Changing up the front stage. Again! Need input on how YOU would run it.

[SomeguyinPDX 10+ year member]

The equipment that I have gives me several options to consider and would like some input on what the forum thinks I should do. The vehicle is a 2001 Ford Taurus- current setup is Alpine 9887 running 3 way active, Amp- a/d/s M860 (8x60rms or 4x180 bridged) that amp is running 2-6x9 CDT's in the rear doors(see 2nd pict.), 2-Silver flute 6.5"mids in door pods and 2 Seas Prestige tweeters in the sails(1st pict.). And I just purchased a set of CDT ES6-MO Pro Gold's w/ braxial add-on kit and upstage tweeters to replace the Silver flutes & Seas tweets.

My question is, Should I run everything in the door or mount the Image tweeter up high on the A-pillar like they show on the CDT website (3rd pic). Also should I run the passive crossovers from CDT or keep it active? If I keep it "active" I cannot use my TA on the rear door speakers as they are running off the same signal as the front mids. If I use the passives I can TA front to rear. Any input is appreciated.

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[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

No one puts tweeters in the upper dash corners. Place them just below ear height. Play with aiming.

Run passives to keep T/A for the rears.

Note that for T/A on the 9887 the FL and FR is rear output and the RL and RR is front output.

The manual says it but I believe it is a mistake in programming on the engineers part.

 

[cablguy184 10+ year member]

Your "3 way actice" should not have anything to do with your rears ...

From the looks, you are running "2 way active" with rears ... This is probably what is throwing things off ...

My suggestion would be to disconnect the rears, get your front stage and image set up the way you want it, Then bring the rears back in where and when needed.

Like I said ... Just my suggestion here ...

No one puts tweeters in the upper dash corners. Place them just below ear height. Play with aiming.

absolutely ...

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

i'm not sure how he has the setup configured. technically, active just implies no passive crossovers. you can run 4 pairs of speakers on 3 pairs of RCA outputs if you have electronic crossovers. the front tweeters can be on the same channels as the front woofers and still image properly since imaging of high frequencies is based on level and not arrival time.

 

[SomeguyinPDX 10+ year member]

While waiting on the amp to be repaired I made an unplanned/spontainious purchase of a set of the CDT ES6-MO Pro Gold's w/ braxial add-on kit and upstage tweeters. I got my amp back last week and am getting ready to install it. I am planning on running all 8 channels bridged which is 4x180@4ohms. I totally agree with Cableguy184 about getting the front sounding correctly then dial in the rears as needed. So I will run the braxials in the door pods and do some tests on placement of the image tweeter and see how it goes. If I have missed something or you guys have a better idea please let me know. Thanks for all the input.

 

[SomeguyinPDX 10+ year member]

Ok, got the amp installed along with the CDT Braxials I have also been playing with the aiming of the image tweeters. I finally think I found the sweet spot for the image tweets but I have to say I am a bit dissapointed with the cdt mids. When I say dissapointed I'm not saying that they are no good, they just were not better sounding than the silver flute mids. Now I have put the silver flutes back in with the braxial arms and tweets mounted to them. I did a little side by side test using the silver flute mid in place of the cdt mid, still using the crossover,braxial & image tweeter from CDT. The Silver flutes needed a little less power than the cdt mids and were much warmer sounding. Next to each other the difference was very noticeable and the silver flute can be crossed down to around 60hz for most music where the cdt would not tolerate anything below 80Hz from medium to high volumes. It currently sounds really good and gets fairly loud with the right track playing but as most of you may understand "It's not enough, I need more volume." At the moment my substage is hardly working, all my settings are turmed down in order to keep everything balanced. I am not sure what is the best option to get my midbass and midrange louder to keep up with the substage.

Should I just double up and run 2 more mids or should I be looking at 8" mid/midbass to get louder? again any input is appreciated.

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