Hoppy

Tried search, but Nick's (Chiark) pics from last year are down so...

What's the best way to kit out the front, for a really good sound stage and big volume? I'd like so much noise that I want to turn it down, rather than having to drive everything flat-out as I do now.

At the moment I've got MD Quart 2-way components with mid-bass units in the doors and tweeters in the kick well. Ditto on the rear shelf, and a couple of boxed 10in subs in the boot. Two amps are big Pioneer, but now old and playing up. Car is a Classic (with a de-cat exhaust ).

It sounds good, but how can I make it better? I reckon I'm going to need an expensive custom build so I'd like to do it right All I've decided on so far is Genesis amps.

Thanks,

Richard.

Adam M

the best sound stage you can get is to scrap the dash board and the front seats.

extend the pedals and controls and sit in the middle of the back seat



You have to understand that you will never get a great soundstage in the front.

Ideally the speakers should be as far from you as possible so that the they can be as close to the same distance from you as possible.

Regardless of what you do, you will alwyas find a sweetspot for each different frequency range and these rarely coincide with each other.

You have to accept you are fighting a losing battle.

Once yuo accept this, you can decide to concentrate on one area ratehr than compromising by trying to get the best of all worlds which is simply not possible.

The closest I have heard to the best all round sound up is 8 inch mids with horn loaded compression drivers mounted coaxially. These speakers are made by a company called veritas and at £600 a pair (5 years ago) are surprisingly reasonable for how good they sound.

They give true single point source but with phenominal punch, you can almost do witghout a sub.

the trouble is they don't fit in classic impreza doors. I dont know the mounting depth and door construction of the new shape.

If you don't use this then you will struggle to achieve a proper sound stage by using small speakers ont he dash board but these will not handle power and wil be too bright. so you often attempt to boost up the other frequencies either in the kick wells or in the door pockets. These will bring more bass and volume up front but the sound source will be coming from all over the place and so imaging goes out the window.

The trouble is you simply sit too close to the speakers in a car to stand a chance of getting proper imaging and staging, even with time alignment and output level correction which many funky new head units have.

I would go for sound quality and volume, and fit a decent set of component mids i the door, such as my AVIs (6 inch) or some Diamond audio, DLS, a few focals I can think of maybe rainbow but I dont knwo if they have dropped quality of late.

Dyns will always be sweet but not capable at the volumes you are mentioning.

I stand by my AVI recommendations but you will struggle to fit the giant tweeter which really is a beast!

am sure nick will poitn out stuff whic i have forgotten to include.

Hoppy

Cheers, Adam. I have read about your audio tribulations before and yes, I accept that what is possible in a car, and what is ideal, are awkward bedfellows.

But what is the 'best' that can be reasonably achieved? Components in the doors and angled tweeters in the kick panels? I've heard mention of 3-way Diamonds. Others say 2-way are as good...

Any further advice very welcome.

Richard.

chiark

Hi Richard, what pics are down?

Best reasonably achieved is to go for standard midbass mounting and play with tweeter positioning until you're happy. Failing that, a 3 way setup would be good, with mid/tweets in the kick panels.

As Adam says, you can go all fancy and time align to your heart's content, but then you move your head and it all needs setting up again - give in, it's a compromise. I can get a semblance of sound stage, and I like the sound quality and levels, so I'm happy...

Hoppy

Nick, thanks. The pics down are of your door build from May last year. I'd really like to see them

Thanks for the info. What I'll do first is plug the new amps into my existing set-up and see what a quality signal, with plenty of power operating all channels simultaneously and reliably can do. I suspect I'll then go for 3-way components with mid/tweets in the kick panels, as you suggest.

I've seen this in a Scoob and looks good, but space is very tight around the gas pedal. Do you happen to know of a good set of 3-way components that uses 3in mids as opposed to 4in? Every mm counts! Cheapest I've spotted are DLS at £760.

Alternatively, could I slot a new 3in mid driver and 3-way crossover inbetween my existing MD Quart 2-way speakers, or is that a bodge?

Cheers,

Richard.

Adam M

richard,

what I am saying is that there is no best. all you can do is choose where you want to compromise.

If you choose sound quality, we can make recommendations, if you choose staging and imaging we can make recommendations, if you choose volume we can make recommendations.

If you aren't worried about doing a bit of work and building some decent door builds, then in my opinion the veritas 8s with co-axial horn loaded compression drivers, powered by a decent amp will give you the highest levels of all three you can achieve in the impreza.

staging suffers the most in this set up as the things still tend to fire directly into your legs, this is a shame as the compression drivers are beautifulloy crafted horns which give amazing natural dispersion, ruined by having your calf in the way. They are single point source so imaging (focus) should be excellent, but sadly because of their size and location you will struggle to point them in the right direction, meanign your relative location will discourage clear imaging.

But its going to be the best fo a bad bunch as others speakers do not disperse as well, and other single point source speakers are not in these leagues for clarity, control and power. They are far superior to three way kit as they are true coaxials and the horn handles everything down to 400HZ with very good effiency acorss the range. The standard passives also have some ridiculous slope such as 96db/octave, which I had thought was practically impossible from a passive.

The slope doesn't stop the music from being smoothly produced as the 8 inch mid is more than capable of performing at well over 400HZ, so there isn't a prominent cut off point. I think it is there mostly to protect the horn from subsonics but still allowing it to flex its muscles at low frequencies and benefit from its efficiency and dispersion at frequencies which really affect the music.

If you want something simlpe and don't want to think about these as an option as they would be a lot of work to fit, I would say that you should look at the AVI 2 way 6 inch and make a pod to allow you to mount their intended tweeter, unlike what I have done. This is anglable, but their power handling and control are streets ahead of anything I have yet heard. Not sure how much of this is attributable to my amp (pheonix gold zx450) as the previous speakers (JL components) really were the weakest link, goodbye.

chiark

A "bit" of work to fit horns? Blimey Adam, you'd need to rebuild the lower half of the dash! To make them look good would be a fairly huge amount of effort. Admittedly, the results would be close to making it worthwhile, but horns into an impreza definitely is not a small amount of work.

I'll try and get those pics back on-line. My hosts had a bit of a problem, and for some reason they disappeared... Weird.

Have you auditioned the DLS? I'd *really* want to hear 'em before I splashed the cash. There's quite a few high-end setups around now, I'd wander over to TalkAudio.co.uk before spending any money, as there's some good stuff that isn't generally well known that is definitely worth auditioning if you're thinking of that much money.

Hoppy

Adam and Nick,

I really appreciate your time. Thanks.

I've just booked my car in for £1,300 worth of amps, door-deadening, tweeter tweaking etc, which is enough for now, what with a 2.5 lump to fit etc. Then I'll follow your advice as best I can.

Not sure about the horns bit - sound like it might take as long to build as your engine, Adam

I'm not THAT fussy about imaging and respect the inevitable compromises. I find that, so long as the vocals are not coming from over your shoulder or up from your ankle, if they are reasonably central your brain somehow makes it sound okay. I think I can achieve that and be happy.

I'm cynical about auditioning as I don't see how a shop demo can bear any relation to a real life install - hence my request for recommendations. And I've got some of those from you guys, so thanks again

Cheers,

Richard.

Adam M

nick, think you are missing the point, these are not Image dynamics piezo driven horns, these are horn loaded compression drivers and are coaxial with an 8 inch mid bass designed to fit in the doors. they out perform the ID equipment (even the more expensive ones) by miles.

the work involved is in the form of fitting door builds nothing to dow ith placement under the dash.

chiark

Sorry Adam, I misunderstood :red:

Getting an 8" driver into a door would not be too much hassle - a door build like mine would do the job easily, and get them slightly on-axis if that would help?

David_Wallis

And I know someone in leeds who will do custom builds / door cards etc from fibreglass

Hoppy

David, have you got contact details? The price I have been quoted locally for doors/kick panels is frankly ludicrous.

chiark

Richard, it'll be legacyturbs (andi), I've seen his work and it's excellent.

My door builds are made from the original cards retrimmed. I guess andi could glass a whole new bottom half of the door, which would give serious amounts of customisation possible...