ok guys i havent been on here in qiute a while.. a year i think lol.
anyway i need some advice on a build i have in progress here.. let me give you the rundown on the system.. Vehicle 2000 Nissan Sentra Sedan.
Pioneer DEH P6000UB HU Clarion MCD360 Xover Phoenix Gold TLD66 Line Driver
all 3 deck rca's utilized front rear and sub into xover then line driver.
amps are as follows Bass Atomic AT1600.1 Class D mono Stable into 1ohm on a pair of Digital Designs 2512a D4 12" subs.. 5cuft enc single chamber mono port 75sq" port area tune to 41hz.
This bass setup i intend to stick with.
Midrange now currently i have a Soundstream LW 580.4 on 4 6". a pair Phoenix Gold octane R comps up front
and rear channels bribged to a pair of Ciare 6.38MR 8ohm "DJ Speakers". at back
In addition i have An Audiofonics 1500w 2ch puts out 600.2rms on a pair of Ciare 8 " 8ohm midwoofers rated 200AES ea. also at back "also DJ Speakers"
Now the aim of the system is some degree of SPL competition as well as an very loud overall system for some serious middle class audio competition.
my plan is to get rid of the existing Ciare 6.38MR
and the Audiofonics amplifier.
and get another pair of the Ciare 8" and a large 4ch amplifier capable of appx 1000.4 rms or close this amp will be bridged both channels to act as a 2ch at 4ohm one Bridged set on a Pair of 8" which will perfectly match the pair @8ohm tast will net down to 4ohm parallel.
in other words 2 8" on each bridged channel.
i am keeping the Soundstream LW 580.4 which wil be connected to the same comps up front and a pair of 8 ohm compression horns Selenium D2500Ti NB.
the 4 8" and pair of compression horns will be done in a fiberglass Enc on the vehicles backdash all facing forward slightly tilted out the doors.
in terms of current draw i hav a pair of kinetic HC1800 batteries Stock 80A alt 0ga big 3 and all 0ga wiring.
amps Atomic 4x40A fuse
Audiofonics "to be replaced" currently 2x40A fuse
Soundstream LW580.4 2x30A fuse.
that's it guys this system has to be as perfect as possible.
Please recommend any changes to midrange you see possible that may improve it as well as a possible 4CH amplifier i can use and any possible changes or tweaking that may be necessary.. that i may have missed. THANKS!
Replies (10)
swez on 08/2/2008 06:29:45
Egads man, you have a lot of stuff going on here in a very modest sized sedan.
It looks like the front end part of the system is pretty solid and just needs some HF drivers for tweets. The Bass Engine seems pretty solid as well.
The rear deck will be the challenge to obtain good balance and smooth MR/TW responses. The 6.38 MR's are fine above 500 Hz., but drop off rapidly in SPL response below 400 Hz. I don't know what the 8" version can do, but if you have the full part number, we can have a look. Here's the specs on the 6.38MR's:
http://www.steveselectronics.biz/products/ciare/images/638MR3.pdf
Selenium Horns in back??? Are you sure you really want to go that route? I did find specs on that one. Horns like this tend to be best used in DJ or live sound applications. If memory serves correctly, these puppies are very efficient and very peaky too. They'll rip your ears off with 25-50 watts of power and sound very honky below 3KHz. So, having sufficient 7-10 band EQ or variable Parametric EQ would almost be a must. Here's the specs on that driver:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=264-274
Note the 111dB SPL @ 2.83 volts. They won't need much amping power to create "listener fatigue". Loud... YES, smooth and crisp... not w/o considerable EQ-ing.
Comments?
Swez
Victor on 08/2/2008 06:47:01
"Ditto"
in addition, Let me just copy paste sentences from your post, but just in a better sequence.... and you'll take the hint...
Bass Atomic AT1600.1
An Audiofonics 1500w 2ch puts out 600.2rms on a pair of Ciare 8 "
Soundstream LW 580.4 which wil be connected to the same comps
a pair of kinetic HC1800 batteries Stock 80A alt 0ga big 3 and all 0ga wiring.
amps Atomic 4x40A fuse
Audiofonics "to be replaced" currently 2x40A fuse
Soundstream LW580.4 2x30A fuse.
160+80+60 = 300amps current draw...
you are not doing justice to your equipment here.....you definitely need a HO alt...
Victor....
PS: horns are known to be very effective for staging and imaging purpose in a SQ system.... mostly SQ systems are moderately powered systems aimed at listening levels of not more than 120db's.... they would be nice for a front stage with 25-50wrms power.... putting them in the rear doesnt make sense to me personally...
markz on 08/2/2008 13:03:05
ok guys.. the 8" model is the Ciare 8.50W response 60hz~2khz
reason for the Compression horns at back is to fill the notes above 2khz where the 8" cut off.. also this system is more directed to the listeners outside and not inside hence the reason for me needing it to be loud and clean as possible.. using drivers instead of tweets here cuz tweets tend to get really distorted at high vol and the horns will play a better overall sq. in car this system wont be reaching high volumes and wil only be driven to a tolerable level.
with regard to equalization thats the reason for the deck i chose has a great 7band EQ as well as many other useful features.
with regards to Current im tryna hold off on a new alt as much as possible but if need arises i will have to..
swez on 08/3/2008 05:16:19
OK, I get the idea. Your front stage is more for inside the car and the rear/trunk Sub/MR/Horns system are more like a portable DJ sound system. Upen the trunk and windows and Viola, DJ rig on wheels.
The Ciare 8.50W's are very efficient but they are most usable above about 90 Hz. Ciare recommends a very small sealed enclosure of 25 liters per speaker. (About 0.85 ft^3 per driver and that will be very compact, even if you use 4 of them in all) The plot gets a bit spike/dip above 2KHz. See frequency plot here:
http://seeburg.net/Ciare_850NdW.pdf
If you do run the Selenium drivers, a good HP crossover point for them would be roughly 1.5 - 2.5 KHz. The woofer will fill in the lower 1.2 octaves of bass and powered off it's own amp.
As for the 8" Ciare's Mids and Selenium HF drivers, consider a custom designed passive crossover system and a 2 channel amp of ample power to run these as 2-way, BP filters and perhaps L-Pad attenuators to balance the Selenium drivers. This will be tricky, but worth the effort.
Note: The Selenium drivers can be mated with several common wide/medium/narrow dispersion horn shells, (1-3/8"-18 TPI)
that mate to the driver mounting thread specs. Depending on the dispersion characteristics desired, you have a few options to consider.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=264-274&ctab=14#Tabs
Comments?
Swez
markz on 08/3/2008 12:10:22
you hit the nail right on the head there Swez!
that is the intention of this system!
the 8" you quoted there is not mine tho mine is the same speaker but the regular magnet not the Nd.
this filtering is quite interesting tho.. however i am gonna use seperate amplifiers for comp horns and 8".. but doin a BP on the 8" is interesting how do i go about this?
and dont forget my question abt the 4ch amplifier.
swez on 08/3/2008 13:29:41
OK, we're on the same page and moving forward.
As for filtering, it would be great to used active 2-way crossovers that are common to DJ and Pro Audio gear. If they are variable and have a BP feature for your 8" drivers, all the better. Active x-overs are used on the front end of the amplifier circuits and some have variable adjustments so one can fine-tune drivers as needed. If that proves too expensive and hard to find, other options like the F-Mod filters can be employed.
As I see this so far, a solid 4 channel amp can drive the 8" MB/MR speakers off channels A&B and channels C&D can be used to power the Selenium Horns drivers. Since both are very efficient drivers, you won't need a huge power sucking amp to get the job done. (Especially for the Selenium drivers)
May I suggest we look specifically at the DJ sound system side of this install and create a plan of attack on this part of the system + sub. As I see things now, you may do very well using only 2 x 8" Ciare 8.50W's.
They can be run in parallel for a net 4 ohm load and bridge channels A&B for adequate power to them. Yes, they will be MONO, but for DJ and live sound, we often run MONO in this frquency range. If we want stereo separation, the HF drivers will fill that bill just fine. But they can also be run in parallel and bridge channels C&D for more power in MONO mode. That's not a big deal either.
MONO mode is basically audio channels A+B combined. That's fine for DJ and most Live sound use. When used as a daily driver, many run only the front stage and sub(s) to get a nice mix. The trick here, is to disable amp channels to manage power to the parts of the system that are needed and only provide power to the amps needed for daily driver and DJ modes. The HU can do that for you.
Do you see where this is going?
Swez
markz on 08/3/2008 13:53:43
i see where ur goin but i still wana go with 4 8" and 2 comp horns on seperate amps jus to get that xtra kick because i can! lol.
so say we use 4 8" on a large enuff 4ch .. and we will get stereo as i explained initially.. 2 ch bridged mono to L input 2ch bridged mono to R input.. if you see where im goin.. and a smaller amp on the horns as too much power is not needed.
i like the idea of the band pass on the 8's i can use my crossover to cut off below 90hz but what can i buy or make to cut off above 2k on the same channels?
swez on 08/3/2008 14:28:38
OK, you can go that route as noted if you desire. You can indeed bridge a strong 4 channel down to 2 channels and power all four 8" speakers as desired if you wish. (4 ohms per bridged is OK)
I would then look at using the HPF's on the amp of choice and set the HPF's at ~80 - 100 Hz. I would then use LP type F-Mod filters to roll off the highs at 2.5Khz.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=266-288
As for the HF drivers mentioned, a modest 2 channel amp with a variable HPF x-over point at 2.5 KHz would do the job. This amp would offer about 100 watts x 2 channels @ 4 ohms and ~50 watts at 8 ohms x 2. As for filtering, just use F-Mods on the input side of the amp HP @ 2.5KHz.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?DID=7&PartNumber=266-286
A little tweaking will be in order, but it's not rocket science either. At the same time, you'll want the sub to fill in the lower octave.
Anyway, we can fiddle with this a bit more later. But this looks like a sold plan to start with. Hope you are keeping up with the technical part on filtering. If not, we can break each segment down into smaller bites and look at component level parts of each element as needed.
Have a good evening Mark,
Swez
markz on 08/4/2008 13:25:41
like those crossovers Swez!
have you used them before? any idea how good they are?
swez on 08/4/2008 15:12:41
Yes, Harrison Labs makes some very solid products for projects like this. I have not needed them for any recent projects, but have directed other here to use them and yes, they do work well when used as designed. (Front end amp filters) No complaints so far in 4-5 years?
When we break it all down, these are low cost and easy solutions compared to expensive "active crossover networks" that cost much more.
DJ and Pro series designs often use passive component crossovers that work well enough. (All in one boxes) But the results are often a trade off that cannot be matched by Bi/Tri amping with active fiters. That's why I took the time to search out products that will keep your budget low and still get the job done effectively.
Passive filters are often very complex and expensive to build/buy. In your case, we have to look at amping power, impedance values and what drivers are in the mix.
Pro Audio experience tells me active filters are best when there are enough amp channels available for a specific set of drivers. (Sub, MB/MR and Horn Tweets)
If we knew a better and more cost effective way to get this project done, we'd share it with you. (Other Golds on this site)
Swez
anyway i need some advice on a build i have in progress here.. let me give you the rundown on the system.. Vehicle 2000 Nissan Sentra Sedan.
Pioneer DEH P6000UB HU Clarion MCD360 Xover Phoenix Gold TLD66 Line Driver
all 3 deck rca's utilized front rear and sub into xover then line driver.
amps are as follows Bass Atomic AT1600.1 Class D mono Stable into 1ohm on a pair of Digital Designs 2512a D4 12" subs.. 5cuft enc single chamber mono port 75sq" port area tune to 41hz.
This bass setup i intend to stick with.
Midrange now currently i have a Soundstream LW 580.4 on 4 6". a pair Phoenix Gold octane R comps up front
and rear channels bribged to a pair of Ciare 6.38MR 8ohm "DJ Speakers". at back
In addition i have An Audiofonics 1500w 2ch puts out 600.2rms on a pair of Ciare 8 " 8ohm midwoofers rated 200AES ea. also at back "also DJ Speakers"
Now the aim of the system is some degree of SPL competition as well as an very loud overall system for some serious middle class audio competition.
my plan is to get rid of the existing Ciare 6.38MR
and the Audiofonics amplifier.
and get another pair of the Ciare 8" and a large 4ch amplifier capable of appx 1000.4 rms or close this amp will be bridged both channels to act as a 2ch at 4ohm one Bridged set on a Pair of 8" which will perfectly match the pair @8ohm tast will net down to 4ohm parallel.
in other words 2 8" on each bridged channel.
i am keeping the Soundstream LW 580.4 which wil be connected to the same comps up front and a pair of 8 ohm compression horns Selenium D2500Ti NB.
the 4 8" and pair of compression horns will be done in a fiberglass Enc on the vehicles backdash all facing forward slightly tilted out the doors.
in terms of current draw i hav a pair of kinetic HC1800 batteries Stock 80A alt 0ga big 3 and all 0ga wiring.
amps Atomic 4x40A fuse
Audiofonics "to be replaced" currently 2x40A fuse
Soundstream LW580.4 2x30A fuse.
that's it guys this system has to be as perfect as possible.
Please recommend any changes to midrange you see possible that may improve it as well as a possible 4CH amplifier i can use and any possible changes or tweaking that may be necessary.. that i may have missed. THANKS!
Replies (10)
swez on 08/2/2008 06:29:45
Egads man, you have a lot of stuff going on here in a very modest sized sedan.
It looks like the front end part of the system is pretty solid and just needs some HF drivers for tweets. The Bass Engine seems pretty solid as well.
The rear deck will be the challenge to obtain good balance and smooth MR/TW responses. The 6.38 MR's are fine above 500 Hz., but drop off rapidly in SPL response below 400 Hz. I don't know what the 8" version can do, but if you have the full part number, we can have a look. Here's the specs on the 6.38MR's:
http://www.steveselectronics.biz/products/ciare/images/638MR3.pdf
Selenium Horns in back??? Are you sure you really want to go that route? I did find specs on that one. Horns like this tend to be best used in DJ or live sound applications. If memory serves correctly, these puppies are very efficient and very peaky too. They'll rip your ears off with 25-50 watts of power and sound very honky below 3KHz. So, having sufficient 7-10 band EQ or variable Parametric EQ would almost be a must. Here's the specs on that driver:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=264-274
Note the 111dB SPL @ 2.83 volts. They won't need much amping power to create "listener fatigue". Loud... YES, smooth and crisp... not w/o considerable EQ-ing.
Comments?
Swez
Victor on 08/2/2008 06:47:01
"Ditto"
in addition, Let me just copy paste sentences from your post, but just in a better sequence.... and you'll take the hint...
Bass Atomic AT1600.1
An Audiofonics 1500w 2ch puts out 600.2rms on a pair of Ciare 8 "
Soundstream LW 580.4 which wil be connected to the same comps
a pair of kinetic HC1800 batteries Stock 80A alt 0ga big 3 and all 0ga wiring.
amps Atomic 4x40A fuse
Audiofonics "to be replaced" currently 2x40A fuse
Soundstream LW580.4 2x30A fuse.
160+80+60 = 300amps current draw...
you are not doing justice to your equipment here.....you definitely need a HO alt...
Victor....
PS: horns are known to be very effective for staging and imaging purpose in a SQ system.... mostly SQ systems are moderately powered systems aimed at listening levels of not more than 120db's.... they would be nice for a front stage with 25-50wrms power.... putting them in the rear doesnt make sense to me personally...
markz on 08/2/2008 13:03:05
ok guys.. the 8" model is the Ciare 8.50W response 60hz~2khz
reason for the Compression horns at back is to fill the notes above 2khz where the 8" cut off.. also this system is more directed to the listeners outside and not inside hence the reason for me needing it to be loud and clean as possible.. using drivers instead of tweets here cuz tweets tend to get really distorted at high vol and the horns will play a better overall sq. in car this system wont be reaching high volumes and wil only be driven to a tolerable level.
with regard to equalization thats the reason for the deck i chose has a great 7band EQ as well as many other useful features.
with regards to Current im tryna hold off on a new alt as much as possible but if need arises i will have to..
swez on 08/3/2008 05:16:19
OK, I get the idea. Your front stage is more for inside the car and the rear/trunk Sub/MR/Horns system are more like a portable DJ sound system. Upen the trunk and windows and Viola, DJ rig on wheels.
The Ciare 8.50W's are very efficient but they are most usable above about 90 Hz. Ciare recommends a very small sealed enclosure of 25 liters per speaker. (About 0.85 ft^3 per driver and that will be very compact, even if you use 4 of them in all) The plot gets a bit spike/dip above 2KHz. See frequency plot here:
http://seeburg.net/Ciare_850NdW.pdf
If you do run the Selenium drivers, a good HP crossover point for them would be roughly 1.5 - 2.5 KHz. The woofer will fill in the lower 1.2 octaves of bass and powered off it's own amp.
As for the 8" Ciare's Mids and Selenium HF drivers, consider a custom designed passive crossover system and a 2 channel amp of ample power to run these as 2-way, BP filters and perhaps L-Pad attenuators to balance the Selenium drivers. This will be tricky, but worth the effort.
Note: The Selenium drivers can be mated with several common wide/medium/narrow dispersion horn shells, (1-3/8"-18 TPI)
that mate to the driver mounting thread specs. Depending on the dispersion characteristics desired, you have a few options to consider.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=264-274&ctab=14#Tabs
Comments?
Swez
markz on 08/3/2008 12:10:22
you hit the nail right on the head there Swez!
that is the intention of this system!
the 8" you quoted there is not mine tho mine is the same speaker but the regular magnet not the Nd.
this filtering is quite interesting tho.. however i am gonna use seperate amplifiers for comp horns and 8".. but doin a BP on the 8" is interesting how do i go about this?
and dont forget my question abt the 4ch amplifier.
swez on 08/3/2008 13:29:41
OK, we're on the same page and moving forward.
As for filtering, it would be great to used active 2-way crossovers that are common to DJ and Pro Audio gear. If they are variable and have a BP feature for your 8" drivers, all the better. Active x-overs are used on the front end of the amplifier circuits and some have variable adjustments so one can fine-tune drivers as needed. If that proves too expensive and hard to find, other options like the F-Mod filters can be employed.
As I see this so far, a solid 4 channel amp can drive the 8" MB/MR speakers off channels A&B and channels C&D can be used to power the Selenium Horns drivers. Since both are very efficient drivers, you won't need a huge power sucking amp to get the job done. (Especially for the Selenium drivers)
May I suggest we look specifically at the DJ sound system side of this install and create a plan of attack on this part of the system + sub. As I see things now, you may do very well using only 2 x 8" Ciare 8.50W's.
They can be run in parallel for a net 4 ohm load and bridge channels A&B for adequate power to them. Yes, they will be MONO, but for DJ and live sound, we often run MONO in this frquency range. If we want stereo separation, the HF drivers will fill that bill just fine. But they can also be run in parallel and bridge channels C&D for more power in MONO mode. That's not a big deal either.
MONO mode is basically audio channels A+B combined. That's fine for DJ and most Live sound use. When used as a daily driver, many run only the front stage and sub(s) to get a nice mix. The trick here, is to disable amp channels to manage power to the parts of the system that are needed and only provide power to the amps needed for daily driver and DJ modes. The HU can do that for you.
Do you see where this is going?
Swez
markz on 08/3/2008 13:53:43
i see where ur goin but i still wana go with 4 8" and 2 comp horns on seperate amps jus to get that xtra kick because i can! lol.
so say we use 4 8" on a large enuff 4ch .. and we will get stereo as i explained initially.. 2 ch bridged mono to L input 2ch bridged mono to R input.. if you see where im goin.. and a smaller amp on the horns as too much power is not needed.
i like the idea of the band pass on the 8's i can use my crossover to cut off below 90hz but what can i buy or make to cut off above 2k on the same channels?
swez on 08/3/2008 14:28:38
OK, you can go that route as noted if you desire. You can indeed bridge a strong 4 channel down to 2 channels and power all four 8" speakers as desired if you wish. (4 ohms per bridged is OK)
I would then look at using the HPF's on the amp of choice and set the HPF's at ~80 - 100 Hz. I would then use LP type F-Mod filters to roll off the highs at 2.5Khz.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=266-288
As for the HF drivers mentioned, a modest 2 channel amp with a variable HPF x-over point at 2.5 KHz would do the job. This amp would offer about 100 watts x 2 channels @ 4 ohms and ~50 watts at 8 ohms x 2. As for filtering, just use F-Mods on the input side of the amp HP @ 2.5KHz.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?DID=7&PartNumber=266-286
A little tweaking will be in order, but it's not rocket science either. At the same time, you'll want the sub to fill in the lower octave.
Anyway, we can fiddle with this a bit more later. But this looks like a sold plan to start with. Hope you are keeping up with the technical part on filtering. If not, we can break each segment down into smaller bites and look at component level parts of each element as needed.
Have a good evening Mark,
Swez
markz on 08/4/2008 13:25:41
like those crossovers Swez!
have you used them before? any idea how good they are?
swez on 08/4/2008 15:12:41
Yes, Harrison Labs makes some very solid products for projects like this. I have not needed them for any recent projects, but have directed other here to use them and yes, they do work well when used as designed. (Front end amp filters) No complaints so far in 4-5 years?
When we break it all down, these are low cost and easy solutions compared to expensive "active crossover networks" that cost much more.
DJ and Pro series designs often use passive component crossovers that work well enough. (All in one boxes) But the results are often a trade off that cannot be matched by Bi/Tri amping with active fiters. That's why I took the time to search out products that will keep your budget low and still get the job done effectively.
Passive filters are often very complex and expensive to build/buy. In your case, we have to look at amping power, impedance values and what drivers are in the mix.
Pro Audio experience tells me active filters are best when there are enough amp channels available for a specific set of drivers. (Sub, MB/MR and Horn Tweets)
If we knew a better and more cost effective way to get this project done, we'd share it with you. (Other Golds on this site)
Swez
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