MelloYellow

Will the 3-way 165w3 Utopia's fit in the front C5 kick pod area? How do you make them fit properly? I'm going back in to replace an MB Quart 6.5" and 4" custom setup that was done wrong 2 years back. The front grilles cover 50% of the 4" speaker.

Should I buy 2-way's? Anyone have pics of a proper 3-way 6.5" setup with the pod grilles off?

Thanks!

Still_Single

I think the 165W3s fit just fine! see pics ... I traced a pattern off of the stock Bose speaker mount - transferred it to 3/4 inch MDF - and it turned out great. ... not hard at all. These are old pictures - if you'd like to see more - here's the link to my old posting ...

Kenwood multimedia install - pics, pics, and more pics




Good Luck - you won't be disappointed! :flag



[Modified by Still_Single, 9:46 PM 1/25/2003]

MelloYellow

Awesome, thanks!
Does the door skin cover the speakers at ALL in this position?

Still_Single

Great question - Luckily, the car is torn apart right now for some other mods :crazy: - so it was easy to go take a pic.

As you can see, there is some coverage of the midrange by the door panel. In fact, it's almost 50%. If I reworked the mounting frame a bit, I could probably get the covered area down to the top 25% - but I really don't think that'll make all that big a difference in perceived sound quality. I believe that tweeter placement is the more critical item to ponder. I'm not sure that where I've got my tweeter is the absolute best - but I haven't found a significantly better place to put them yet. I'd love to hear where others have placed their tweeters ... (car related locations only please! ) :lol:

Good luck with you project! :cheers:





[Modified by Still_Single, 11:53 PM 1/25/2003]

MelloYellow

That's the same problem I have with the way they mounted my MB Quarts back in the day. I'm looking at my setup again after 2.5 years. I think my big problem is my tweeter is located in the center over my mid-range which is covered 50% like yours. If I can relocate my tweeter to your location I think that may fix my main problem.

How do you like the way your system sounds?
I have some lower end MB Q's as rear fill right now. I noticed you have rear speakers also. Do you like surround vs. a stage presence? Many prefer not to have rear mid/hi's, but you do, eh? You mention in your sig that you have 'center' speakers as well. Where are they located?

I was also considering Focal Utopia AUDIOM 6W in the rear location to help out the mid-range. That way you wouldn't have voices coming from the rear, but you'd get more mid-fill since your front mids are covered. All really ends up just the way it sounds. Think I'll be tweaking again. Gonna do my subs first and try repositioning the components.

Still_Single

I'm very happy with the system right now. I'm using a surround processor most of the time to improve sound staging - that's why I kept my rears full spectrum. ... otherwise, I'd do something like you mentioned and route bass-only to the rears, or no rears at all.

My centers are the focus of my current audio rearchitecture. Originally, I had a small Kenwood center speaker behind the big monitor in the console. If you tried really hard, you could almost hear it over the road noise. (and my car's pretty quite compared to some others!) There was just no way in the world that small center was going to be able to keep up with those focals and the sub. I'm building some custom boxes to mount some focal 136Ws and TN51 tweeters in the center part of the console. I'm having to rebuild part of the console frame to get everything to go in there 'proper'. It'll probably take a few more weeks to finish. I'm taking pics and will post everything when I'm done. :)

I'd play with your tweeter placement - I still think it's possible to mount tweeters in the door panels themselves for better imaging - I just couldn't convince myself enough to start cutting into them. The area above the window controls on the passenger side seems perfect for a tweeter, but the driver side is too crowded ... :confused:

Good luck - let us know what works best for you! :cheers:

MelloYellow

After much thought, I think I'm going to re-work my MB Quart components in the door. My tweeter sits directly above the midrange which is 50% block by the door skin.

I'm going to go with the 2-Way 7" Focal 180W setup instead. That way nothing is covered by the skins. Also will probably use the Utopia A-6W Mid/Bass for the rear speakers.

Actually am gonna re-do the subs first. Switching from 3 JL Audio 8W3D6's to 2 10W3D4's. Will be selling the 8's in a fiberglass enclosure here when I'm done. I can live with the MB Q door setup for now, but will do the Focals in the next 1-2 months too.

Will post my opinions on them. Hope they are worth the change!
I do need a crossover reccomendation for the mid-bass Utopia 6W's tho. Think it's Hz range is 100-6000.


[Modified by MelloYellow, 2:38 AM 1/28/2003]