active config for Germs?

[StuartV 10+ year member]

I have gotten my Rainbow Germaniums installed, along with JL Audio Stealthbox. I'm running an active config with an Alpine PXA-H701 doing xover duty.

So far, it seems like the Germ woofers aren't really doing much and I'm concerned that I don't have my xover setup very well for them, so I'm looking for advice on how to set it, as a good starting point.

Right now, on the tweeter channel, I have a high-pass filter set at 2.5 KHz, with an 18 dB slope.

On the Germ woofers, I have a high-pass filter set at 80 Hz, with an 18 dB slope, and a low-pass filter set at 2.5 KHz, with an 18 dB slope.

On the sub, I have a low-pass filter set at 80 Hz, with an 18 dB slope.

Am I way off with any of these? What should I use as a baseline for the xover config for the Germs?

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[headless 10+ year member]

The woofers are really stiff when you first get them; mine didn't really come into their own until 8-10 hours of play on them, so keep that in mind if these are a brand new set of speakers.

What kind of wattage are you pushing to them? When i was running mine 4x50w the woofers were obviously starving for current; 2x100+w or 4x100 would be kickin. The woofers IMO would thrive on 150w alone, plus 30w for the tweets. When i moved up to 2x100+w passive i got notable movement w/ the x-over @ 18db/80hz as you described...

What do you have the tweet attenuation set to? It could be that you need to attenuate the tweets some so you can raise the overall volume of the woofer relative to the tweeters (i had to, with the tweets in the A pillars). Those woofers have some pretty heavy excursion (7mm one way i think?), you should be able to hear them.

 

[alphakenny1 10+ year member]

those are good starting points but try to mess around some. as headless said speakers need to break in time. give it a week or so. but also still try and mess with the xover pts and slopes.

more importantly is your door deadened?

 

[StuartV 10+ year member]

They have probably close to 16 hours of play time, so far. I got the truck back last Sunday and drove from here to S. Florida and back on Monday and Tuesday, playing them the whole way.

The doors are deadened with Dynamat inside of outer skin and between the door panel and skin.

Power is Carver 90x2 RMS to the tweeters and Carver 100x2 RMS to the woofers (and Carver 340x1 RMS to the JL sub).

I think I'm going to try turning the gain up on the woofer amp before I do anything else.

But, I still want to know what the recommended starting point is for xover config on the Germs. I read on Rainbow's website that the tweeter's xover frequency is 2,600, I believe, but it didn't say what the slope is or what the xover frequency/slope is for the woofers.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

The passive's from rainbow (for both the woofer and the tweet) are set to 2.2khz default, 12db slope, but the passive's can be adjusted to 2.6khz, 12db slope. I've been using 80hz/18db for a while now as the highpass setting for the woofers.

 

[Starky 10+ year member]

During the Break In time, is any smell expected? My Germs sometimes smell a bit, not like burning though

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Mine smelled a little while they were breaking in, yep.

How do you like the 4woofer setup? i'm considering it in my car

 

[StuartV 10+ year member]

Well, I turned up the gain on the woofers' amp, and it seems better, but it still seems like 90% of the music is coming through the tweeters. Is that normal and I just never noticed before 'cause I never had such a good speaker/xover/amp setup?

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Well, I turned up the gain on the woofers' amp, and it seems better, but it still seems like 90% of the music is coming through the tweeters. Is that normal and I just never noticed before 'cause I never had such a good speaker/xover/amp setup?

I think so; that was something i felt like also, when i first installed my set. "Wow these tweets really do play alot!". Just goes to show why people are so intent on getting the best tweeters they can. When I adjusted the crossover points from the default 2.2khz to 2.6khz, I heard the sound drop down into the woofers more. The tweets play all the way down to 1.5khz when stock crossover point is used. Once i got the woofer balanced with the tweets by attenuating the tweets some (try it) and switching their phase relative to the woofers (because they are ~1.5foot from the woofers) things sounded fairly balanced...switching the crossover point up some made the soundstage drop towards the woofers more; i left it there. Your already running 18db/2.5khz though which is even more to the woofers than my setup is @ 2.6khz/12db. I have read several cases where people have slightly underlapped their tweets x-over points relative to the woofers when running active. Alot depends on the accoustics of your car. You could give a little PEQ boost to the 80hz + 100hz ranges and the woofer should become more pronounced, too.

 

[StuartV 10+ year member]

I think, at this point, I'm going to get my XM and BT issues worked out (thread in General Discussion) and then take it to Stereo Sales. I think they quoted me $40 before to have their Audio Engineer use a reference CD and RTA to tune the system. It'll probably be more with setting amp gains and time alignment, but at this point, what's another 100 bucks to get it *right*...

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Yep, one of these days i'm going to use eclipse's calibration mic to get everything tuned in my car too. For now i've just been going by what sounds good. If i wasn't so broke (spending all my money on new toys) i might consider paying stereosales for the calibration.