I have been reading through the threads here for a few days now, and have not come across any one complaining about the upper end of the audio system. The mids are a little muddy and the bottom end is fairly solid for what is there, but man the uper end sucks in mine. Now I havent taken the scope to it but I would bet that there is nothing over 15k. I am really shocked at this seeing that that there are seperates up front. Has anyone replaced the tweeters in the front pillers yet? I think this might be the first thing I do the the V. I can only listen to it for a little while and I cant take it any more. I have never heard a system sound this bad, well I have but on the bottom end not the top.

I am also wondering about the ability of installing a Streetdeck G4 in the V.I have ordered up the factory repair man on CD so I will have all the wiring diag. The hard part will be keeping the wheel mounted controlls and the bluetooth. I dont think the XM will be a problem.

The guy I talked to yesterday at a local car audio shop said the best thing was to disconnect the factory tweeters because they are two far away from the front speakers. The ones they are going to put in are directly on top of the new speakers in the front door and can be "aimed" so to speak. I'm not an audio guy, so I don't know if I said all that correctly, but whatever...

Personally, the sound isn't bad at all, but I guess it depends on what you listen to and what your expectations are.

That being said, I am upgrading the whole system in the next week or two.

Mine does great whether I'm listening to rock or classical. I do however notice a difference between the old camel (SL) and the new camel (SL + audio). In the old camel, my speakers did get a little 'fuzzy' if I pushed them too hard, I have not experienced the same thing in the new camel.

ace rothstein 81 wrote:The guy I talked to yesterday at a local car audio shop said the best thing was to disconnect the factory tweeters because they are two far away from the front speakers. The ones they are going to put in are directly on top of the new speakers in the front door and can be "aimed" so to speak. I'm not an audio guy, so I don't know if I said all that correctly, but whatever...

I'm no audio 'expert', but I am a hobbyist, and I'm dubious of any audio "expert" who'd want to lower the tweeter to the door in the Versa. Countless cars, some with fairly high-dollar factory systems, have the pillar-mounted tweeter with the front woofers at the bottom of the door panel...moving the tweeter doesn't make sense for a few reasons.

First off, you want your speakers at ear-level, if possible. In home theater audio, speakers should be mounted such that they are ear level when you are in your seated position.

Higher frequencies are attenuated (quieted) more dB per unit distance than are low frequencies...that is, high frequencies don't "travel" as well as low frequencies. That's partially why bass carries so much better from a passing car than their treble (also because they have the bass turned up so much more than the rest...but it still applies). (This is a basic principle of audio theory that I deal with when using seismic surveys in my line of work...)

So, having the tweeters at ear level would ensure that the shortest travel path from speaker to ear is achieved, whereas relocating the tweeters to the door panel would increase the travel path, thus quieting the treble moreso than the lower frequencies coming from the door woofer.

So if he's complaining about the treble lacking in his Versa, the last thing I'd do is increase the distance from my ear to the tweeter. Probably all he needs is an aftermarket tweeter with better specs.

Rockhound is correct. There are way too many variables in an automobile environment to make such sweeping statements like what the guy said at the car audio shop. The Versa has low end speakers and will benefit from an upgrade. The bass and mid bass are where I'd be looking for the most improvement. I can live without a quality subwoof due to cost but I'd sure like to get major improvement in the 120hz-4000hz range. It's the installation that concerns me. It's going to take modification and I'd like one of you to be the first and post pictures. I know. What a wimp.

David

The difference in distance between the piller and door, in this small of a car would not be that much. What you would loose is some imaging, hardly noticable to to avarage joe. It sounds to me like the guy at the shop just dosent want to deal with the piller mount. I think I might pull the harness and run some tests on them, when I get the diag.

[QUOTE=ace rothstein 81]The guy I talked to yesterday at a local car audio shop said the best thing was to disconnect the factory tweeters because they are two far away from the front speakers.QUOTE]

In the perfect world the tweets and mids should be placed in line with each other. There are a ton of things to consider when building a set of upper end loudspeakers. The closer together you can get the mids and tweets the better imaging. In a car there are so many surfaces for sound to bounce off of/ be obsorbed by, as well as other induced sounds. (ramble, ramble, ramble..........) I think that I am going to find that the crossover for the front is going to be somewhere in the 1700 12-18 bd range. That will make it realy hard to find a replacement tweet, and not modify the crossover. Let the tests begin.

estover wrote:The difference in distance between the piller and door, in this small of a car would not be that much. What you would loose is some imaging, hardly noticable to to avarage joe. It sounds to me like the guy at the shop just dosent want to deal with the piller mount. I think I might pull the harness and run some tests on them, when I get the diag.

Certainly the distance added by relocating the tweeter to the door panel would be slight...but I think it would be a mistake to add any distance to that axis at all. The concepts of imaging and soundstaging in a vehicle are almost nill considering speaker arrangement and car interior design/materials, like you said, so keeping the tweets at ear level seems like a decent way to enhance treble.

Yep. Given that there is already the improved location for the tweeters, there is NO reason to move them. I am hoping to have a graph plotted today some time if my damn phone will stop ringing!!!

The "allowable" distance between the drivers is really a factor of the crossover frequency. Essentially, if the distance between the drivers is greater than 1/2 the wave length at the xover freq, the sound from the drivers will have different arrival times. In the case of the tweeters mounted in the pillars and the mid-bass low in the door, the frequencies around the xover freq from the tweeter will arrive at the listener's ear fractionally before the mid-bass. This will cause "confusion" within the listener as to where the music is originating from, typically referred to as imaging (by those who care) and as muddy (by those who don't.)

This can be cured several ways: 1. Move the tweeter and mid-bass closer together and it's far easier to move the tweeter.2. Lower the crossover frequency between the separated drivers. This is best served by creating a 3-way system. By using a mid-range driver (2" dome or 4" cone driver), the xover freq moves from 3-5 kHz to somewhere below 1 kHz. This requires a new crossover, and would be best served by buying a 3-way component system. 3. Time alignment electronics can be used to delay the tweeter signal and allow the music from the drivers to "meet" at the ears. This can be accomplished within a passive xover (to a certain degree) as the component can slow a signal or invert the wave (note: unless otherwise corrected, all odd-order xovers, 6/18/30 db/oct, naturally inverts the phase.)

Note that most competition system use kickpanel installations as it has been determined that the relative distance from each channel is more important than speaker height for creating a good image. (Note that dash mounted drivers are ~3 feet closer to the listener, making the distance to far set of drivers 2x the distance to the near. In the KP, it's closer to 1.5x, which does make a difference.)

In the perfect world, alignment of the drivers would be through the voice coils and not the mounting flanges. But the 3" difference is essentially indistinguishable unless you're running a super-tweeter (10k hz or above xover.)

If you're going to run a 2-way system with a 1700 Hz xover, you'd better be using on fantastic tweeter. Nearly all 28mm/1" tweeters (note that most stock systems use a 19mm/.75" tweeter) have recommended xover freq around 3500 Hz. 1700 Hz is an octave below that. This will result in the driver getting significant levels of lower frequencies and the tweeter will blow-out. Most 19mm tweeter are xovered at 4500 Hz. There are benefits to lowering the xover point as most vocal ranges tend to be 1000 Hz - 5000 Hz. If you really want to do this, I can recommend a couple of tweeters but they're not cheap and they'll require a custom xover (18 db/oct or better).

Personally, when I get my Versa, I'm going with a 4-way system (tweeter, mid, woofer and subwoofer) with either the tweeter and mid up on the dash and the woofer in the door, or all three in the kickpanel (although I haven't had a good look at that location yet.) The little triangle window would be a great location for a custom enclosure. My final decision won't come until I have the car and audition the configurations.

Also, there are devices that interface with the steering wheel controls and convert to an infrared transmitter for interfacing with aftermarket decks. I used one in my Mini and it worked very well. I was even able to back it back out when the original deck went back in. (Other deck was stolen.) I believe the same could be done for the Versa. Additionally, some aftermarket manufacturers are beginning to include steering wheel interfaces in their decks. I know Alpine has a couple of decks that will interface with some cars. You'd have to check their website for models and compatibility.

Most of what you say is true for loudspeakers in a volume of space 20X the space provided by the cabin of a car. at the point you point 2 (or more) drivers at each other, and throw in a ton of hard surfaces for all waves to bounce off of, spaital imaging goes out the window. Pardon the pun. Given a set XO point a modification the the driver mounting surface can make up for time delays and on/off ax responce. A good example is a Line aray configuration. 6 feet of drivers all working together to form a single point of sound. With the correct cabnet design, and XO they can sound wonderfull. We can then move to TLs and quote King for awhile about time delays and the speed of sound............. ok enough of that. The problem is still that I CANT GET TO PLAY WITH MY CAR!!! I really need to ignor the phone for a while. When I get the scope in the car I can meausure time delays as well, just to see if there is any measureable difference, between the mids and the tweets. I am going to guess not given the distance and all the hard sufaces.

Well there isnt squat between 15500 and 17000 17-21k is down 8db+- I think I have a bad crossover. -3 at 48 and falls quick from there.

Time to pull things apart.

estover wrote:Well there isnt squat between 15500 and 17000 17-21k is down 8db+- I think I have a bad crossover. -3 at 48 and falls quick from there.

Time to pull things apart.

Most stock components are designed with a range of 100-14000 Hz. It's easier and more importantly, cheaper. Anything outside of that range is considered a bonus by the manufacturer. Getting extension is expensive.

The curve you describe is typical of a poorly controlled metal dome tweeter. It's possible the amp is the problem. Most OEM systems with a separate tweeter use a single cap on the tweeter and run the woofer at full range. A real xover would definitely help clear up the muddiness.

IMO, tuning the stock system is a waste of time. It may be fun, but it's never going to be as good as a decent aftermarket system.

Just buy my Versa and be done with it.

Kolk1 wrote:Just buy my Versa and be done with it.

I need the trunk space, or I would have a sub, well a better one than is in there now. The bottom end is enough with all the doors closed, its the high end I am really miffed about.

I think I might start with this 3SIXTY.2 http://www.rockfordfosgate.com...en_US and install Polk Audio Signature Reference SR6500's in the front and rear doors. For the amps I was thinking 2 Polk MOMO C400.4s, one for each set. The problem is a fair amount of money will be wasted on eithere the XO that comes with the speakers or reduced controll with the SP.I am quite a ways from doing anything yet so there is plenty of time for figuring.