Thinking of going 3 way in the front of the C5, 8/6" woofer, 4 or 5 1/4" mids and a soft dome tweeter. I was reading up on making a passive X over and didn't think going active until it was mention in one of the articles and how much better it is. I would have to get 1 more amp.

Is going this way, better than buying a 3 way component system? (assuming all speakers were created equal) It makes sense (to me) running 1 speaker for one channel instead of running a 3 way system on 1 channel.

 

If you are pretty familiar with the inner workings of system tuning, frequency ranges etc, a 3 way can be quite good. But to quote a guy I respect on a different audio forum, "if you can't make a 2 way setup sound good, a 3 way will rape your mother" heh

In terms of space behind the factory grills, you will be snug with a 6.5" midbass and a 4" mid unless you want to do some door panel cutting and build some relatively custom mounts. I have a 7" midbass and a 3" dome mid (4" basket) and I have about 10% of the mid blocked behind the door panel/factory grill. If I wanted to spend a few days fixing it, it could be done. The vette is my baby race car at this point and I plan on going back to a 2 way sometime in the near future.

To do a 3 way active, you will need a Headunit with at least a sub control function (12/18/24db slopes with adjustable frequencies, ideally 50/63/80/100 at a minimum, this can be done with a sub amp as well) and a stand alone processor for the midbass/mid/tweets. The vast majority of amps will not offer the flexibility required to properly setup and tune a 3 way active setup. And you will need seperate amplification for each channel (basically 7 channels).

You can also build/buy a passive crossover for the tweets if you wanted to minimize additional costs for more processing, but you are fixed at that given crossover point unless you plan on running tests and are familiar with building your own.

A 3 way is best suited for an A pillar mounted tweeter, and there are some very recent threads regarding location, fabricators and costs to have it done. I would probably recommend buying a second set of A pillar covers and having them built to accept the tweet of your choice, and you can always go back to stock if you wish. Pretty much any other viable mounting option for a tweet in the vette results in bad pathlengths, reflection issues, or blockage.

G'luck on the project, and check out the FAQ sticky for tuning suggestions and system components/installations

Fej

 

Any 2-way or 3-way component system plus subwoofer can be run with active crossovers and separate amplifiers.

If you can buy the speakers without having to get their passive crossovers, then you can save a little money to apply to the extra electronics needed for your active system.

As fej mentioned, you may have to purchase a separate electronic crossover that's tunable enough for you to optimize your speaker's capabilities.

The amplifiers can be selected for optimal performance in each frequency band, which is similar to selecting a dedicated subwoofer amp. They don't all have to be the same or even the same brand. Generally speaking, you may want 1000 watts driving your subs, but you don't need that much power to drive just your tweeters.

The improvement in sound quality is well worth the expense IMHO. But you really need to understand what you are doing to take advantage of the technology and get the most out of your system.

 

Saw this up for sale, NIB, JBL GTX47 4 Channel Automotive Continuously Variable Crossover Grand Touring Series. Forgot to mention I would be going with something like this. Maybe with an active crossover I can get the mid bass I seem to be missing with what I have.

Head Unit: Clarion DXZ785USB /w 160G external hard drive
Front: Speakers: Infinity Kappa 60.9CS
Rear: Speakers: Infinity Kappa 52.9i
Sub: Infinity Kappa Perfect 10DVQ
Amplifier (s): Infinity Reference 475A 4 Channel (Front/Rear)
Infinity Reference 1600A (Sub)

 

Infinity speakers tend to be on the lower-end artificial-sounding side of things. You can probably make them sound better active, but they may be your weak link.

 

I had the Infinity Reference Series in my Stealth RT/TT and an active crossover and have been trying to get that sound back. I'm in it for SQ. The Focals are really nice but @ $550 vs $130 (yea, you get what you pay for) I went with Infinity. If this doesn't help with the problem I'll be getting high quality speakers and building the 3 way for the front.

 

Active crossovers allow additional tuning. They will need to be properly adjusted to show ay significant improvement.

that being said, I'm running a 3-way setup in my car with 6.5 midbass and 4" midrange. I had to build a custom fiberglass enclosure to get them to fit properly.