Tweeters or Midrange more important?

[sharma]

Hi,

I have a set of Panasonic component speakers and have installed them into the front doors of my Audi A3. The problem i am having is that one of the tweeters has stopped working completely. I am assuming its blown. As i need a new tweeter i am thinking about getting a set of good quality tweeters and putting them in.

I have a sub and want clear sound. Is it more important to have better quality tweeters the midrange speakers? Or should i buy a whole new component set? (I don't have too much money to spend). I can still buy a good set of tweeters, it just depends on what is more important.

Thanks.

 

[sharma]

The components i have also don't have very good crossovers. There is no crossover box. I am not sure if audi already have crossovers, but the midrange speaker simply uses the standard lead for the audi and the tweeter uses the audi lead and a lead i was supplied with the components (which i am assuming allows only the treble signal to go through. I have set my amp for the crossovers to high pass. However if i put the bass up to even 0 on the head unit, a lot of bass is still going though to the components when the volume is put up causing distortion. Is there anything i can do about this? As if i turn the bass down the bass goes down for the sub. (There are seperate amps).

Is this the job of decent crossovers supplied with most modern components?

 

[dualmono21]

midrange drivers and tweeters are both equally important
they work as a package not individually
the tweeter could actually be working but the crossover have failed
if you can swap the tweeters over and see if it still works then its obviously a faulty tweeter if it doesnt work then the crossover ismost likely at fault or further back in the signal chain are you sure its just one tweeter thats not working ???
if you have allready blown one tweeter then it is unwise to simply buy another set and try to use the old sets crossovers as they will not have been designed for the task and will have completely differant values which could overemphasise certain portions of the sound or completely remove them
there are kits available with there own crossovers but they tend to be quite poor in relation to the cost of a complete set of components
if your prepared to spend a bit i would buy a complete new component set from the likes of rainbow ,hertz or focal all of whom have fantastic kits available for not a lot of money which when installed well will give you hours of pleasure

you mention further on in your post about the inability to turn up the bass without having trouble make sure the midbass/midrange speakers are well mounted on solid wooden baffles if the plastic ones have been used without sound deadening this is more than likely the cause of the problem

 

[sharma]

It is definately the tweeter as i have tried other tweeters in the same place and they work fine.

I understand what your saying about components and am likely to end up replacing them. However for the mean time i think i will have to stay put. Should the bass not be totally cut off by the amplifier when put into high pass filter mode? (No matter what the head unit settings are).

 

[dualmono21]

when you switch on a high pass on an amplifier it effectively cuts the low frequencies at a certain rate (this is known as slope)
the amplifier could have a fixed point for this or it could have a variable point (look on the side of the amp )
if its fixed then there is nothing you can do about this if its variable then you can alter the point at which the lower frequencies start to dissapear
if its variable i would reccomend starting around the 70hz point look on the side of the amplfier and it should have a scale which should indicate to around this point but try a little above or below as sometimes they arent all that accurate

you should then set you subwoofer to low pass and play all the signals which the high pass isnt playing (again the amp could be fixed or a variable slope)ie below 70 hz again have a play with this as it may well want to alter the freuency up or down

if you find the bass isnt in time with the rest of the music then reverse the polarity of the speaker connection on the subwoofer this aleters the phase of the speaker and may well help to integrate things a lot better in the car

 

[AndyMac]

What adapters have you used to install the Panasonic mids?
If you used the plastic ones then this will be partly the cause of distortion as they don't fit properly and thus don't provide a perfect seal to the door card.
You can either make your own from MDF which will also provide a bit of solidity to the flimsy door card, or you may need to use silicone on the plastic adapters to stop the cone flapping in the wind.
Either way you'll never decent punch from the mids as the door card gives nothing solid for the mid woofer to kick against, and the door card itself is not sealed to the door. You'd need to play around with the Xover point and probably need to up it to around 120Hz to avoid cancellation.

 

[dualmono21]

120 hz is way too high for a crossover point for front speakers
to enable you to fill in the gap for the rest of the music you would need to turn up the subwoofer to around this point 120hz
if you did this you would easilly be able to localise the position of the subwoofer anything above 80 hz and you will be able to hear the position of the subwoofer instead of it blending in inobtrousively
the human ear is equally as sensitive to frequency as it is to volume

does your car have a solid inner door skin??
if it does fix the baffles solidly to this i would also suggest 20-30 pounds worth of dynamatt or other sound deadening product to help control rattles
if the car doesnt have a solid inner door skin and mounts similar to the a6 straight to the doorcard then the best thing you can add is thick wooden baffles to the back of the doorcard as this gives the speaker mass and will help with the transfer of bass if you use plastic it doesnt have enough mass to help and innevitably causes rattles
you can also get a tiny rubber adaptor which fits around the speaker and stops the rear wave of the speaker interacting with the front wave
this will also help create a more coherant sound

 

[sharma]

Unfortunately the amp does not have the actualy frequency setting. It only has the switch to change it to low pass, high pass or full.

I am thinking of just getting a new component set. Would the high pass setting have more of an effect with good crossovers? And how would you wire the crossover box? From what i have seen crossover boxes has one speaker input. The audi wiring for the front door has output for a speaker and a tweeter so which would you use? Or would you use both somehow? Also where would be a suitable location for the crossover box to sit (i am pretty sure it is safe anywhere behind the door but correct me if i am wrong).

 

[dualmono21]

in that case use the high pass from the amplifier it will be fixed around the 80hz mark
if however you have settings on your headunit as well then its possble to alter these and let the headunit make any changes neccessary if you leave the settings on the head unit and the amplfier on they in effect multiply themselves so if for instance the amp is set to lowpass at 80hz on a 12db slope and you set your headunit is set to the same in effect you have a crossover 80hz but with a 24db per octave slope
this can be helpfull when tuning the car the higher the slope the quicker the sound dissipates from that point either above or below the crossover point

if you are going to the expense of the a new component set and allready have gone to the expense of an an amplfier the best thing to do would be to run completely new speaker wiring for the components this will give you the best possible re-production
you do not need to spend a lot of money on the cable as long as it is ofc
(oxygen free copper) it will be fine

if you did intend to use the original wiring (i wouldnt reccomend it ) then you will have to ensure you remove or bypass the original audi crossover item
the crossovers can go behind the doorcard but if not slidly mounted then can again rattle ideally you want the crossovers as close to the actual components as possible that way you are only running one set of speaker cable down the car to both mid and tweet driver
it is possible to mount the crossovers in the boot but then you will have to run two sets of cables one each for mid and tweet

 

[sharma]

The guy at the audio shop told me to use the wire going to the mids and leave the tweeter wire???

 

[dualmono21]

as said you can use the orignal wireing if you wish but if there is an audi crossover you must make sure its either bypassed or removed
so you could if you wanted put the new crossover inline before the audi one and then take your the outputs from the new crossover to both midrange and tweet

 

[AndyMac]

The Audi tweeter wire has just a capacitor in series with the tweeter to filter high pass, so don't use this with uprated tweeters as the Xover frequency will/could be different. Run a new cable to the new tweeters which will either run off a proper crossover or have their own filter as part of the wiring.

Nothing fitted to the standard door cards of an A3 can reproduce anything below 120Hz without distortion, so you either filter it or live with it. There is absolutely no room behind the panels for any of the suggestions already made, the best you can do is make your own MDF adapters, and make them as big as possible (which isn't very big) to give the speaker some chance. The rears will fill in between 80-120Hz. It's not ideal, but these are the limitations we're dealing with in an A3.

 

[sharma]

So am i fine in using the cable running to the mids and putting that into the crossover and then running a cable out of the crossover for the tweeter and a cable out of the crossover for the mid? Thats all i need to know. I kind of understand what your saying andymac, but i don't know if your saying the way i am thinking of doing it is fine? I dont really want to start running a wire off the amp from the back to the front speakers as i have already got a wire running from the amp to the back of the head unit where the speaker wire has been taken off the head unit and connected.

 

[AndyMac]

Yes & yes. Ideally you'd run new cable all the way, but with all the other limitations in the system using the Audi wiring between the loom at the HU and the front doors is fine.

 

[dualmono21]

Nothing fitted to the standard door cards of an A3 can reproduce anything below 120Hz without distortion,

sorry andy but thats nowhere near accurate
there are numerous competition cars based on the a3 in this country which are capable of way less than 120 hz some are running with dedicated midbass speakers which are going down to 50hz
all it takes is a little sound deadening and a little imagination of where to add mass to the doorcard granted the a3 hasnt got the greatest doors but its still easilly capable of 80hz

 

[sharma]

So just a quick question, if i did'nt have an amp and was using the head unit to power the new set of components, i would then stick to audi wiring. In this case i am sure i would also have to leave the tweeter wire and just use the wire going to the mids for the crossover would i not?

 

[AndyMac]

No you'd still rewire the tweeters. The new tweeters will already be wired, so you just disconnect the stock tweeter & wiring, take the existing Audi speaker cable coming into the door and connect it to the Xover input then connect the new tweeter wire and new mid woofer to the appropriate output on the Xover.
As for competition cars, what relevance is this?
Any decent competition car will be running custom door builds, so no relevance unless you're looking at a heavy investment on the doorcards.

 

[dualmono21]

the relevance is your making sweeping statements saying its impossible to get bass from the front doors of an audi a3 when its clearly is
perhaps saying its more difficult to get good bass would have been a better statement

one of the cars has custom made doorcards simply because hes using 8" woofers in the front the other two are completely standard looking from the outside

 

[AndyMac]

I specifically said "nothing fitted to the standard door cards" i.e. the clue is in the word standard.
Anything is possible if you want to throw a few hundred quid at it and rebuild the inside of the door, or replace the lower half of the doorcard with MDF and get it professionally retrimmed, but I don't really think this solution is in most people's budget. Think that was pretty obvious to most people.

 

[sharma]

Isn't the exsisting wiring comming though the door not simply the wire thats connected to the midrange speaker? I know what you mean about using the exsisting wire and then the cross over will split it up however what i am asking is what i do with the exsisting wire which goes to the tweeter?

As far as i know Audi do not use a cross over for the speakers so if the wire going to the midrange speaker is used and fed into the crossover whats the problem?

 

[dualmono21]

andy im talking about £30 quids worth of soundproofing material in kit form which not only stops vibration but also protects your speakers from moisture
im not talking about re-placing the bottom half of the door card
or indeed building new doorcards or pods
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RE-FABRICATE THE AUDI A3 DOORCARD
to get a decent amount of both level and frequency response

just because you cannot do it do not assume others cannot

 

[AndyMac]

Oh I guess you're talking about the special Magic version of Dynamat that can transform a flimsy hardboard door card loosely hooked onto a steel door skin into a robust, solid baffle perfectly sealed to the door.
In that case you're absolutely right, what was I thinking?

Sharma, as I said earlier:
"The Audi tweeter wire has just a capacitor in series with the tweeter to filter high pass, so don't use this with uprated tweeters as the Xover frequency will/could be different."
The capacitor is buried in the cable that runs from the mid woofer to the tweeter, so you just need to run the new tweeter cable to the Xover hi pass connection, then use the existing Audi cable currently going to the mid woofer to feed the Xover. Then new cable from the lo pass output of the Xover to the new mid woofer.

 

[sharma]

Thats what they told me at the audio shop. Thanks andymac just wanted to confirm.