Perfect Midbass - an unusual approach

run your mids from ab 60-180 instead of what you listed... Much harder to do doors, you better be good with glassing and make sure you have enough volume plus solid enclosure to door sheetmetal mount. Unless you run 18in subs, 12in mids would be too overhelming.

 

you might look into using large "musical instrument" woofers. They offer a great big frequency range, and usually have good sound dispursion, and it would be easy to use crossovers to get rid of the unwanted frequencies. Plus, the musical woofers are usually very power effecient and can be had for cheap

Your doors are going to have to be very sturdy (obviously) and you might incorporate an agressive angle into your panel design, since (if my memory serves correct) a renault clio door ends about mid upper arm and begins the window, but you want the sound to hit the ears, and not the elbows, right?

I wonder if anyone has ever fooled around with using linear transducers in car audio yet? - I think that would be impressive!

 

whoops! just saw the link.. guess that is a musical instrument woofer..huh?

Hautewheeler strikes again

I'd say stay with 8's or tens, definitely.. 12 would be pushin it, and you'd probably end up replacing lotsa windows. I'm actually in the process of getting an off -the -wall 8" component set together for my truck, and I have the same concern with the doors of the f150 being made of such flimsy sheetmetal.

 

Just a few suggestions here.........


I have done many systmes with KILLER midbass performance, and in my opinion, that is harder to do than just about anything else in the mobile enviorment.

Reason being is due to the frequency and the wavelength in the car, then to add onto the issue they are generally in the doors firing into each other, not good for the most part.

If at all possible, when you build your new door panels, be sure to angle them on axis towards each front seat as much as possible.

Also run them at a lower fequncy like was stated above, But here is the ral issue, when the sub bass and midbass overlap in fferquencies, that is when **** really gets funky and hard to make sound good....phase cancellation.....


Use steep roll-offs and stager the frequencies somewhat, experimintation is the key, you WONT get it rightthe first time!


Another thing you might consider, put the nidbass drivers in the floor, just in front of the seats, in a fibreglass enclosre cut into/mounted to the floor. Have done a few smaller vehicles this way and gotten excellent results.


I could go on and on about this, but just wanted to state a few things I have learned over the years

 

^ very good points. aiming in particular as the frequencies mid drivers will be playing are the most directional by nature

 

aiming drivers toward a single center point of the front stage works better actually... Also, keeping signal path lengths more or less the same helps a lot due to loudness being directly proportional to the distance from the speakers to the listener (the closer the speaker, the louder it will appear). Putting midbass in the floor is a real bad idea IMO, midbass is directional enough and firing speakers in the way the signals cross, can create tonal nightmare... If you are able to install a sub or two up front and lo pass them below directional region, this would be great (in the floor or center console) but placement and aiming of midbass drivers should not be any different than other speakers. The only effective way to get good midbass is to run it in sealed enclosures and betw. 8-10in in diameter and plenty of power.

 

you are correst in some of what you say petr euro. However, when discussing midbass, i am talking about frequencies in the range of "about" 80-200 Hz. There is not enough stereo or imaging information in those frequencies to matter where it comes from. (left/right that it) What is critical is placement close in conjunction with the upper frequency drivers, which are up front creating the soundstage. The human ear will percieve the strike of the snare or tom as left or right from the upper frequencies they produce, and the impact will be created by the midbass drivers, so whether they are in the doors, on axis, in the floor under your legs or in the dash, they will perform well as long a a little thought is put into it..

 

I lo pass my midbass at 180... it is still directional and it still affects vocals

 

Typically, a larger driver with a smaller excursion is a better choice for midbass than a smaller one with large excursion (unless you are limited by lack of room)... Is that 25 mm xmax? Excursion p-p is meaningless if you do not keep it linear...

 

I thought xmax on the extremis was only 13mm ?

 

It is only 13mm

http://www.adireaudio.com/Home/ExtremisMidwoofers.htm

 

Find these if you want to go with a smaller size... there is nothing really that comes close in 6.5 in size...

http://www.ddaudio.com/dd/caraudio/woofers.asp?series=W6.5

 

Nice, are you gonna seal up the doors ? It will tighten up the midbass considerably

 

ps.. and you can't go wrong with adire products!

 

Thought of the Resonant Engineering XXX components? I believe it's 15mm one way excursion and come as a 2 ohm set. Pricey. So, I guess that is off the point.
In my experience, anything larger than a 6.5 inch driver in the doors will lead to failure. Not of the driver itself but of the panel. I used MB Quart eights in my doors and it took about four months for the panel to start letting loose.
Did dual eight inch JL audio's in another vehicle and that lasted about 6 months. I used alot of MDF and fiberglass but the door is just not the place for larger drivers for any length of time. The kick panel is a great option because then you can get better imaging and you have the possibility of building some kind of enclosure into the fender well. Much more solid than any door and solves the problem of time alignment. Good luck.

 

LOL, I have been using 9in mids for quite a while in my doors, if you design it well, there is no reason why they cannot work in your doors...