Need replacement tweeters

[lemansguy]

Alright, so I've been slowly fixing the wiring mess in my car, and and i am half way through the amp bypass. I bought premium speakers for the front since my car didn't have them when i bought it. BUT, i found out my tweeters are junk. so my question is, what tweeters should i buy? should i buy replacement e30 tweeters, or are there better tweeters out there that i can put in the housings, while using factory premium sound woofers and crossovers up front.

[AndrewBird]

These come highly recommended and fit the stock housing. With a bit of modification of course, nothing major.

http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-nd25fn-4-1-neo-silk-dome-tweeter-element-4-ohm--275-053

[lemansguy]

I saw the thread where those were recommended, but it's referencing e34 mids. I wasn't sure if there was a difference with e30 premiums, and if the stock crossovers could handle these tweeters.

[StereoInstaller1]

Nope, those will blow almost instantly with the chintzy factory crossover. The stock tweeter is about the best choice for the stock crossover IMO

[AndrewBird]

^^^Yeah, didn't consider the crossover.

[lemansguy]

alright thanks for the clarification... now I need to figure out if I want to spend money on stock e30 tweeters, or step up to a nicer front stage altogether... Stereoinstaller, ive been watching your other thread where you mention the tweeters listed above, is running e34 mids, those tweeters and your crossover my best next step?

if im going to spend money on something I like to do it only once, and making sure its done right.

[StereoInstaller1]

alright thanks for the clarification... now I need to figure out if I want to spend money on stock e30 tweeters, or step up to a nicer front stage altogether... Stereoinstaller, ive been watching your other thread where you mention the tweeters listed above, is running e34 mids, those tweeters and your crossover my best next step?

if im going to spend money on something I like to do it only once, and making sure its done right.

Well, OK, so let me put it like this:

1. The single biggest thing to change the sound of a given speaker is the environment it is playing in. The same speaker can sound completely different from one car to another, it's common knowledge.

2. All speakers, every damn component set ever designed, was made to sound good in one environment: the demo room of a car stereo shop.

Conveniently enough, that same approach also means the speaker will sound good in just about any large baffle, which is fine for the doors of a Suburban, F150 or even a CRX, but terrible for the tiny space behind the E30s (or any BMW for that matter) midbass speaker.

3. The quality of the components used in the crossover has more of an effect on power handling and clarity than the speaker itself. The filter is the crucial part, because the filter runs in series with the driver, so the better the filter the better the control of the drivers frequency response, linearity, etc.

So, to address these 3 primary issues, we "cherry picked" the BMW speaker lineup. We found that the later model E34 uses a very high grade tweeter, superior to most component kit tweeters. Its a nice silk soft dome with excellent power handling and amazing dispersion.

We found the E34 front mid/woofer is bigger and beefier than most any mid-priced component kit. Way beefier than Focal, JL, Kicker, Infinity, etc, it just isn't as pretty. It is readily available both new and at junkyards worldwide too, thats another bonus.

So, what we did is take pretty much "BMW level" components (big 18ga air core coils, 400V Poly caps, thermistor tweeter protection...the good stuff) and do something that has never been done before in this industry: design a car audio speaker system from the ground up for ONE specific vehicle.

The filters we use are far superior quality to that of even $2000 component systems, there is nothing on the market that even comes close to the level we use. Typically, if you look at most $500/set components you will see cheap 100v Mylar caps and iron core 24ga chokes, with generic design crossover points. The difference is clearly audible, this isn't some "golden ear" magic, and it essentially triples the "real world" power handling as well.

So, having said all that, here is what I can tell you: I have been a pro installer all my life. 34 years so far of using my skills to make cars sound good, all in the name of making happy customers.

I have installed every kind of component kit you can imagine in these cars, from super chintzy $39 crap to top of the line Danish Dynaudio kits. Some sound great, some are harsh and spit fire at your ears, but none of them actually fit well and none of them have any useful output below about 150Hz...because they use the wrong driver specs and the wrong crossover points for this particular environment, they just can't work well in this particular car. Add to that the hassle of making them fit...well, imagine the look on your buddies face when your system just trashes their expensive bits and you tell them you paid $12 for your speakers at a junkyard...

Luke

[lemansguy]

so, cliff notes version (though I appreciate all the info, I do enjoy the techy part of car audio) is that I need to find an e34 setup, and buy your crossover network to run it.

sounds like I have some more saving to do!