Need advice
 

Ok heres the deal....

i have a set of focal utopia 5 1/4 speakers powered by an alpine pdx 2.150....2x 150 rms fed by an alpine dva 9861... i am in the process of buying the alpine h701 processor (or something like that). I find that the midbass of the system is lacking, i was thinking about getting dedicated mids or possibly an 6 or 8 inch woofer for the door, and running another 2.150 or getting a pdx 4.150 to run the focals and the new mids / woofer......

what should i do or do you think the new eq may solve the problem

If the focals are in a small amount of air space finding a way to give them more, or changing out speakers to a set with a more compliant suspension could help

you can also eq the speakers and feed them more power, or mass load the cones.......

failing those options adding seperate midbass speakers and raising the xover freq of your focals should also do the job.....

there is tons of room behind the focals for them to work, i think im ore concerned with overdriving the focals, i really want to bring the stage up front.
i forgot to mention i have a type x 12 powered by a mrd m1001 ina 2 cuft slot vent box.....

what is mass loading the drivers?

the speakers sound gorgeous thats why i dont want to replace them, i jsut want the bass to be more present, i dont want to damage the 5 1/4 by overdriving them to make the bass match the woofer.

well it sounds like seperate midbass is the only way to go....

how do you know the speakers have lots of air space to work in ? (how much space are we talking here ?)

fyi mass loading involves adding weight to the woofers cone to lower its frequency extension.....

the doors on the civic are very deep like 5 to 6.5 inches and are hollow, i could easily fit a small 8 in the doors and clear the magnet, but id have to cut metal to clear the basket, i have no idea how to mass load the woofer so thats a no go, i guess the next thing to do is start listing dedicated midbasses as i find them, i have found diamond audio hex s6.0mx3 and memphis m class midbasses which one of the two so far would be the better choice money is not a problem as long as its not going to be more than a grand

raising your sub xover freq. to overlap the front xover point CAN move your bass so that it sounds like it's coming from your windshield .

Focal does make a good add on midbass driver that you can either power off of the existing amp or add a second amp (ideally). Morel also makes some stellar midbass drivers that should work in this application, I would be inclined to take a closer look at them in this application.

I was going to suggest the Focal midbass woofer as well,..awesome drivers!

what is everyones opinion of the diamond audio hex series midbass drivers? im curious cause they "seem" to have a good reputation and can handle a crapload of power, i was wondering if they would blend in well with the focals or if there would be a distinguishable difference between the two speakers.

I have the Diamond Audio mid-bass. They do handle a lot of power (125 - 150 RMS) and they sound very nice to me. Nice rich sound. I prefer to cross them over a bit lower than the setting of the crossovers that came with the set. I am thinking of selling them though as the mathcing mids are now in the other vehicle - let me know if you are interested. They are in perfect condition.