Current setup is: old Eaton Diamond Audio 5.25 drivers in the stock door location with LPG silk dome tweets in the stock location. Those are powered by a JL Audio 300/4 off channels 1&2.

Sub is JL Audio 10" Stealthbox powered by a Obam OB1200M cheap *** amp I swapped a Memphis 500D with my son so he could better power his 10W6. The 10" in the stealthbox is a DVC 6 ohm, why they put 6 ohm woofers in those back then I have no idea. I have it wired parallel for 3ohms since the amp is stable down to 2 ohms at 500w.

I just bought some Diamond Audio M56.1 6.5 woofers and the M5X3 xover that will allow me to go 3 way passive with my existing M5 xovers. The 5.25" DATs I have are the predecessors to the M55.1. So I'll bi-amp out of the M5X3 to the JL 300/4. Ch. 1&2 for the midrange & tweets. Ch. 3&4 for the mid bass.

The 5.25s are coming out of the doors and the 6.5s going in their place. I "think" the best place to relocate the 5.25 would be in the kick panels. If so I will design an enclose myself. I can't justify spending $160 or so for flimsy enclosures from QLogic.

Should I relocate my tweet into that same enclosure? I realize you need to keep the tweet and the midrange close. But I've also seen where guys have mounted tweets all alone in the A-Pillers.

Does anyone have a better suggestion for a mounting locations for the 5.25 mid range?

Should I keep the midrange in the door and build enclosures for the 6.5s in the kick panel area? I've read that's not a good idea but I'd like to know why. Where I read that didn't really give a clear reason.

Any help is appreciated.

 

tweets on the A-pillar will help elevate the sound stage and pull it forward slightly, me personally though, I would leave the tweets and mids in stock location and enclose the 6.5's in the kick, I believe i would give you better staging.

 

The midbass is less directional than the mids and tweets. You want the pathlengths as long as possible and as equal as possible left and right to get the best imaging. Putting the midbasses in the kicks does you no good and unless you're cutting into the uarter panels, you're going to be hard pressed to get enough air space for them to act like midbasses. The doors are better suited for that. That leaves the kicks or the dash corners for the mids and tweets. With a passive crossover, I wouldn't split the mids into the kicks and the tweets ups high. High potential for it to sound wrong. Fitting the 5 1/4" mids in the dash would be challenging, though not impossible. That leaves the kicks as the easy route. Mounting the tweeters down there with them will actually provide a higher stage than most would believe.

All that said, the whole point of going with a 3-way system is to get a single driver to play as much of the audio spectrum as possible. A 5 1/4" mid is way bigger than optimal for such a setup. The 5 1/4 will start to beam at higher frequencies and depending on the coil it might roll off sooner on the high end as well. Additionally with a simple add-on midbass, you aren't really gaining anything over simply going with a 6 1/2" 2-way component set.

Look at most good, purpose built, 3-way component sets. They use a 6.5 or 8" midbass, a 2-3" midrange (sometimes a 4" but that's bigger than optimal unless the mid is designed to be a wide range driver) and a 1" tweeter. More importantly look at the crossover frequencies that are used. The midbass is capped around 300hz and the tweeter picks up somewhere around 10kHz or higher only filling in the highest frequencies. The midrange plays all the frequencies in the middle. This means that you avoid frequency division within the main musical frequency range and can avoid driver interaction and integration issues within the bulk of the audio spectrum. That is a good thing.

 

Finally finished my 3 way passive install this weekend. Ended up buying the Qlogic kickpanel enclosures for the 5 1/4s. Put the 6.5s in the door. Imaging improved dramatically. But I'm really impressed with how much the soundstage moved forward and up.

 

Any pics on placement of these speakers