cooldude117

Well, I spent some time working on my truck the past couple days, and now I have a subwoofer installed. :-) We built an amp rack behind the rear seat that holds my 500/1 and has room for lots of other toys too. I'm pretty much set on what I want for the rest of the system, I just need to figure out a brand/model for the drivers. I am going to go with a 3 way component system in the front and keep the factory speakers powered off of the deck for rear fill. That will mostly be for the benefit of rear passengers, as when I am alone I will be moving the fader well forward. I'm going to be looking for a set of 3 ways in the 150W RMS range because the amplifier I am searching for is a JL Audio 300/2 black slash series amp (circa 2006 ish). The reasoning for this is so that it will match the 500/1 that I already have. Any specific suggestions on which speakers would be greatly appreciated, as well as if you know where I can listen to them in Edmonton.

Thanks in advance, and I'll get some pics up real soon.

cooldude117

I promised it'd be soon

Here's the amp rack test fitting behind where the rear seats would be


This is the final shape ready to be painted.


Here it is all installed. My plan is to eventually cover the entire piece with carpet or vinyl (depends if I'm going to upgrade to leather seats or not). I have measured out enough room to the left of the 500/1 that's there to add a 300/2 for front speakers, and then I have the right side free to mount xovers or whatever else I'll end up needing mounting space for.


Is it more of a hassle to mount xovers that far away from the speakers? (speakers will be in front doors, amp rack is behind rear seats on a quad cab) or should I try to find a place closer to the front for them (behind kick or dash panels).

wasted911

iTrader: (2)

You wont find a new 300/2 that's black unless a shop still has one kicking around as the last two from the canadian distributor just got shipped to yours truly.

cooldude117

:P lol you suck, just kidding. I am trying to see if anyone has one second hand that wants to get rid of it. What did you pay brand new for one?

wasted911

iTrader: (2)

I work at a shop (can not name names), but the two I got were for a customer.

Dukk

I personally like to use 4ch amps for the highs. For instance if you can get a 75x4 for the same money as a 150x2 then you have the flexibility to run either double bridged through passives or 75x2 to the midbass and 75x2 to the mid/tweet passive.

cooldude117

I was actually just looking and reading about doing that. Maybe I'll try to get my hands on a black 300/4 or 450/4 and set up a front stage with that. The imprint module available for my headunit will allow me to take the front and rear channels and turn them into a mid/high front stage setup. Hmmmmm. So many options to choose from.

BigRedGuy

iTrader: (11)

From the Department of Overkill....

Go for the 450/4 and the 300/4.....

Use the 450/4 fronts (75X2) for the tweeters, the rears (150X2) for the mid-bass drivers and the 300/4 fronts (75X2) for the midranges.

Leaves you with the rears on the 300/4 for the rear speakers, which your passengers will really appreciate......

The tuning possibilities are a dream or a nightmare depending on how you look at it.....

HTH

cooldude117

So I'm getting the PXA-H100 imprint module for my head unit and I'm going to use that to run a "3 way" system. Does anyone have much experience setting up this kind of system? From what I've read I think this is how it's supposed to end up:

Setting switch to 3 way on imprint box sets outputs as follows:
Front = Mid Range output (Bandpass filter)
Rear = High Range output (High pass filter)
Sub = Low Range output (Low pass filter)

Sub output will go to 500/1 hooked up to 13TW5 (as it's currently installed)
Front and Rear will go to "Front" and "Rear" channels on a 4 channel amp.

Here's where I am a little foggy, The setup I am thinking of for the front will consist of 6.5"-8" speaker installed in front doors, 3.5"-4" speaker installed in dashboard, and small (.75"-1") tweeter installed into A-pillar or Sail panel on door. If I find a 3 way component set that has all of the correct sizes of speakers will I then not use the provided crossover network included with the component system and let the Imprint do all of that work? And If I do that, I only will have enough outputs for 4 speakers, yet I'll have 6 speakers. I would love to run what BigRedGuy is suggesting, but I don't really have the room in my budget to be running another amp. Will I have to find a passive crossover to run the tweeters, or will the 3 way crossovers that come with component sets run fine without the mid plugged in. I've also seen "bi-amped" crossovers, will running a set of passive crossovers bi-amped defeat the purpose of the Imprint tuning?

I'm not having a problem comprehending the mid range output, it's fitting in the dash speakers with the tweeters. Would it be better for me to try and find a 4" component set to run off of the high range output? If so, where should I be looking for such a unit, the only ones I've seen are made by MTX, and I'm not really sure what they'd be like. I've had MTX speakers in the past without much success (speakers fell apart from poor build quality).

I hope my ramblings don't put you to sleep, but I'd really like to get things sorted out and need some direction from those with a bit more experience than me. I used to think I knew sooo much about car stereos, until I started dabbling in the world of components and active setups. It seems like the more I read, the less sure I am of what I know.

Anyways, thanks for the help.

RomanticMoments

Here's a diagram of how I would set up your system:



Instead of using the rear channel for the rear speakers, you can use them for your front stage and either cut out the rears altogether (again, what I would do) or run them off deck power. I personally think the rear speaks aren't going to keep pace with the rest of your system, anyway. I've never tried it, but I will speculate and say that using Imprint will render the deck's internal amp useless. I believe all audio processing goes completely through the Imprint module and bypasses the deck completely. Now if it did work, I think you'll find the rears color the sound too much and don't sound right with the rest of the system. Running a 3 way up front will generally remove peaks and valleys in the set's response, as you are focusing the frequencies your sending to the each driver on what each does well. Ponder this, if you will, you will be running 13 or so rms watts to the rear factory speakers in full range mode vs 50-75wrms to a 3 way set. Rears=Low power, low quality speaker (the problem you're trying to get away from), and using all of the frequency range vs specific freqs the driver does well. On top of all that, you're pulling your sound stage to the rear. The ONLY thing rear speakers are going to do well is add SPL due to the added cone area. Loosely think of it this way: The cone area and thus SPL you lose from removing the rears gets taken up by the extra drivers in the 3 way set. My verdict? Run the JBL MS-8 in the picture (IMO the JBL has superior tuning power than the Alpine), a 3 way set up front, no rears, and your sub.