I've never really been blown away by a 6x9, any quality 6x9 will be decent. An Oval is not the best cone shape. My VR 6x9s are nice and bassy, but don't have the highs my 6.5s do. As for a sub I would strongly recommend a 10" W6 or a W7 if you can afford it.

 

alright. thanks for the help man

now i just need to find an amp for all this =P

 

JL, Kicker, Alpine, Memphis Audio and even kenwood are good amps. There are more that's just off the top of my head. I'm going to pass out now, but I'll help you choose an amp tomorrow. Alpines new digital amps have my caught my eye, but I think a few others are releasing full range D class amps now too.

 

haha, alright

i'll need help to figure out what wattage i need as well, like i said i'm not too proficient with the actual equipment selection

 

If youre interested in getting the best sound quality out of your system, toofatt is right in starting with your speakers. These are the most important part of your system. Dont put too much emphasis on subs as theyre the least important.

Forget about rear speakers. How many high end home audio systems do you know that have speakers behind you (not talking about surround sound - thats not the same thing)? When you have different speakers playing the same frequencies but coming at you from different distances, theyll hit your ears at different times and cause cancellation, phase issues, smear detail and pull your soundstage to the rear.

So my suggestion for the best SQ would be to take the money you would spend on 4 sets of speakers and buy the best set of component speakers you can realistically afford. Then buy an amp that will properly power these speakers.

Now youll move to the sub. For an SQ application and assuming you bought quality speakers, you dont need your sub to do anything much above 50 Hz. Anything much above that and the sub bass starts to get boomy and overwhelm the front stage and it makes it much easier to locate the sub. A good quality single 12" sub (or 10" if budget and space are an issue) is generally the best way to go. Build a good sealed enclosure to the manufacturers specification and then get an amp with appropriate power then sit back and enjoy the ride!

 

I'm so glad your back Maleod, I've been the only one around and I really am no expert and we need expert advice around here. I did exactly what Macleod's suggested when starting my system, and I had only fronts for about year before I had some extra money and threw in the rears.

Macleod, by 50hz you don't mean cross the sub at 50hz do you? I've always crossed my subs between 70hz and 80hz.

 

like i said, the fronts are already replaced and they sound great, but the rears are blown out and it's easy to hear them fuzzin and buzzin, so i was gonna replace those while i was at it

 

Glad to be back bro! I get bored with forums sometimes and stay off them for several weeks at a time sometimes. I must have ADD! LOL

Crossing over your sub is kinda tricky and it is super dependent on what type of music youre listening to. If you listen to jazz or anything with a stand up bass guitar in it youll want your sub crossed over very low like 40 Hz. 40 Hz is the point where things start to get boomy and if you have your sub cut at 80 Hz, a stand up bass line is going to sound like crap and every other note will be twice as loud as the rest of your music.

Now thats all different if you listen to heavy metal or hard rock (which I do). For some reason, that type of music is recorded with very weak energy from 100 Hz down and so cutting your sub off at 70-80 Hz works much better.

Still the first time you put in anything other than rock or metal youre going to have too much sub. 63 Hz is where mine is at for daily driving with a 30 db/octave slope AND 80-160 Hz cut at -9 on the sub's EQ so my sub isnt playing anything above 63. If I didnt have such a steep cutoff Id probably stick with 50 Hz.

Now, all that being said, you also have to have front stage speakers capable of producing good midbass. If you dont then you have to use your sub for more of this range to keep your music from sounding horribly flat. Thats why its best to have as high a quality speaker as you can so you wont have this problem youll only have to use your sub very little.

Its up to your taste and what youre after. If youre wanting the best sound quality possible, youd be better served ditching the rears and getting a really good set of front components. That is unless you already have great components up front. And by great Im not talking about a $150 set of coaxials - Im talking about a $400 set of component seperate drivers.

Even if you dont, from a strict sound quality perspective, youre better off without the rear speakers. Save that money for something else.

 

Macleod do you recommend any books or online reading that really gets deep into crossovers? I only have a very basic understanding of how a crossover works and how manipulating it affects the sound.

EDIT: I listen mostly to stoner rock and metal, and I keep my sub crossed around 75hz. Should I bring it down to 70hz or 65hz and see how it sounds?

 

No not really. Carsound.com used to be the authority for my learning. Go to that forum and look thru the archives in the Mark Eldridge and Richard Clark forum. Mark is a mutli time world champion and Richard Clark is an audio god.

Crossovers are pretty basic in what they do. Basically they cut off frequencies at a given point and they do this by turning down the volume per octave. Say for instance you want to cut off your mids at 1000 Hz - the crossover will let everything up to 1000 Hz pass on thru but it will start cutting off frequencies after that at a level depending on the slope youve chosen. Say you chose a 12 db/ocatve slope, that means that 1000 will be normal but 2000 will be lower by 12 db, 4000 will be lower by 24 db, 8000 will be lower by 36 db and so on. So just because you cut your subs off at 80 Hz at 24 db/octave, that doesnt mean that your sub isnt playing 160 Hz - it is just at 24 db lower than it is 80.

Crossover point is actually the wrong term to use. A crossover point is NOT where you cut the frequency off. A crossover point is where one driver crosses another driver.

Say for instance you cut off your mid at 2 KHz and your tweet at 4 KHz both at 12 db/oct. The actual crossover point would be 3.2 KHz because this would be the frequency that BOTH drivers are playing at the SAME output (-6 db).

The best way to figure it out is to experiment with different crossover settings. There is no "set" way to tune in a crossover. It depends on too many things. Different drivers will interact differently with each differently, the interior of the car, your listening tastes and so on.