Tweeter questions

[whataburger]

I have a 2005 regular cab Chevrolet Silverado. I have purchased an Alpine F340 4 channel amp and an Alpine M500 1 channel amp I will be using a sony xplod HU with front/rear/sub rca preouts.

Waht I am considering is buying (2) 4x6's @4 ohms and (2) 6.5's @ 4 ohms, and wiring (4) 2" tweeters parallel, (1 per midrange), so that I can acheive a 2 ohm load, my question is:

Is there a way to wire in some sort of capacitor/volume control for each independant tweeters so I can adjust the "brightness" of the stage? while keeing the 2 ohm load and without affecting the crossover frequencies that I have already set to the midranges?

THis is not going to be a huge dollar system, but I would like to get the most out of what I can. Thank you for any advise you can give!

[JeremyC]

First off, don't waist your money on 6 speakers. Find a nice component set, and spend any extra money to sound dampen your doors.

Something alot of people don't realize is that the more speakers you have the more often you will run into problems with phasing and cancelation.

I wouldn't worry about running it at 2 ohms either. By lowering the ohm load you get more output, but your amp will run hotter, and you will increase the distortion. In a sub your less likely to notice it, since our ears can't hear as well at low freqs, but mids fall dead center of what our ears are the most sencitive to.

So I would look for a 2 way 6.5 component set, maybe even one with biamp capability so you can use all 4 chanels of your amp.

Or you could go completly active, and maybe even use raw drivers, but thats opening a whole new can of worms.

[whataburger]

So your saying not to even use the 4X6's? just 6.5's in the doors? If I do this should I place the component tweets next to the 6.5's or should I mount them higher up such as putting them in the windshield posts? I am planning on running a 12" dvc R type alpine subwoofer. With just the door speakers at such a low placing will the bass drown everything out? can you help recommend door speakers?

[solacedagony]

You'll want 6.5s in a door, IMO. I'm not sure you'd get more distortion from running at a lower impedance, but you definitely do when bridging an amp. Although I really doubt you'd even hear the difference even then.

You can hook L-pads up to your tweeters to adjust their volume, however, I agree with Jeremy. Just get a decent 6.5 comp set and you'll be happier. More speakers does NOT equal better sound. Go for the KISS approach.

A capacitor inline with a speaker acts as a high pass filter, not a volume control.

When placing your speakers, you want the mids/tweets the same distance from you (called pathlength distance or PLD). You should put your mids wherever you're able to mount them and then experiment with different mounting locations for the tweeters.

[JeremyC]

In my friends truck we used the factory locations with a few simple mods, and it sounded amazing. So I would start there, and / or take some double sided tape and play with your tweeter location

[whataburger]

but... you no longer used the 4x6 behind the head location at all correct just the 6.5's?

[JeremyC]

Yep, no 4/6s, just the 6.5s and tweets.

If you check out the faq section there is a ton of post about speaker postioning, phasing, and even why not to use oval speakers. Go check it out, and hit us up if you have any other questions.

[cargodz]

I would also recommend no 4x6"s in the rear... You mentioned your concerns about the speakers being drowned out by the sub, well those 4x6"s are the one that will be drowned out... If you had more room to play with or wanted to get really ingenius with some cutting and fabricating, then you could get a nice midbass back there, but to avoid the hassle all together... ditch the 4x6"s you'll be glad ya did :)

[Robert Wollenberg]

yeah, what he said. x2