Dash speaker positioning
 

I've been debating this for a long time now and although amazed at the DLS Audi A4 @ the 2005 CES show, I'm not sure if I want to go that route. For those of you who don't remember, never saw pictures, or never went... basically a tweeter and a midrange were mounted in seperate spheres mounted by the a-pillar on an adjustable arm. These spheres were cnc cut aluminum. I have a pic, but it's going to take a while to dig them up.

I've drawn up some parts on Solidworks to get prototyped and before I go ahead with it, I would like everyone's opinion on this. I currently have a design similar to the DLS one - tweeter pod + midrange pod. What I'm thinking about now is making only one sphere and mounting the tweet directly infront in a coax style. My guess is this would ease imaging and minimize time alignment fine tuning.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Makes sense to me... mids aren't as directional as the highs. The interference of the tweeter directly in front is less 'trouble' than trying to resolve the imaging and timing concerns... the real reason why coax speakers are so popular, it wasn't just a marketing gimmick to make them look cool...

^^a good set of co-axials are hard to beat without a lot of tuning!!

I dont trust coaxials, how can you? The xover cant be of very good quality and since you cant bypass it and switch to active they arent very flexible.

Eddie,
i just don't get you!
you;re out of it for so long, but you come back with plans above and beyond the excentric!!
I think you should stop self-medicating!!

eitherway, as far as coaxials are concerned, i've heard some pretty harsh stuff about tweeters mounted in front of mids (this being from a IASCA judge who happened to be a musician with access to pro-recording equipment who would record live material and play it back through his car system and listen/measure the differences. So there was scientific qualification for this result) . To clarify, i mean the typical Sony/pionner/kenwood type with the tweeter protruding from the mid’s cone. The tweeter will greatly affect the dispersion characteristics of the mid and its sound quality also. Keep in mind that I do love the occasional coaxial speaker and if I could afford it, I would purchase something like the Thiele coaxial, where the tweeter is BUILT INTO the center of the mid and shares the mid’s cone… its bad ass and would be perfect for what you want to do… I suggest everyone take a look into it to see what a real coaxial should be like.
Simply put, a tweeter in front of a mid will detrimentally affect the mid’s output, and with the mid being the single most important speaker in your system, I say you give it better treatment…
Eddie, if you must do the dash, i suggest against the coaxial idea... btw, what tweeter and mid?

Unless we're talking high-end stuff, all typical automotive coax speakers don't have crossovers...

Go find one... have a close look... they wire up a 4ohm tweeter and a 4ohm woofer... and add an 8-ohm resistor to keep the total at 4ohm. That's not a crossover you see wired in on that coax speaker...

That's why you can't trust 'em, it doesn't take much to kill those tweeters... and once the tweeter is dead the woofer will sound like crap too until you cut the dead tweeter out of the circuit...

i have never heard a car with dash mounted mid/tweet that sounded decent and imaged properly from both seats.

If you only care about one seat, then have at it.

huh, I always thought the tweeter had some sort of protection from lower frequencys, unless the resistor also acts as some sort of filter. I have no clue.

Interesting none the less.

I'm just talking about your average store-bought consumer product... generalizing... there is nothing sparing you from tweeter damage... maybe once you start getting into the price range in excess of $100/pair... but even when you pay more, you can't just assume they're there.

Your typical $50 coax set... has no filters, no crossover... The woofer can survive some clipping... but the tweeters sure won't. This has just been my experience why everyone believes and rightly so... that speakers of this variety are junk... not a matter of if they'll fail, but when...

The tweet should have a cap soldered in line(mind you its only 6bd per octave) its still there!