Speaker suggestion-are tweeters needed?

[Noseoil]

At my age, this tweeter conversation is a moot point. My "tweeters" are constantly running due to machinery & shooting...

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[P. A. Schilke]

At my age, this tweeter conversation is a moot point. My "tweeters" are constantly running due to machinery & shooting...

Yep! Mine is being a track side Indy Car official for 22 years...too many screaming race engines..

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[deeve]

I've got some pretty good internal tweeters going as well. I am hoping better speakers will be less tiring to listen to. Seems poor quality sounds is more bothersom.

 

[rang19ca]

I agree on the hearing issue. Years of Diesel engine noise and motorcycle riding has ruined my hearing so that i don't know what sounds good anymore. I'm afraid to change any speakers, Ha Ha.

 

[Langwilliams]

I'm wondering how good the factory speakers are compared to a decent set of aftermarket speakers. I'm thinking of a set of 6.5" mids/woofers an leaving the factory tweeter. sensitivity on those PB's isn't very good. Looks like you're paying for the convenience of plug an play.

I have a set of Infinity Kappa's an Kicker 3 way's laying around but I don't think they fit what the ranger needs. I had the Kappa's in my Harley before pulling them for a set of Hertz speakers. The kicker P1675s show up on the page with the polks on crutchfields site.

I guess I'm wondering how much an upgrade a simple speaker swap would give. I have the 6 speaker factory set up. It's not bad but my current set up on my Harley kicks it's butt lol.

 

[Metki]

I would never recommend installing coaxials in the doors and then leaving tweeters in the pillars. If that's what Crutchfield told you to do, that's just plain bad advice.

What happens is you have two drivers producing short wavelength sound at the same time which interferes with each other as they get to be different distances from your ears. And it gets worse at higher frequencies.

The effect is called comb filtering. And your effective frequency response in the range where both tweeters operate will look something like this:

Move your ears a couple inches and the peaks ad valleys move to different frequencies.

So in summary, if you want new speakers up front get separates and work out a way to replace the tweeter in the pillar with the new one. One tweeter per side is the only way to do it.

But they recommended the kicker key which has a mic and can adjust and delay not saying separates aren’t the best route but you can make the coax sound great with the right equipment and tuning

 

[Zaph]

I agree on the hearing issue. Years of Diesel engine noise and motorcycle riding has ruined my hearing so that i don't know what sounds good anymore. I'm afraid to change any speakers, Ha Ha.

I've done my share of loud stuff over the years, rock concerts, racing motorcycles and so on. But I've always used the best hearing protection. 34 NRR foam plugs for noise intensive tasks, and musician's earplugs for concerts. I tend to be pretty protective of my hearing. In a former life I used to design speakers.

But they recommended the kicker key which has a mic and can adjust and delay not saying separates aren’t the best route but you can make the coax sound great with the right equipment and tuning

The problem with coax up front is that (assuming the pillar tweeters are disabled and comb filtering isn't an issue) the image and soundstage tend to sit at the height of the tweeters.

Let's talk about the Kicker Key amps for a moment. The feature with a microphone that provides self equalizing response seems pretty useful on it's surface. But depending on the amp there may be some serious limitations.

For that feature to be the most useful, first things first, mic position will be utterly critical. It will probably need to be located at the exact position between where the driver's ears are. If you think you can hang it over your seat headrest, your results may not be good enough.

The functionality an auto EQ amp with a mic needs is the ability to average multiple mic locations and also to allow manual adjustment of EQ curve after visual inspection to smooth out excessive EQ. Averaging multiple mic positions will smooth the response for differing listening positions, and manual adjustment of the EQ curve will prevent the amp from making its own drastic response curve adjustments that arise from in-cab pressure nodes. You can have the flattest response speakers in the world but as soon as you put then in your truck the response curve varies up to +/- 10dB because of the non-perfect environment and that much compensation (particularly compensating for in an EQ curve has drastic side effects.

So what I'm saying is - what happens if you let your "auto EQ" amp take a typical response curve like this and EQ it to flat? It sounds horrible because the amp compensates too much for the dip in response at 500Hz. If anyone wants more explanation, there's more to it.

So I've only been looking at the Key Smart 180.4 and 200.4 amp and they don't appear to have much adjustability. Maybe the more upscale Kicker amps have better mic functionality, but these are pretty useless. Put it this way: The amp isn't smart, it's dumb, and the majority of people who try to use the auto-EQ feature are going to end up disabling it for lack of good results.

 

[Metki]

Lol dude he’s looking at Polk db and kicker not setting a sound stage for competition most mid level suggest coax to fill the car with sound I personally run seperates front and rear and a single sub but I’m a audiophile and spend more on my sound system then some do on the whole car

 

[charwest]

I am running the Powerbass components in the front & the coaxials in the rear.

we have a 2019 XL and im a little disappointed in the bass. the music is crisp but i just dont feel the bass like i do in my other recent stock vehicles at roughly the same volume, regardless of EQ tweaks or source.

i have no interest in adding a sub, but would a drop-in option like this powerbass speaker improve the bass experience, or would it be a lot of money with no significant improvement?

btw: is the speaker system on non b&o audio systems the same between the supercrew and supercab? (ie- if people say it fits, will it fit both of the cab types? most people have a supercrew and i want to be sure it would actually work on our truck)

 

[Ryan Plain]

we have a 2019 XL and im a little disappointed in the bass. the music is crisp but i just dont feel the bass like i do in my other recent stock vehicles at roughly the same volume, regardless of EQ tweaks or source.

i have no interest in adding a sub, but would a drop-in option like this powerbass speaker improve the bass experience, or would it be a lot of money with no significant improvement?

btw: is the speaker system on non b&o audio systems the same between the supercrew and supercab? (ie- if people say it fits, will it fit both of the cab types? most people have a supercrew and i want to be sure it would actually work on our truck)

According to Crutchfield both the supercab & supercrew have the same size speakers.

These Powerbass speakers really cleaned up the sound. The bass response is no longer muddy. It could be enough for most people.

 

[wickedZ1]

I recently upgraded my whole sound system. I used Kicker 46CSS674/ CS series Components. The rears are same but 2way. I added the 8inch Hideaway behind the rear seat. The tweeters were a direct fit. My installed also included a Alpine head unit with the KTA amp piggy backing it.

 

[CashSeeAO]

I would never recommend installing coaxials in the doors and then leaving tweeters in the pillars. If that's what Crutchfield told you to do, that's just plain bad advice.

What happens is you have two drivers producing short wavelength sound at the same time which interferes with each other as they get to be different distances from your ears. And it gets worse at higher frequencies.

The effect is called comb filtering. And your effective frequency response in the range where both tweeters operate will look something like this:

Move your ears a couple inches and the peaks ad valleys move to different frequencies.

So in summary, if you want new speakers up front get separates and work out a way to replace the tweeter in the pillar with the new one. One tweeter per side is the only way to do it.

I came across this post today. Thanks to Zaph on the explanation of the Comb filtering effect. Given that the Comb effect is caused by the combination of the same identical signals arriving at the listener at different time, how can one avoid it in a real world environment such as inside of a car? Even if you have a single sound source (e.g. single tweeter), you will have the same sound bouncing off multiple surfaces such as dash, windshield, door, etc. that will arrive at the listener at different times. There is no practical way to avoid the Comb effect in a car. Perhaps what Crutchfield recommended to the OP (post #1) is not that crazy in my opinion. I don’t claim to be an expert sound engineer...just my 2 cents.

 

[Zaph]

I came across this post today. Thanks to Zaph on the explanation of the Comb filtering effect. Given that the Comb effect is caused by the combination of the same identical signals arriving at the listener at different time, how can one avoid it in a real world environment such as inside of a car? Even if you have a single sound source (e.g. single tweeter), you will have the same sound bouncing off multiple surfaces such as dash, windshield, door, etc. that will arrive at the listener at different times. There is no practical way to avoid the Comb effect in a car. Perhaps what Crutchfield recommended to the OP (post #1) is not that crazy in my opinion. I don’t claim to be an expert sound engineer...just my 2 cents.

Comb filtering generally happens with two active drivers reproducing a higher frequency range with short wavelengths, not a single driver with reflections.

It is true however that reflections cause a non-flat frequency response but the dips are never as severe as true comb filtering. The reason being is that any reflection is partially absorbed by the surface it is reflected off, even glass. The level of the reflection, even if it's only a couple of decibels lower than the primary signal, will only cause a minor frequency response aberration. Then there is the angle of reflection also. Shallower angles tend to have the soundwave follow that surface rather than reflect and will diffuse even further in both level and time domain.

So... reflections from tweeters aren't great, but will never be as bad as having two tweeters.

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