Don't get me wrong, sound is very decent, crystal clear until the bass hits. Volume around 30 with HPF at 55hz. Sounds like the excursion of the woofer is possibly hitting the plastic ring surrounding the inside of the speaker grill or vibration from the door panel... Either sound like canidates for my problem? What have you guys found that works... If I could resolve this problem I would get some decent midbass out of these MB quarts... Don't really have a convenient location to test out different things with music at full volume so some thoughts on where to start would be nice...


Another slight issue that I found was mounting the spacer rings on the door itself. Cutting the metal on the door wasn't really a problem. What was/is a pain in the ass is the door itself where you're screwing the ring to the door isn't a flat surface. Is there a way to flatten out the metal on the door? If not seems like the only way to successfully mount the ring in more than 2 spots is to countersink the holes ~1/4".

 

I think you have the mids crossed too low. 55hz is in the sub bass area. Are you running them active? If so, try crossing them around 80hz. If you think it's the door panel, try it again with the door panel off and see if you still have the same issue. You should only be getting a few millimeters of excursion out of your mids so unless the door panel is pretty much pressing against the speaker it shouldn't cause a problem.

 

You should also be sealing that ring against the door with some gasketing material. you can get 3 screws in, but not evenly spaced. Not sure I understand your countersink comment. My screws are countersunk into the ring to provide a flush condition for the driver to mount?

 

Agreed with the above. Highpass too low. My old Infinities hit on the door panel before I trimmed it an it made no noise since it was just the surround. If it's a clacking sound, it's the voice coil bottoming out and you're damaging the speakers.

Do you have any deadening on the door and door card? As it was said, try it with the door card off and you'll have your answer.

I like to play mine loud and my midbass speakers have nearly 1" of travel and I still keep it at 70hz or above to stay in the safe range of the speaker just in case a passenger decides to crank it all the way which has happened before.

 

I'm going to try crossing them at 80 and see what happens. Running them passive atm w/ no sub atm which is why I had them crossed at 55. I might try and remount them to the door. Currently I only have 3 screws securing them gonna see if I can get a 4th.. Did you guys find that trimming the plastic ring around the inside of the door panel helped any?

 

I couldn't really tell if the plastic ring was going to be a problem, but I cut off anyway just so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

Also, another thing I was paranoid about when I bought my new components was the possibility of water dripping on them so I bought some foam speaker baffles, which also work as a gasket between the door and the MDF rings.

You would just need to cut out the back and the bottom half so they don't choke the speaker.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about. Not my pic, but this is what I did:

 

Put the HP at 80hz and turn it up to where you listen to it at it's loudest. Find a song that makes the sound like you say and see if it's making that sound. If it's not, it's likely a bottoming speaker, which is what I'm thinking it is also. Slowly lower the HP until you hear distortion and/or a change in the sound for the worse. Leave it there and you're good to go

 

Idk if any of you have experienced this but I'm getting a slight "hiss" at the tweeters which stays constant no mater what the volume is (0-30), just can't hear it when I have to volume up but I'm sure its there. Any ideas what could be the cause of this?

Also those of you with comps, where are you mounting your passive crossovers? I currently have them laying under the carpet in the passenger foot well. I'm thinking about mounting them to the black plastic piece thats under the glove box. Thoughts???

BTW tried crossing them at ~70 and they sound great. Only thing missing is sub bass...

 

If it were me, based on all the theory I have read about, behind the door panel not too far from the speakers. Just make sure they wont rattle.

I m jusy an idiot with stock speakers though so maybe wait for some other opinions.

 

Not an option for me because I'm not running new wires from the tweeters as well as the amp..

 

Ah... That is where my ideal location would be but as mentioned in my edit someone else with good info should hopefully be able to help.

 

What's your setup.

 

Steve! Are you seriously now recommending that people install their crossovers in the doors? You really need to do some homework. I commend you on trying to keep the distance to the speaker short, but the door location is absolutely not correct. Crossovers typically have components soldered to a board they are very susceptible to vibration. The last place you would want them is on a door being closed repeatedly.

 

Setup is MB Quart PVL216, ZED Draconia II and audio control matrix pro. Have the amp and line driver in the trunk.

 

That should work fine. I stuck my line driver and iSimple unit up there and haven't had any problems. Just attach them with some Velcro so they don't slide around.

As for the hiss: You could try unplugging each device in the signal chain one-by-one (line driver/LOC, processor, amp etc.) and then whatever one causes the noise to go away should be the source of the hiss. After that, you'll have to ask the experts. Could be an issue with your gains, grounding, how you ran your wires, or it could just be one of your devices has a high noise floor.

 

From what I hear, I would move the Matrix to the factory kick panel (near factory amp). You want it as close to the source as possible. It's likely that you're picking up noise as your signal is run to the back. You are using pre-amp correct?

I'll be getting my BLD in this week so I'll be able to weigh in more about this subject later.

 

So are you saying to put my crossovers up there or my line driver??

I've installed a few systems in my time, this being the first time I've used a line driver and had noise in my system.

I have all wires ran properly, power down driver's side, signal, remote and speaker wires down passenger side. Originally, I was going to connect the rca adapters near the factory amp and run rcas down to the line driver but didn't plan correctly (didn't get another set of rcas ~1 ft to connect the line driver to the amp). So I ended up using speaker wire to go to the trunk, connecting the rca adapters to the speaker wires with that going straight to the line driver and a 17 ft long rca going from the line driver to the amp.

At this point I'm thinking 3 things. Could be that I need to use rcas to make the run from the passenger kick panel to the trunk, shorten my connection from the line driver to the amp, or as talked about by neibur mess around with the jumper setting within the line driver.

**Trunk monkey** Not sure how to quote multiple posts...

I am in fact using pre amp signal. One problem with putting the line driver closer to the headunit is I've noticed it generates quite a bit of heat. I mean its not hot to the touch, but it definitely gets warm (amp is usually cool to the touch) after an hour or 2 running system at full volume. One other thing (call me lazy) is I would have to run separate power, ground and remote if I mounted the line driver somewhere in the passenger kick panel.

I won't be able to mess around with different things until the weather improves (damn seattle rain), but would like to hear more thoughts. Would like to have several different ideas b4 I jump in....

 

Multi-quoting can be done by clicking the button next to the quote button. It looks like paper with a green + sign next to it. Click on that and it will add it to your reply list. On the last thing you want to reply to, just hit reply like normal and it will give you all of your quotes in order!

 

I was referring to your crossovers. It couldn't hurt to have your line driver up closer to the head unit, but the matrix is bigger than the Rockford BLD and likely wouldn't fit as well on top of the that black panel or in the stock amp location. I believe someone tried that already without success. I agree that it's a pain to rewire everything so I would definitely try the easier solutions first.

That's weird about the heat with the line driver closer to the head unit. I don't know why that would make any difference.

 

The matrix generates a little bit of heat. What I meant was I wouldn't want to suffocate it by putting in under the carpet or under the black panel.

Anyone else care to offer their ??

 

It'll be fine under there. I'd at least do it while you're doing everything else.

 

My opinion is that your picking up noise with the long path to your line driver, but you should be able to troubleshoot this relatively easily

 

After messing around with different things before it started raining I came to one conclusion. The noise at my tweets goes away when I disconnect the RCA going from the line driver to the amp. What does this tell me?

 

That should rule out the amp as the problem.

Next, I'd buy a 1' to 3' RCA cable to run between the Matrix and the amp to rule out any problems with your current cable i.e. picking up noise because of the length of the run or a defect in the cable.

If you still have noise then try running the 17' RCA from the kick panel to the Matrix rather than using the speaker wire. And/or fool with the jumper settings on the Matrix.

If none of those work, I would then try installing the Matrix closer to the head unit.