Tweeter Install?

[STAGE-A]

anyone know how to get to the factory located tweeters ? ... do we have to start at the rear of the car pulling all the plastic back just to get to the tweeters? Is there an easy way?

Might take my cam and do a "how to" ... im gonna install =)

6.5 woofers with crossovers and tweeters front AND rear ( WOOOHOOO!!!)

Amp Cabling Kit

Amp (5 channel - 4 channel plus mono block built in for the sub)

12" sub

Capacitor (1farrad)

2x head rest monitors

1x roof monitor

hahaha if i can find an easy way to get those damn factory tweeters out

Edited June 16, 2006 by STAGE-A

[qikstagea]

factory tweeters? do you have an s1 or s2? wasnt aware they came out with factory splits... im pretty sure they just have a four speaker system - one in each door.

I just pulled off the door trims to fit 260W Pioneer 3ways in each. they originals were just shitty clarion paper dual cones.

Sounds like a gnarly install you'll be doing.

Im running pair of 1000Wpioneer subs, powered by two 800W monoblock pioneers, fed from a 1 farad capacitor each, as well as the door speakers. dash mount LCD is on the cards as soon as i start at strathfield.

Might upgrade to amp'd splits later, after tax return.

Edited June 17, 2006 by qikstagea

[CruiseLiner]

i dont remember any factory tweeters when the dash was out, but if there is get pulling that dash off cause it will take u a fair amount of time and swearing and cursing

worst part is trying to get the main section of the dash back in as its a tight tight fit between the "A" Pillars and i managed to scratch the shit out of my A pillar trims when putting it back in

[beastien]

Mine had factory splits, tweeters are in the A pillar trims, removed the factory ones and replaced them with pioneer bullet splits.

The A pillar cover is tricky to get off.

[Terminal]

yeah what beastian said, they're just little covers in the A-pillar. not all stageas come with tweeters factory though

[jasevr4]

Is the little cover in all Stageas though? Even if they don't have tweeters?

[Terminal]

nope, if you don't have tweeters you won't have the covers

[jasevr4]

Cheers

[wolverine]

tweeters sound better located down on the kick panels. that's where i would locate mine.

[Terminal]

most people put them in the door trim, up the top near the vents. most tweeter packages come with a fitting to sit in that spot

[GoldZilla]

Mine had factory splits, tweeters are in the A pillar trims, removed the factory ones and replaced them with pioneer bullet splits.

The A pillar cover is tricky to get off.

Correct, mine has the factory splits as well.

I can just stick a fingernail under the cover and get them off, it shouldn't be too hard. If worst comes to worst, grab a small flat screwdriver or similar...

I've already got my splits for the front, but I haven't put them in yet. Where has everyone put their cross-overs, though?

[Terminal]

i jammed mine behind the kick panels. on the passenger side the computer gets in the way, so i just stuck it under the carpet at the top of the passenger footwell

[wolverine]

most people put them in the door trim, up the top near the vents. most tweeter packages come with a fitting to sit in that spot

they do put them there terminal but here is an example of what i am talking about.

from fhrxstudios

Where should I place my tweeters for best performance?

Okay, lets all think about staging for a second. You don't go to a concert and sit with your back towards the band right? And admit it - we'd all like to be right in front and center of the band on stage true? And you'd also like to be at the right height to - like you were on the actual stage right in front of them listening. This is the imaginary image we try and capture inside cars today when we position tweeters in vehicles. Getting this is not just a simple matter of slapping them in just anywhere either.

The problem with mounting tweeters up high (e.g. on the sail area on the door) is this:

Think about the position of your ears in relation to the tweeters. One speaker is belting the high pitch tunes out about two feet from your right ear where as the left tweeter is triple that distance away. The stage has no choice but to be right out the right window. Sheer laws of physics govern this fact. Now if you place the tweeters down in the kick panels then the right speaker distance is about three feet and the left speaker is about three and a half. The problem is not eradicated but it becomes a lot less noticeable as the distance separation is reduced.

Now obviously the tweeters cannot be placed anywhere where they fire straight into ones feet so you have to be very careful about their placement on both sides and the more often than not this results in them being mounted very high in the kick panel, quite often out of sight like mine are because they're so far up under the dash.

The next question people ask is this; isn't the stage going to be low?

The answer is not so much to do with the physical tweeter location but the power level they receive. If you have sufficient power going to each tweeter from a high quality amplifier then your tweeters will not only fill out the stage 'height' nicely but the entire front cabin of the car. That said though, serious competitors utilise ambient tweeters up high (these are much quieter than the primary tweeters however) to lift the stage a little to head height from chest height that usually exists.

And someone is bound to mention time alignment - they always do.

The biggest problem with time alignment is this; the better you make your side sound (and you can get it absolutely perfect), the more your passenger suffers. Think about it - it time delays the right side speaker so both signal paths reach your ears at the same time. The problem is that the passenger has the reverse problem to you so as you side gets closer to being the same side to side, theirs get worse and worse.

So how does one get the stage right in real world terms?

At the end of the day you just have to play around a bit (and sometimes it can take up to four hours or so) to get the tweeter placement just right to achieve a nice stage 'width' , 'height' and 'depth'. Get yourself a nice big blob of blue-tac. Stick the tweeter onto a panel somewhere and grab a song with powerful female vocals (a strong female voice is generally considered best for stage testing). Close your eyes and imagine you're at the concert. Now listen to where she is coming from. Is she singing right in front of you? Is she off to the left a tad or right? Simple move the tweeter a few inches in a direction and have another listen. How is the image? Can you hear where all the band members are exactly? How is the depth? Does the drummer sound like he is behind the other musicians? Keep doing this until you get the image dead center or just off to the left a little bit but remember to take a rest every fifteen minutes to let your ears normalize. If you attempt staging for hours your ears tend to 'hallucinate' and give false readings.

[Terminal]

i've never seen that. i wouldn't put them there though, when your legs are in the footwell it muffles the sound. i had speakers in my kick panels in my old kingswood and it affected it like that.

[AlexCim]

I put mine where the stock ones came. I did not have stock ones come with the car, so i drilled holes and put there in there.

To remove that A pillar part, you need to do the following (easiest this way)

- Remove front seats

- Remove door sills/kick panels

- Remove the covers for the seatbelt things

- Remove A pillar thing

Trust me when I say, this is NOTHING compared to removing the rear bar! Just a quick run down of the rear bar

- Remove boot carpet

- Remove holders/plastic caps etc

- Remove plastic from sides

- Remove wall carpet

- Remove rear bar

That takes about 2h, compared to the A pillar ~30 minutes.

In my system, I LOVE the tweeters placed where they are. My Hertz HSK165's are splits, with woofers in the doors and tweeters on the A Pilar. As there is no midrange speaker, the balance is made via tuning the EQ.

Hertz does actually stock midrange speakers, but not on the RS4.

If you want a comment on my sound systems pumpage, I honestly dont think it could sound any better than the way it is, ask Ian, aka humble.

[3intheBack]

To remove that A pillar part, you need to do the following (easiest this way)

- Remove front seats

- Remove door sills/kick panels

- Remove the covers for the seatbelt things

- Remove A pillar thing

No disrespect intended, but when I learnt my ABC's, the A pillar was the one adjacent to the windscreen and the B pillar was the one beside the drivers head - with the seat belt attachment ( as per above description) ??

Or did someone change the alphabet on me...

[Terminal]

no, the A pillar part is also connected to the B pillar, its the one piece of plastic

[AlexCim]

Yep, Terminal is right.

The A + B pillar is a single plastic peice. Then the C + rest of the back of the car is a single peice of plastic. This makes removing all the plastics difficult as dogs balls.

[3intheBack]

Well, I'll be a skunk's armpit.

I'm going home to check it out.....

......30 minutes later.....

well for crying out loud and slobbering down the sink - he's right, it's all one piece.

Now you have factor in removing the passenger grip handle as well!!

Not that it worries me anyway, I've already got tweeters.

Edited June 19, 2006 by 3intheBack

[muck]

how did u guys wire up your splits?

did u use the factory speaker wire?

my confused as to where the factory splits and woofers wires come together.....

alternatively.. i can drill to get the speaker wire back into the car.. but im leaving that as the last resort.....