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Speaker upgrade
I am not replacing my Sirius equipped factory head unit but I am upgrading the speakers. I have replaced the door 6x9s with upgraded 6x9s from Boss Audio and the tweeters with a better quality silk dome tweeter and am pleased with the sound but it could be a bit better. I am using my own 1st Butterworth crossovers at 7500 hertz. I chose this point in an effort to not split vocals at the incorrect point. The male vocals sound great but occasionally the female vocals lose a bit because of the crossover point. I am thinking about adding a 2.25” to 3.5” mid-range but I can’t come up with a good location. A Memphis Audio 2.25 might fit high in the A-pillar but it would be oriented towards the windshield which might create some sound reproduction issues and I would prefer a 3.5”. I will rework the crossovers once I decide what size mid-range to install. Any ideas on where to place a 3.5” in a regular cab. |
I spent some time looking at speakers and talked with my favorite supplier and I now have my 3-way speaker set up figured out and ordered for my 2017 RCSB. In my original posting I list the present 2 way components and the crossover. I will be adding a 3" balanced mode radiator (flat cone) which will give great dispersion and imaging according to Scott. The crossover from mid to high will remain at 7500hz and the low to mid will be 937.5hz. To give you a better idea on the crossovers they will be a 1st order which just means you block the highs to the woofer and mid with an inductor. and use a capacitor to allow just the highs through on the mid and tweeter. A male voice tops at about 900 hz and a female around 1100. The highs in a female voice should then image over the mids which should help me with the occasional weakness in some female vocals. The speaker is a Tectonic Elements 3" which has a flat & neutral response from 200 to 20,000hz. In my application they will run in the 940 to 7500 range. It should sound great even with the stock head unit but time will tell. The flange is supposedly only 1/4" thick and there is 5/16" to 3/8" clearance between the glove box when opening and the the door panel. This allows the easiest of mounts, surface. I will glue some speaker cloth to the flange and the install should look great or I might leave them exposed. Time will tell. I will be putting the new speakers and crossover network in this week or weekend and will be headed to MN from East TN on the 5th of July. I will have a complete update on the sound when I get back. Nothing like a long haul to tell you if what you did works.
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It is done and I am happy. Other than getting the right mid about 3/8" forward of where it should have been the project was a success. The 3" Techtonic Elements balanced mode radiators fit and sound great. The mids are surface mounted just above the door grill and just forward of the door lock switch. The response on the TEs is amazing. They are so efficient that I am running the mid adjustment on the EQ at -3, the treble at +1 and the bass at +2. This is the largest speaker you can get in the door panel and have it clear everything but I never expected a 3" to sound this good. I will post pictures when I get a chance.
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I got a chance to take pictures of the mid-range speaker installation this afternoon. You can see my placement mistake in the right door closed photo. I can not hear any problems with the sound so I will source a wrecking yard door panel at a later date to rectify the appearance issue. The 90 degree fitting off the right dash vent connects to a 1.75" flex duct that runs above the passenger door through the slider in to the shell to keep my Lab cool during the hot and muggy East Tennessee summers.
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Well, 1320 miles in 22 hours of actual drive time over 2 days and the verdict is in. I had to throw out all of my previous eq set up ideas and start over. For the first day I could not get rid of a tinny female vocal sound. The bass was good but female vocals tended to be a bit squeaky. Ended up with the highs down 1, the mid down 2 and the bass up 2 and the sound is phenomenal. All my other car installs required all eq settings to be on the plus side. This is the first that liked a minus set up on the mids and highs. It now has a full, rich sound with good clarity on the highs. If I had more eq settings I could get myself in all kinds of trouble. I am still chasing my desk speakers and I only have a 9 band eq on them. |
Why is there a 90 deg. elbow glued to your dash?
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It is not glued to the dash. Those are 2 phone mount bases that snap into the grooves between the vent and dash that have a block off plate glued to the back of them with the elbow attached to the Rube Goldberg. There is 1.5 or 1.75” heater duct routed over the passenger door, through the slider into the shell. This allows cool air on to my Lab’s crate when she travels with me or is left in the truck while I run short errands. My remote start allows me to start the truck, walk away and keep the dog cool. It gets real hot in East Tennessee this time of year. It also allows me to get heat back there if we have to travel to Minnesota to see my 93 YO Mom when it gets cold out. |
plate not place. Damn autocorrect. |
Oh, neat! Great idea. Just looked funky and was like, huh? That seems out of place. Now it all makes sense. :)
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The nice part about it is the duct is routed using bolt mounted reusable tie straps. I can unclip the vent cover, release the tie straps and remove the duct in about 2 minutes. The reusable tie straps are bolted to the headliner but that is the price you pay for some modifications. And at 65 there is a very good chance that this is my last vehicle. I have a tendency to drive my vehicles for 12 years or so and at 77 I will be thinking about hanging up the keys and use a golf cart to get around. |
This weekend I am finishing up my stereo when I take the right seat out to finish the seat heater install. I am installing a Boss Audio 8” powered compact sub and when I pull the center stack out to install the seat heater switch I will be installing a plug n play 180 rms watt amp and harness with sub converter from Plug N Play out of Connecticut. The sub is probably over powered but I can always run it at low volume/gain. The actual amp install with switch should take about 10 minutes but the compact sub will take sometime as I need to build and paint a metal mount to go under the seat bolts. This should be the end of mods to this truck. |
Well, now it is finally complete. I had to add two more speakers to get rid of a hole between 320hZ and about 450 hZ. This hole made female vocals a bit sharp. The final install is factory head unit, 2 channels, into an Audio Controls LCQ1, out to a Pioneer GM-1004 to run the doors and a-pillar, out to a 100W compact amp to run 4.5” woofers at the top of the b-pillar lower trim and the third output running the Blaupunkt 80W powered compact sub-woofer. The doors/a-pillar 3 way is crossed at 975 and 7800 hZ with 80 hZ and below blocked. The sub is fed 20 to 125hZ with the b-pillar speakers blocked and capped to run between 200 and 1200 hZ. All crossovers are passive. The LCQ1 was then tweaked to provide a curve close to the ICSCA judging curve while the RMS curve and maximum level curves are as close to mirroring each other as possible. It sounds great and it is probably as accurate a reproduction of music as I am going to get out of a regular cab. |
Last post on the stereo. I tweaked the sound curve a bit 2 weeks ago and I think I finally have it right. I just did 1400 miles in two days from East Tennessee to East Grand Forks, MN. On that blast I did not feel the need to tweak any of the current EQ settings. I think I finally got it right with the correct power levels out of the LCQ1 to the amps and sub. The base line in some of Arianna Grande stuff is a lot heavier than I thought it would be and everything from Stevie Nicks to the Stones and back to Adel and Dua Lipa sounds spot on. I can finally quit playing with music reproduction in this damn regular cab. |
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https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...86c396db1.jpeg Update to the system since 1/21/19. Added another pair of Techtonic 3” BMRs to the doors and an additional .5” silk dome tweeter to the A-pillar about 3” above the stock located upgraded 1” silk dome tweeter. I also got rid of the 6x9s and install a high quality 6.5” pair of Dayton Audios. The crossovers for the front array are 70 to 975 for the 6.5s, 975-4800 for the rearward 3”, 4800-7800 for the forward 3”, 7800-12000 for the 1” stock location tweeter and 12000 on out for the .5” silk tweeter. With the addition of a Kicker 03EQ30 I have so much adjustability with the 30 channels of the Kicker and the additional adjustability of the LCQ1 that I have hit the SPL curve I have been chasing since this project started. The sound is phenomenal and the industrial (no grill look) is my preferred. See the attachments for the target curves and the look. I will post the finished curve and an A-pillar photo tomorrow if I can get a chance to screenshot it. My wife is making me take the dog swimming in the morning and then I think I will spend the rest of the day fishing. |
Very interesting.
I'd love to hear how it sounds. |
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