kirill1221

With all the audio enthusiasts on this forum, I'm surprised that not many of you have gone for a 3-way setup for the front components. Im contemplating it but I still have a ton of research to do to make sure that all the work will be worth it. My next gripe is finding a decent set of comps without breaking the bank (hi, I HATE CARS)

If you guys have a 3-way in the front, post up some pictures of the completed result or some in progress pics. I think this will help encourage others to go that route.

I hate cars

But they sound soooo good. Nothing more life like out there.

I could never go back to a 2-way, at least not 99% of the 2-ways out there.

Adding a dedicated mid can make any set sound better. You relieve the 6.5" of the midrange duties. You're now running the midbass in a range where it's not beaming. You can cross the tweeter over much higher which almost always makes the tweeter sound better.

It's nowhere nearly as hard as people make it out to be. My 3-ways straight out of the box on the supplied passives sounded great. There's a part of me that wishes I had kept them passive.

The hardest part is making the kick panel for the midrange and Niebur3 on here makes some very nice kick panels that don't take up any foot room.

kirill1221

I absolutely agree with you. You have much more knowledge than I do but I do know they sound much better.

One thing i was always worried about with the kick panels was the legs actually blocking the sound waves. Or does that make no sense? hahaha Im just speaking logically without doing any real research.

What I meant before was that I'm extremely interested in a 3-way but I don't have the money for the Dynaudios like you. I was thinking Focal Polyglass series for me. Thats more my price range. POST PICS!!!!

I hate cars

Some people say the polyglass sound better than the K2P. I've never seen anyone dislike them. I say go for it. I'll take some recent pics of my cone midranges in the kicks but here's my old domes:



You can see how they're recessed in so you don't lose leg room.

Legs do block some of the sound but it's hardly noticeable and barely measurable. I even run mine up to 8khz, well into their beaming range and somehow the legs still don't seem to block much sound.

I think my friend might be selling his unused K2Ps for a very good price. You would have to buy the crossovers and midrange but it might come out to the same price as the polyglass.

There's also a chance I might be selling my whole system.

kirill1221

I also want to stay with polyglass because a compatible amp would be more in my price range than one needed to power the K2P. I have never heard of anyone saying the P/G sound better than K2P. Even looking at the structure of the drivers, they seem higher quality. If the K2s were an option I would def run them exposed in all their yellow glory.

I want the kick panels to be as flush as possible and without that protruding corner at the top of the driver. I wouldn't mind if it came out a little bit.

Another thing comes to mind is where to point the midrange. Towards the sunroof or put each one on the skew towards the drivers head and screw the rest of the passengers. would it even make an audible difference?

I hate cars

You would probably want them as close to on axis for the driver as possible. Mine are very close, it's probably the reason I can get away with such a high lowpass on the mids. The midbass don't matter so much since the frequency range they play is less directional. I personally wouldn't worry about passengers. Most will never hear the difference but being the driver who's always in the car, you probably will.

The amp requirements are no different really. The K2s have a higher power handling and less efficiency so they can take more power if you choose to run more. The speaker RMS rating has nothing to do with the minimum power required, it's just a long term max rating. If you look at efficiency ratings, a 90db efficient set will produce 90db at 1w. 90db is pretty loud. For normal listening you might be running as little as 10w.

You don't have to run an expensive amp. With my Dyns, I've run everything from a $100 Interfire to a $1,500 McIntosh and I just can't tell the difference between amps with similar power.

I do like a ton of power for dynamic music. Getting an amp with more power than you will ever need will ensure you can cleanly hit those dynamic peaks when you crank it which can be much more demanding than you might think.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

What about putting mids/tweets in the a-pillar??

Nick337

iTrader: (2)

The polyglass will never sound better than the k2ps Matt.

I hate cars

I found a couple posts on DIYMA where some people liked them better. I've never heard the polyglass set. I think it was "subwoofery" who said the K2Ps had more punch but the polyglass were more tonally correct. I don't listen to much of what I read on there anyway, there's so much misinformation going on.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

If I can make up my mind what I want to do after I graduate this semester I might move into a 3-way. I just don't know if I want to keep this car or not. It's got 118K miles, a couple chips and scratches in the paint, cracked dash...but I just had the tranny fully rebuilt at 105K so it SHOULD/BETTER last awhile. I know this is bad...but I still need to do the 105K maintenance.

I hate cars

Narrow stage vs wider stage. TA required vs not required. And for me, someone who has been house shopping for over a year and still lives in an apartment, stealth.

kirill1221

I don't think putting them in the pillars is appealing unless its a show car. I would want to be as discreet as possible. Also I don't know if I'm the only one thats noticed but our A-Pillar blocks a lot of the view so I can only imagine what it would do to me if we had speakers mounted there. I also wouldn't want them "in my face" like that.

Never been a fan of pillar mounted gauges either

kirill1221

Ive heard what 2 way polyglass sounds like and to me they sound good enough to justify the price of them. I don't believe the K2P would sound good enough to justify their price. Although, your Dynaudios were far more expensive and you seem to be justifying that fairly well.
Ok I've used the word, "justify" too much today. Better stop





Justify

I hate cars

It gets to the point of deminishing returns. A $2000 set won't sound twice as good as a $1000 set, maybe 15%.. My Esotars were 3-4x the price of the Esotecs and both sets are wonderful. The Esotecs are actually a good value for the money. The Esotars are in a word, perfect. While there were a couple very minor things I might change with the Esotecs for the first time ever, there is not a single thing I would change. The human voice is perfect, the resolution and detail are crazy. You can hear recording studio flaws, absolutely perfect life like reproduction and they will get very loud without losing SQ. However, they might be 20% better than the Esotecs. Its worth the price because to me, this is perfection. These are also the first 6.5" midbass that I've heard that you can turn the subs off at reasonable volumes. The problem is being able to say when. I'm not good at that.

DiamondJoeQuimby

iTrader: (2)

I've got the JL C5-653 in the front. Midbass in door, mid & tweet in kick ala Niebur. Ideally I would love to try midbasses under dash, but without serious modification it just wouldn't work. I'm too lazy to post pics at the moment, but I'll get around to it sooner or later.

I hate cars

I tried modeling my 6.5" midbasses in WinISD on axis and then 90 degrees off axis. Looks like at 90 degrees, the -3db point is just above 1khz. That should be the same for any 6.5". At 3khz, it's nearly 24db down. On axis it's just hitting the -3db point at 3khz. I can see how equalization for each individual speaker could be so important considering the pretty large difference in angles between the driver and passenger midbass in the doors.

It shows part of the reason a 3-way can sound better.

According to WinISD, I should go with 80/1khz/4khz as my crossover points when the axis is considered. Of course that's not taking any cabin gain, any nulls or peaks into consideration. I have to start using a program that takes cabin gain into consideration.

xxx_busa

Go 3way, Save ur money, buy the good stuff, dont look twice at focal, and if your ready now, I'll let you pry an Esotar 3way/set from my cold hands......................................

Call Jerry Niebur, And get his thoughts on PHASS, Many are coming to the Dark Side.

You can get into PHASS at many different levels, If you like music its the way to go, If you want technical competition grade go Dyn or HAT

I hate cars

Probably the wrong place for this but if you decide to break them up or if you find buyers for the others and not the 110s I will gladly take the 110s off your hands. That is probably the best tweeter on the planet. I wish I had never listened to one.

niebur3

^^I can sell you a brand new pair...

I hate cars

We can definitely do that as well.

I'm thinking of leaving car audio to fund going racing again and I've already taken some of the car apart to try and force myself to buy what's needed for it. However, I just can't get out of it without trying the 110s first even though I know it's going to be more money spent.

kirill1221

Can you elaborate your opinion on Focals? I always assumed they were a decent brand. I would like to know your thoughts on them. I don't plan on going to the competition level. I like music but its for personal gain. I don't like having a need to justify things to other people. Also, I don't think I have time to compete. I barely have time to fix my loose beauty panel.

I would love to have a set of Dyns in my car but this is all just for research and to also get a fresh topic going here. This forum has been dead lately with the same topics over and over. (where to grab sub signal, iPod integration, etc)

I am no where close to having money to splurge like that. But I have reached the limitations of my current almost stock set up so this is up there on the to do list along with paying for school and other expenses.

I hate cars

If you have the money, I would go with the Dyn Esotec 242, 342, or 362 set. Very life-like, neutral, and natural, I can't say enough about that set. IMO, they sound more realistic than anything else I've heard. They come with crossovers so it's a simple hookup and they sound great in the TL right out of the box. The 242 set can be found fairly cheap if you look around. I haven't looked around but I *think* I remember seeing them for $600 and change.

If not, there are many good comp sets in the $200-$300 range but chances are they're not going to do everything right like some of the higher end ones do.

If you were to make the same post over on DIYMA, you would probabaly get the exact opposite responses. People who spend a lot of money on speakers do so out of ignrance and they should be killed. Everyone knows of a $10 set that will out do a $2,000 set.

I do have to say that if I end up putting a system in the GF's car, I might try the pro audio drivers. I like the idea of lots of cone area with small excursion and great efficiency. Dirt cheap, efficient, and great sound. It would be something like a pair of 15s, a pair of 8s in the doors and horns.

xxx_busa

Focals hurt my ears, I dont like the way they sound, I've never liked them, Way to bright and sterile in your face, Some folks like that, I don't.
I will give the TC120TDX a rave, Maybe one of the best tweeters I've ever used, But that ones long gone...............