Thanks for the tips on the door. I doubt it is blown tweeters unless they were blown before I got it. I don't know if there is something strange happening harmonically with the cover in place causing reverberations or what. Also I don't know how they aimed them inside the enclosure so maybe that might help too.

 

okay talked to my installer today...


put a 8 ohm resistor inline of the tweeter, that will quiet it down a bit for ya

you can get these at radio shack