Best speakers?

I think it will be Focal FTW. anyone run them with 100 watts going to them? I notice their RMS is only 75.....

 

Just depends what's important to you..and what some people forget about car audio is it can to a large degree follow you regardless of what you drive. I have one amp that's been in 6 of my vehicles now.

People wonder why I spend thousands of dollars a year going to concerts or how I can afford it. Simple, I am primarily a homebody even on the weekends normally so instead of bar-hopping I stay home. Even when it's concert night I don't drink so I only pay for ticket/parking and maybe a soda or 2.

 

you will be deaf after 10 minutes of playing them at 75watts [~116db+ rough math of 92db 1W/1M and only being 0.5m away]

wattage numbers are for sine waves not music [then again, the "loudness war" is getting close to pure 0db sine waves]

 

I have the Clarus comps and they are AMAZING! Do your homework on sealing your doors and you will be blown away.

 

I had no idea how much difference sound deadening would make. When I did the speaker install, I had gotten the wrong adapters. I made due till Mr Marv could get me the right ones. He convinced me to sound deaden the door. So I ran a week without it. Then installed new adapters plus deadening. The difference was phenomenal.

 

anyone on here know the diff between the ps165fx and ps165f? its about $100 difference and the crossover looks a little different, other than that i cannot tell. gonna buy one of em.....

 

The fx comes with a nicer biampable crossover. If you had a 4 channel amp - you could wire 2 channels up to each tweet, and 2 channels up to each mid and have all of the built in adjustability of crossover points and rolloff/phase selections that the xovers have.

 

FWIW, i hear from a lot of folks that Focal tweets are a little bright and can be harsh. i have not heard any Focals myself so i can't give my impressions of them (hence the "FWIW").

i've heard JL C5s, Audisons, Hertzs, and Hybrid Clarus speakers and they all sounded awesome. i would recommend any of those. i run hybrid legatia in my truck and they sound very clean, but the midbass could have a little more bass kick to them. this is pretty consistent with what other folks say about the legatia L6s. but for mids and vocals, they sound amazing. and with their high sensitivity they get very loud and stay very clean.

 

I do have a 4 channel but the other 2 channels will push my rear speakers. If i wont be bi-amping the crossover would there be any other reason to get the FX's? probably ordering them today....

 

co-worker has a set of Focals in his Accord-not sure what model. the tweeters are really bright and IMO needs major EQ to sound "natural" to my ears.

going full active would be the best bet as you could adjust everything to meet your likes.

also check out www.minidsp.com , i will likely be using these instead of car components. for price and features minidsp is unbeatable.

 

Probably not. If you decide to upgrade and run active later, with today's headunits or outboard processing, you wouldn't be using the fancier crossover anyway. Cave the coin and put it toward something else for the truck.

 

Slow - I need a good, simple overview of the MiniDSP in a car environment, if there is one. I'm assuming a 2x8 would be best suited to a active 2 or 3 way front stage, possibly a rear and sub. My understanding is that the Precision Power DEQ8 is the minidsp product in an OEM package for 12V applications.

 

Right on. itll be a few days for me to get all my ducks in a row but i will be aiming for one hell of an audiophile setup (well in my eyes at least). Pioneer NEX head unit, Focal components up front and coax in the back, ********* Image Dynamics ported 12 sub, all powered by the alpine pdx v9 amp. Should be quite adequate

 

2 - 2x4 is cheaper for a 3 way build. that will give you 3 stereo channels [low, mid & high]. though this requires at minimum 6 channels of amplification.

1st box does low pass to woofer and full range to mid, that mid output to 2nd box where you make your bandpass to the mid and high pass to the tweeter.

wow, i do think you are correct on minidsp making the DEQ8. menu buttons are identical.

 

Yes - there were some threads on this unit on diyma where soundstream/PPI reps confirmed that minidsp produces the processing hardware, although the board/chassis itself might be built by a 3rd party - hence the changes to things like footprint and connections. Also it had 4 channels of low level input - so it seems like they might be doing basically (2) 2x4's in a single board/housing. Also there appears to be a way to get 8volt balanced outputs - but I haven't dug enough. The soundstream synthesis is the same unit, just with the soundstream badge on it. (And a blue themed plugin)

Still - doing a pair of balanced 2x4's in a box as you suggest is cheaper.

 

if you start with high level and need that many channels the PPI box gets efficiently affordable.

i said nothing of balanced outputs. how many car audio amps have balanced inputs?

AFAIK only home audio nerds and proaudio care about balanced because of the long cable runs.

 

The flax fx do have a different set of mids than the f series and having listened to both it's well worth the extra $100. In the stock tweeter location I have the best luck running the tweeters reverse polarity on these speakers. And as far as focals being bright, if someone doesn't adjust the tweeter level on the crossover correctly for the location then yes it will sound bright. Otherwise I have had very good success with the flax lineup being very balanced and having great midbass for a 6.5" speaker setup.

 

Just ordered the f series, the guy i ordered from said if im not gonna bi-amp them then i would be better to save my 100 bucks and get the f's. Hopefully i dont regret that choice, but i doubt i will. Still an awesome speaker from the sounds of things.

I also just ordered a sound deadening kit from SRS... anyone worked with this guy before? He seems to know his shit. $248 to do my 4 doors and back wall, with MLV and CCF.

 

Op if you dont mind me asking, where did you get your alpine pdx-v9 from?

 

Amazon had 2 left (at the time) for like 460 and free shipping. Heck of a deal, but only warranty through the guy i bought it from, not Alpine.