Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 06:47 pm, by: Andy Duncan(Spaceace)
hey all can anyone give me a bit of a rundown or have any pics handy of whats involved in installing 6.5" fronts? Is the factory speaker cabling of sufficient quality or is it recommended to run new stuff? cheers
Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 11:07 pm, by: James Harris(Haro)
oh and ive seen pics floating around on this site so have a bit of a look through some threads *use the search function* and im sure you will get a better idea on what is what.
Andrew Stewart TryHard Queensland Manual GT-T VVT-i Single Turbo
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 05:54 am, by: Andrew Stewart(Daboom)
If your interested, I have an 8" dual voice coil Polk audio DB series sub. Can be used in free air applications. If you want it, it would be $150 plus about $25 for postage.
If you want an awesome set of splits, focal make a Kevlar 4" split. I think they are about 449, but so clear and would sound great in the factory ported box. In my car I have the focal K2R highend 6.5" Kevlar splits. They are awesome speakers but I need to get some dynamat for the doors because of the rattles. I originally had a similar setup and really did sound great, but it all depends on whatusic you like.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 12:53 pm, by: David Duffell(Duffsta)
Do not buy the spacers from ebay as they are too thick and you can not get the door skins back on over the tops of them without cutting a lot of it out and having the bottom of the speaker visible.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 05:29 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
wow those focal splits certainly are pricey!!! i'm going to have a look at jaycars 4inch kevlar splits tomorrow. if i purchase and install i shall let peeps know how they go. i'm told as with most things electronic the components to make these things all come from the same factories. i shall questions the jaycar nerds more about it.
Michael Marchant TryHard Victoria Soarer UZZ32 V8 finished in Zymol goodness!
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 05:35 pm, by: Michael Marchant(Mavric)
I can assure you the Focal speakers are NOT made in the same factory as the jaycar ones. There is a world of difference between the two but as always there is a large price difference also.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 05:51 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
what are the specs on the focal ones? voice coil windings and the materials used in construction. also wrms rating and resistance? and the material used for the magnet itself? basket design and cone material is all pretty trivial,
the speakers may be assembled in a different factory but the components would have come from the same place as every other brands components... unless focal wind their own coils and manufacture their own resistors, capacitors etc.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 05:53 pm, by: Andrew Duaso(Andrewd)
sound like wine is in the eye of the beholder, what sounds good to me is crap to others...
although this does not cover •••• products
just listen to them all and select what you like
forget brands, no one's going to see you front splits, so get the ones YOU think sound the best to YOU...
i've had jaycar splits before and thrashed the hell out of that system, it sounded reasonable but the tweeters were a bit harsh, a little fine tuning of the xovers headunit and position of the tweeters had them sounding much better
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 06:14 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
which tweeters did you have? the nerds at jaycar told me to stay away from their ribbon tweeters as they do sound harsh when cranked. good thing they give you an option of what tweeter you want with your splits
i'm hearing you on that one andrew. ive had people brag about their super expensive brand name gear only to be shown up by a system (jaycar) that was less than a a third of the price. one of the jaycar nerds designed a box that had two 6.5 inch drivers facing each other in a small box that got as low as 17hz!!!! couldnt hear a thing but the meter was going nuts!! could definitely feel the bass tho!! all from two 6.5 inch drivers and a 4x100W digital amp running at 2 ohm.
same applies to my turntables. everyone rants and raves on about technics 1200's (industry standard) $1200 each but to me they are crap. standard max torque of about 4.5kg on the platter. i have found out that all components are made in the same factory. only numark take the motors from the assembly line and modify it themselves before putting it in their turntables. and they are cheaper!!! $599 tt500's (which i have) and they have more torque! 5kg on the platter. audio quality wise. there is no difference, as all turntables run off the needle and have 4 wires direct to rca's, so people who try to justify technics by talking about sound quality are going nowhere as its all down to the needle choice.
being a dj in my sparetime. i am always after the best sound quality.. dont really care for price as such but i will definitely always endevour to test out cheaper stuff to high end stuff, and in my experience.. the cheaper stuff has always won. (as long as its not cheap and nasty) its all about build quality and layout design for the components that determine sound quality, not price, branding or even the max ratings people get duped into reading on the outside of the packaging. NEVER! believe the power ratings the boxes give you! jaycar tho are straight and blunt with their power ratings. laways have the RMS as well as the max on their gear. plus efficiency at certain temps etc.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 06:52 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
i have just pulled the 4 inch out of the soarer box. and im kinda disappointed to find that there is no crossover for the tweeter at all. so the atandard tweeter is actually being driven at full range...
tomorrow i shall get the 4 inch drivers from jaycar. with crossovers and keep the stock tweeters and see how that goes
Andrew Stewart TryHard Queensland Manual GT-T VVT-i Single Turbo
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 09:03 pm, by: Andrew Stewart(Daboom)
If you want to gave a look at the focal specs have a look at Www.focalaustralia.com.au and have a look at the kr power page. All of focal's highend Kevlar and polyglass speakers are made in France. Everything is assembled in house, and the Kevlar speakers are hand assembled. Obviously the GFC has inflated the price to $615. But if you are really after sound quality they are so good. However you will need to get a better amp other than the jaycar 4x100. I have one of those and the speakers are so sensitive they can pick up th imperfections in The amplifier signal. I live mine especially for accustic guitar just are really clear.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 11:56 pm, by: Michael Marchant(Mavric)
Focal do wind their own voice coils and hand pick their resistors, capacitors and other parts.
I guess I should have explained how I know this. I have been to the Focal factory in France and seen many of their driver and tweeters (including the Be range) being manufactured first hand. I have met the man behind the brand, Mr "JM" himself Jacques Mahal and have known the Focal chief designer for many years.
Basket design and cone material are far from trivial but I digress, as Andrew said, go and LISTEN to a heap of different speakers and let your ears make the decision, thats the only way you will be able to work toward a satisfactory outcome.
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 01:06 am, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
sweet! i shall definitely be having a look at their stuff knowing that mate.
what was their factory like? with cone materials. i know stiffer is better. but to what degree? and with basket design, what i know about it is that its mainly for circulating the air around the voice coil to keep it cool. what are other merits of good basket design?
Andrew Stewart TryHard Queensland Manual GT-T VVT-i Single Turbo
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 06:06 am, by: Andrew Stewart(Daboom)
To put it in Perspective, the only eq I have on my stereo is 50hz+6db, and 125hz+4db. The splits are on a high pass 100hz 18db\octave slope and the sub is on a 100hz low pass flat curve. It sounds perfect. Don't get me wrong, jaycar speakers are good. But it comes down the age old saying "you get what you pay for" sure focal charge $615 for the 4" splits and $725 for 165kr splits (the ones I have) and at first you think, why should I spend that much, but when you start listening to your music you will enjoy listening to your music, and discovering parts in the music that other speakers can't reproduce. Focal have spent many years researching everything from basket design, to cone materials and cone types(phase plug drivers and standard cone types). All I can say is you WONT!!! be disapointed in the quality of the focal speakers. But as I said, you will need to upgrade your amp as the speakers can reproduce everything in their frequency range, and higher, thus if your amp cannot reproduce a clean signal to the speakers you will notice imperfections in your music. To give you an idea, I swapped the focal's from my jaycar 4x100 to my alpine 2x50 and I am getting better sound from that.
What I did find is the jaycar cannot cleanly reproduce sub 150hz frequencies cleanly to splits and the like.
Anyway that's enough of my yabbering on. As Michael and I have said, go and listen to them and let your ears do the judging.
Michael Marchant TryHard Victoria Soarer UZZ32 V8 finished in Zymol goodness!
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 04:25 pm, by: Michael Marchant(Mavric)
There factory is pretty awesome, quite a bit larger than I was expecting too. Seeing the Be tweeters being made is cool, although you cant get too close as the fumes that the process (of working with Beryllium) produces is quite toxic, so all the workers have to wear a fair amount of protective clothing/equipment. They have a killer listening room too as you would expect with their Grande Utopia Be speakers taking centre stage. The amplifiers and digital source gear they use we actually distribute in Australia, top shelf kit. Jacques Mahal's car collection is impressive too, I loved his Maserati ;)
Anyway, cone material yes stiffer is better but it is also important for it to be well damped. The lighter the better also but to get all three qualities in one cone is nigh on impossible. There are tons of different materials and composites they use as cone materials and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I am far from an expert on the subject, if you want to read up more about it then you can check out these sites
Back to the original topic, fitting 6.5" speakers in is dead easy. The factory 4" drivers are mounted in a sealed enclosure which you can easily enough take out and make your own mounting baffle for 6.5" drivers and still use the factory mounting locations to secure it to the door. Infact there is that much room available I was toying with the idea of running 8" drivers but decided against it as I didnt want to run a dedicated midrange or cross my tweeter over any lower than 2Khz (which would have been required with an 8" midbass. You can see pictures of what I am talking about at http://picasaweb.google.com/mavric23/MidbassInstall
Andrew Stewart TryHard Queensland Manual GT-T VVT-i Single Turbo
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 05:50 pm, by: Andrew Stewart(Daboom)
Michael, are those the 3way access component system? if they are, how do they sound. i was toying with the idea of going 3 way, but have now decided to have a go with an 8" woofer on the back shelf in a bandpass frequency curve, so the system should now be, 12" eclipse aluminium sub in 85cm ported tube enclosure on a 100Hz low pass, the 8" woofer free air on the back shelf at a frequency from 100Hz to 200hz and the front Focal 165Kr speakers on a 100Hz high pass filter should sound good, just experimenting with the idea.
Michael Marchant TryHard Victoria Soarer UZZ32 V8 finished in Zymol goodness!
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 07:24 pm, by: Michael Marchant(Mavric)
No mate, they are the SEAS Lotus Reference RW165/1 midbass drivers which are part of the splits set that I am running. I am actually the distributor for them I also have a 10" SEAS sub in the boot. http://www.seaslotus.com.au/
Your Focal 165Kr will go sub 100Hz with ease, I think the 8" driver may cause more headaches than its worth. Putting it in the rear may also cause the soundstage to be shifted back in the car which is not good. If you want really strong lower midbass performance then I would recommend going the 8" in the doors and running a 3" or 4" dedicated midrange and the tweet. Your biggest issue with that would be finding room for the midrange, you might have to consider custom kicks to house them.
Friday, September 18, 2009 - 01:49 pm, by: Nathan Sheehan(Soarermad1)
walter, your sure that they would be driven at full range? maybe there was a passive crossover on the 4 inch basket? would seem weird to put a full signal into a tweeter that just wont use it.
Friday, September 18, 2009 - 05:27 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
stock ones have no crossover in the basket where the terminales for the wires go. its just straight from speaker wires to 4 inch terminals. those terminals are soldered to another set of terminals which go to the tweeter.
jaycar units have the same thing. but the wires for the tweeter goes into the center of the magnet where there is a 6db crossover
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