Front stage options

[dubdub]

This is sort of a risk/reward thread. I am trying to decide if reposition my front speakers will yield enough of a benefit to justify the time, money, and non-stock look that it might cost.

What are people running for a front stage? Pics welcomed. I don't care what speaker you are running, I am asking about placement, angling, etc.

In my last E30, I had a big system that included fiberglass speaker pods in place of the pockets. It took forever to get to look as good as stock but I did it all myself and it sounded great. I just don't know if that is worth the effort on my newer, much more stock E30.

Does angling the speakers in the existing position help? difficult?

Open to any thoughts and discussion.

Thanks.

[dashboardmonkey]

Do you drive with your head between your knees?

Did'nt think so.

I have big system in my e30. Probably one of the loudest, definately the loudest at the e30 picnic. 130db~

My fronts are poited straight at you in my car though. Draw backs: no glove box or under dash panels. Worth the trade off for me.

So, is it worth it? That is entirely up to you.

[Gregs///M]

Do you drive with your head between your knees?

Did'nt think so.

I have big system in my e30. Probably one of the loudest, definately the loudest at the e30 picnic. 130db~

My fronts are poited straight at you in my car though. Draw backs: no glove box or under dash panels. Worth the trade off for me.

So, is it worth it? That is entirely up to you.

130db? That's it? What subs/amp/box are you running?

[rcsoundn1]

pics of setup?

[StereoInstaller1]

Andy is a wee bit off on his numbers.

His car is running a custom 3.5 cubic foot vented enclosure for a ghetto 15" woofer.

It will do about 130 at 20Hz. More like 140+ around 50Hz or so, I am sure. It will compress your head like you would not believe. It was clearly audible across the entire Picnic last year using a 140 watt Pioneer amp....seriously, loud as fucking bombs on a $59 pile of crap amp.

We are rebuilding his old Kicker ZX amp before we choose a new woofer. If we can't get that old US made beast to behave, we will choose a new amp and woofer then.

I think with some tweaking on better gear, we could get close to 150db.

Luke

[bmwman91]

motherofgod.jpg

[dwvw]

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=225828&page=3

About half way down the page is my front stage setup. Sounds very good. Need to get better speakers,but I probably have the best sounding MTX coaxes in Canada!

[bmwman91]

I remember that thread...super solid custom work there!

As far as front sound stage, I thought about building custom mid pods into the A-pillar trim, but decided against it since that is just begging for a break-in. Instead I used some tin snips and a mallet to shoe-horn some ~7" woofers in the kick panels and custom-machined the frames on some nice Seas tweeters so that they fit perfectly into stock tweeter pods. It all sounds great to me since the higher frequency stuff is firing straight at me. The bass and mid-bass frequencies really aren't all that directional anyway.

[StereoInstaller1]

Now that we have this crossover in my E34 on the stock speakers, I am starting to re-think my idea of never offering speakers for the E30.

If we do decide to do something, it will start with a super-quality 2" speaker being installed in the top of the dash. Holy crap, the E34 has SO much better staging, I just can't believe it.

[dubdub]

DWVW, did angling the speakers some help much? That doesn't look like it would be dramatically different... and even less of an impact on the drivers side.

Not being critical, just trying to understand the pay-off.

[StereoInstaller1]

DWVW, did angling the speakers some help much? That doesn't look like it would be dramatically different... and even less of an impact on the drivers side.

Not being critical, just trying to understand the pay-off.

That little of an angle may not seem significant, but do some careful listening with any speaker and you will see it changes the "focal point" pretty significantly. All transducers become more directional as frequencies increase, so try listening to a pure sine wave at say 800Hz and another at say 2500hz, turn the speaker away from you, start the sine, and then rotate back towards you. You will be shocked how little the 800hz changes, while the 2500hz signal changes a bunch....it should basically double in volume as you turn it towards you.

The other advantage that little angle gives is the reduction in standing waves in both cabin lengths (figure 80Hzish) and internal reflections (around 800Hz), so the SQ should be improved....plus his mounting is both nice and solid and "de-coupled" from the sheet metal...so yeah, that tiny angle AND how they were installed would have an impact, no doubt.

Luke

[dwvw]

I kinda laugh at this forum. Everyone rags on the kick panel location of the factory speakers. Yet the rest of the car audio world jumps through hoops trying to get where we start. Is the kick panel the best spot for a speaker? not by a long shot, but it is better than most other factory spots offered by other vehicles. Why? Path length. If you measure from the speakers to the head rests, the left and right difference is superior in kick panels. Now if you want to make a 1 seat wonder, the dash pods are the way to go nowadays. But those cars have processors with time alignment to correct the path length difference, and they sound terrible for the secondary seat.

Like Luke said, as we go up in frequency sound becomes much more directional. There are also tuning tricks we can do to raise the soundstage by emphasizing certain frequencies that will trick our brains into thinking the sound source is higher (physically) than it is. Almost all height localization is due to the shape of our ears, in contrast with left right localization which is obviously more affected by the placement of our two ears on our head.

Decoupling the speakers is huge! I have foam between the speaker and the spacer, and the spacer and the cars metal.

[bmwguy325is]

But those cars have processors with time alignment to correct the path length difference, and they sound terrible for the secondary seat.

So buy a deck that has time alignment. My new pioneer figures it all out for you. So yes it tunes for the drivers seat. It also tunes for both front seats. All you do is plug in mic and wait 5 min.......
I may add you can change all that at the push of a button it stores the setting for each.

[dwvw]

I have a DEH 80-PRS, so I also have time alignment, auto EQ etc.

Auto EQ is a joke, I would maybe use it to get a baseline tune, and go from there at the most. You can not tune for both front seats with dash pods. Period. anything that fixes one side destroys the other. There is no voodoo or magic.Just physics. If you delay the near side speaker to make the imaging better for one, it totally destroys the imaging for the other side.

[reelizmpro]

Anybody put speakers in the headrests in an E30?