MOS805

After reading a post on DIYmobileaudio a while ago about how the person was getting more grounding noise in his system with his amplifier bridged than not, I decided to unbridge my Kappa 5 and run my front components off of one channel each (using #1 and #4 channel). Lo and behold my engine noise was almost completely gone from my tweeters and I have some much needed stereo seperation that I did not have before(at times tweeters sounded a little muddy apparently it was two channels leaking into each other and the tweeters attempting to play both). While this did wonders for my tweeters, unfortunately it made my already weak midbass pretty much non existent, I guess the problem of going from 150 watts bridged to 50 watts to the components. BUT since I have two channels unused from my Kappa 5 now and since it has bandpass capabilities I was considering splitting the signal from the RCAs right before it plugs into the amp and using all four channels, two for the tweeters and two for a different set of midbass, the ones that caught my eye are these Image Dynamics http://www.woofersetc.com/p-7175-cx6...s-drivers.aspx. Since they are 2ohm drivers they would see 75 watts each and hopefully give me some much needed midbass. The tweeters would have the 50 watts at 4ohm on tap however I would turn the gain down to the minimum to give them less than that. Only problem I see is that since the stock signal is already on the weak side at about .9v would splitting it before entering the amp make the quality degrade or cause any problems? My amplifier can take signal down to .2v and to ease problems of sound entering at the split it would occur right before the amplifier.

LoveMyTL-S

Anyone?

HEAVY_RL

iTrader: (1)

Honestly he has way to much going on in that post.

OP basically needs to upgrade his hardware to get where he wants to be.

Splicing and dropping impedance will cause distortion and eventually amp failure.

MOS805

Well thankfully I got a great answer from DIYmobile.com, apparently I lucked out and Infinity Kappa amplifiers can take two inputs for the four channel stereo so I would not need to split the inputs, I can use the two front inputs for all four and I guess since ID gives their midbass a full range signal for their components I can just hook the midbass I want up to the amplifier and allow natural roll off. Only thing I would need to be concerned with is the tweeter since the crossover on the amplifier does not go high enough for it I would need to filter out the lower frequencies somehow, either by keeping them plugged into the existing Morel crossover OR what I was thinking is possibly doing what the stock tweeter did and have a high pass filter on the tweeter itself without a crossover involved, which if the factory tweeter can do I am thinking it would be possible to do with my current tweeter as well.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

natural roll off will occur VERY early most likely...just so you know. Also, a cap will protect your tweeter from unwanted lower frequencies. Not all caps are the same though...so you need to know where you x-over freq. will be and what the ohm load of the tweeter is!

Also, post up what amp you are using. I'd like to take a look at the options for you

MOS805

How early are we talking for natural roll off? Iirc you have the CX62 midbass correct? How do you like them soundwise and the midbass output? I was thinking of either finding a cap that is the same as in the factory Morel crossover or even just taking the crossover apart and taking the cap out of them. Morel's tweeters are crossed at 3800 hz and tweeters are 4ohm. Amp is the Infinity Kappa 5 I keep messing with.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Natural Roll-off from the cx62's is at 1600hz. Slightly higher for the XS mids (these have a better midrange but less emphasis on midbass). I thought you had these..so I'm not sure where your Maximo's roll-off is..sry. I'm sure you could find out though.

The cx62's are great. PLENTY of midbass and the midrange sounds nice. The midbass isn't hollow or one-noted like the RK6's mids, which was a large improvement alone. Their snappy and detailed, great for all music genre's.

Instead of doing all this work with caps, taking apart x-overs, etc etc....I'd look into a new amp. If you're running a single sub and will run the passives, a nice powerful 4-channel will work great. PPI p900.4 on the cheap

MOS805

Still haven't bought the CXs I have been wanting to pull the trigger though. I still do want that PPI also but the thought of having to buy another piece of equipment to run it is kind of disuading for now, honestly I have been thinking of possibly just getting a JL 300/2 and a seperate D class sub amp to replace my Kappa 5, but since its there I keep thinking of ways to utilize what I have and be happy. I know for one my midbass is the area I hate the most and thats why I chose to focus in on that but I might just end up going a different route still with the new amps.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Are you doors deadened and sealed?? That will make a large difference. I see no point in running 2 amps for a component/single sub setup. Especially low powered. Just toss the Kappa 5 up on Craiglist and see what happens in the mean time.

Even at 2ohms..that amp puts out 75rms (maybe), which is pretty low. I have no experience with the Maximo components so I can't say how their midbass OR even overall sound is, but if you hate the sound...gotta try something.

MOS805

Doors are not deadened, I know that it will make a difference but honestly seeing as I have pretty much no midbass at all then I'm not sure the deadening will give me the increase I am looking for. Plus, since I really want to trade in for a bigger car later this year I'm on the fence about adding anything that I can't take off of this car and put into a new one. When an owner of a stock altima can have better midbass than me and when we go into my car and they ask if I have a crossed wire or cheap speakers because it sounds like nothings coming from the midbass then there is a problem there. The overall sound of the Maximos is nice, very clean and I love the tweeters they just keep getting louder while never being harsh or losing steam, but the woofer problem just bugs me. If I deaden the outcome kind of would have to be night and day difference to really make anything of the midbass.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Something sounds wrong. Are you sure they're getting power?? lol. I know it sounds basic, but ya never know. Take the door panel off and play some test tones to make sure they're playing the range they should be playing. Do you have them on the passives right now??

Also, your amp's x-over for both channels should be on FP since you're not using the internal x-overs. What are your gains like and are you taking the pre-amp or post-amp signal?


On my way to work today, I realized I'm not very happy with the SQ of my setup right now either. I think I have too much midbass going on and it's taking away some of that clarity and definition from the sound. I've got my mids running 75-3kHz/12db and tweets at 3kHz/12db. Tweeters can handle that just fine and the gains on the Sundown are all the way down. The gains for my mids are about 1/4 also so I'm not using too much amp at all, I just feel like I need to work on balancing my frequencies. Wish I had an RTA

MOS805

They are playing like I can feel the speaker moving but honestly I'm not sure how low they are playing, I guess I should mess with the crossover on the amp to make sure I didn't mess up something there. They are currently running off of the passives, gains are set at a little less than 1/3 the way up. There was more midbass, not a whole lot still though, when I had them running off of a bridged 150 watts but the tweeters had problems with white noise and stereo channels bleeding into each other so currently its unbridged getting 50 watts each side which corrected that problem but my power on tap was cut considerably. I wish I had an RTA as well, my sound is all over the place I feel, like at lower volumes sub is very pronounced and as I turn it up the sub gets drowned out by the front end, but I think thats more of a problem with the Rockford in a POS Q logic box, I still havent had time to make a good box for my IDQ . Man too many variables to work on for car audio lol.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Can you take a pic of the settings on the amp for me??

I see Morel crosses at 3.8kHz/6db...which is pretty darn high for those to play. At 50rms per side, the gains will likely need to be a bit higher. Do you have a digital multimeter?? Also, a box for your IDq can be purchased if you wanted to run sealed. 3/4" mdf sealed box isn't hard to build so pre-fab is "usually" ok. My is from SonicElectronix and I sealed it myself again when it showed up. Seems to be built well though.

MOS805

I'll try and take a picture of it later once I'm off of work. I don't have one unfortunately, I believe I can borrow one easily though. Thanks for the info on the prefab, I was on the fence about getting one premade and then having the same problems of being a shit box like the Qlogic.