Spawn

I had (still have actually, taking up space in a closet) set of the sony Xplod 6.5 coax. They had a cap/hpf on the underside of the tweeters. But I won't recommend them, they folded, twice!

Newb

iTrader: (4)

I must ask, why do you want 3 way coax?

zoomer

iTrader: (3)

right question. why are you stuck on 3 way? most higher quality coaxials are 2 way. In the mid range there are products like the Polk DB series that have very nice dome tweeters and I do think a coil(inductor) as well on the built in crossover. A notch higher would be the Pioneer Kevlar REV series. They have a full crossove built in with even an inductor for the woofer.
There are a range of excellent 2 way speakers. I would stay away from most 3 ways as they typically are not as good as the better 2 way coaxials.
All coaxial speakers come with crossovers. Some are built in, some are external.
Only on very high end systems do you begin to see good 3 way designs. So stick to good 2 way

M.F.K

iTrader: (1)

I would have jumped on that but unfortunately I wont.

I have speakers in my dash and rear panel. They came stock with the car.
What I want to do is add a pair of 5x7" to my front doors for some extra volume and clarity. So if any one is selling their 5x7" 3 way speakers, shoot an offer my way.

But I have a question, Is it possible to run 2 front and 2 rear speakers from the on board amplifier, and run two more front door speakers through the pre-outs, at the SAME time. As in, just because I plug something into the the pre-outs, doesn't mean that the on board amplifier will stop functioning, or does it?

Newb

iTrader: (4)

I don't know that anyone makes a decent 3 way 5x7.

I don't see why you couldn't use the on board amp and the preouts, I think some older headunits could only run one or the other. The last time I tried that it worked tho.

zoomer

iTrader: (3)

Jumped on what? our preference for good 2 way instead of cheap 3 way?

Just to make sure: pre outs are intended to be used to feed a power amp, you cannot simply connect speakers to them....Sorry if this is basic.

But more important, there are many good 5x7 or 6x8 (same size) 2 ways out there. Stick to something with a dome tweeter. Polk, Infinity, Pioneer REV, newer alpine type S etc. I am sure the vendors here can suggest something. You probably do not want to use both new in door speakers and the OEM dash speakers! You can use the dash location for an extra tweeter, or to put the tweeter in a component setup.
You could drive the door speakers with an external amp and an extra tweeter from the head unit (with a crossover of course) but this is getting complicated for an entry level setup.
MORE critical is to be able to high pass your speakers so that they dont get the lows handled by your subwoofer. I do not recall if your deck has a HP filter. But if it does not, and you get an external amp, make sure it DOES have a HP filter!

Tom.F.1

iTrader: (1)

pioneer makes a half decent set of 5x7 2-way, TS-A5713.
Kenwood makes a 3-way.
there are higher end makes, but anything really good would have an external crossover.

Dual DS573 3-Way 5x7 Speakers, on sale for 19.99 US at
http://www.hifisoundconnection.com/Shop/Control/Product/fp/vpid/2672633/vpcsid/0/SFV/30046/sret/12191215162

M.F.K

iTrader: (1)

Sorry my last post was posted after the offer was made for the eclipse 3 ways and before I saw any of your posts.

But I was bent on three-ways because as a n00b i would think they offer better sound and better coverage of the whole sound spectrum don't they? That was the conclusion that lead me to believe that I'd be better off with 3 ways rather than 2 ways. But if you say good two ways are better than cheap 3 ways, then obviously you guys know more. But zoomer said that he would not recommend me using the dash speakers and the 5x7s in my doors. Why would that be? And yes I do intend to drive the door speakers with an external amp.

Edit: Spawn mentioned his Sony Xplods "folded" twice. What does "folding" mean?

zoomer

iTrader: (3)

These are a lot of good questions .
Here are some more.
2 way vs 3 way.
Speakers need to cover the full sound frequency spectrum. For low frequencies you need a large speaker that can move lots of air. This is the woofer. But typical woofers wether they are 5in 6in 5x7 etc will work up to maybe 5 Khz. It becomes impossible to make them stop and go so fast, and instead of moving just in and out, they start woobling. This is called cone breakup. It is the same as a drum. If you hit a drum in the center you make it move in and out. If you hit a drum on the side you can make it vibrate differently and sound different. Also, as the frequency goes up, insdead of making the sound go evenly out around the speaker, it starts beaming straight out like a flashlight
So for higher frequencies you need a much smaller speaker. These are called tweeters. The better tweeters are dome shaped instead of cone shaped and are made out of silk, or aluminium, or polyester etc. instead of paper.
a 6 inch woofer and a 1 inch dome tweeter are perfectly capable of covering the entire freqeuncy range very well, except for the very low frequencie. But you have a sub for that. Case in point: many of the top home speakers are 2 way only. You start seeing 3 way in very expensive models.
Then you also need a good crossover network to separate the sound frequencies from the different speakers. Good crossovers have inductors to prevent the high frequencies from going to the woofer in order to prevent distortion caused by cone breakup and beaming. And more important they have several capacitors and inductors filter the low frequencies out of the tweeter so that they do not distort, get overloaded and blow.
So good 2 ways have a nice woofer with rubber surround, a dome tweeter (or ring radiator on very high end models) and a very good crossover either built in (rare) or separate . The crossover frequency is around 3.5KHz give or take.
So, if you look at 3 way car speakers under say $200. what do you see? cheap paper or plastic (maybe chrome plated for looks) cone midrange and tweeter, usually not a dome tweeter, just a capacitor as a crossover, no inductor etc.
So why would anyone want a 3 way. 3 reasons:
1: better power handling. By adding a midrange you can have it handle more of the frequencies that the tweeter would handle. The Polk Momo and db 6x9 come to mind as I see no other reason why the have a midrange and tweeter. Or maybe it is just for marketing reasons ("ours are different than the others").
2: Let the woofer handle the base alone and let the midrange handle the critical voice frequencies. Therefore you can design a better woofer because it does not have to go so high in freqeuncy. You can also design a better tweeter because it does not have to go so low.
3: Placement flexibility in a car. You can leave the woofer low in the door and mount the mid a bit higher etc, or on the dash or A pillars...

The drawback is that it makes it harder and more expensive to make a good 3 way crossover and set the levels of the 3 speakers to match properly. And you have more parts to install etc.

If you look at most home speakers the woofers are 6 or 8 inch. These are small enough and can go high enough in frequency that only a tweeter is needed. If you go to a 10 or 12 inch woofer, you then see 3 way speakers. There are exceptions of course.

Now dash mounting.
You generally want the signal source to come from one spot. Thus the idea of a coaxial speaker. But down in the door is a bad spot to put a tweeter so you want the tweeter to be higher up. Now you need a component system. Maybe on the sail (that is the plastic triangle on the inside side of the door mirrors. Maybe on the A pillar, maybe in front on the dash firing up to the windshield. It is a matter of trying out different posistions and angles and finding the best sounding spot. What you do not want is the same sound comming from 2 sources because they will interfere with each other and prevent proper imaging. Imaging is the ability of speakers to let you hear where the sounds are comming from: left, right, center, low, high etc. They create an image of the sound stage and you can hear where the vocals and different instruments are comming from.
Also, it is usually hard to find a good high quality small speaker that will fit in the dash. So dont waste money on dash speakers unless you go for a component system.
Also dont put too much emphasis with most power handling specs. At least at your level. In the low price range it is a marketing war and you regularly see a company's low end speakers advertised with greater power handling than their high end speakers. It is a joke sometimes! little $5 tweeters advertised with 500 watt power handling! Ha!

There hope this helps!
Oh, and yes "Folding" As in folding your hand in Poker, as in a company folding, going bankrupt... As in an amp "folding" and no longer working. or even blowing up and smoking! it happens!