Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Audio Front only or Front + Rear?

Since I have upgraded my amp (ADS PH30) I haven't been running any rear fill speakers. In the front I have ADS 346is comps and I like the way it sounds.

I only have 75watts going to each side/set. The 2 other channels aren't being used on the amp, because I had planned on hooking the rear fill speakers up since the only reason I didn't is because I needed to run longer wires.

My question is which one of would you do:

1) Keep Amp in 4 channel mode run 75 to the Tweeters per side and 75 X 4 (300 watts to the complete set) to the woofer per side, leave the rear speakers out of the system. Since the Xovers are biampable. Is this too much?

2) Change the Amps output to 2 channel mode putting out 250 x 2. (Give or a take a bit) And leaving the rear speakers out of the system. Is this still too much power to give to these comps?

3) Wire up the rear fill speakers, which are 6.5" Eclipse Coax. Each speaker would get 75watts and the front Comp set would get 75 to split.

Thanks for the help

I am running 336im's in all 4 doors. I have the gain down a bit on the rears, it is just for fill, but i like a lot of 'body' with my music. I plan to upgrade to 346is's up front some day to improve the soundstage. Each door currently gets 50W from a Nakamichi PA504. It's plenty loud enough.
I would go for # 3 - Your amp is awesome on SQ, and the power is more than adequte. Run 75W to each door and be done with it. Later you can upgrade your rears, or better yet, figur out houw to stuff some 308rs.2's in each rear door.

Mark

There are two schools of thought on this question & perhaps Dave will eventually weigh in with his own advice.

The first belief is that rear fill speakers are not really necessary, especially in the rather tight confines of the Contour's interior. If it was a dimensionally larger vehicle, say a Lincoln Town Car, station wagon or SUV then rear fill might provide a "fuller", more enveloping, 3-dimensional sound stage.

However, it is possible for rear fill speakers to negatively impact the overall music reproduction by pulling the sound stage rearward if the system is not adjusted properly. This phenomenon results in an unnatural sound as the music seems to be coming from behind the primary listening position instead of in front of it.

Frankly, if you like the way it sounds in it's current configuration, why change it?

If you absolutely want to retain your Eclipse speakers, then by all means either run your a/d/s/ amp in full four-channel mode or better yet, utilize the internal amplifier on your head unit for the rear fill & either bridge your four channels to power the front a/d/s/ speakers as you described in option #2 or distribute them between the tweeters & mid-woofers as in option #1.

In my own system with the P840.2 amp, I bridged channels 1 through 4 in pairs for the front speakers, channels 5 & 6 power each of my Boston rear fill speakers & channels 7 & 8 are bridged to power my single Infinity sub.

Thanks for the info!

Think I may try it several ways and see which I like the most. I need to tweak the front speaker levels a bit.

I can't run the speakers off my head unit, its a Sony ES C90 so there's no power.

I just wasn't sure if putting 75watts to each woofer/tweeter was safe or not?

Dave can you chime in with your expertise?

Thanks again for all your help, its much appreiciated.

I'd contact a/d/s/ directly to inquire whether their separate components can handle that kind of power if you're concerned about it, but I would guess that you will be fine.

Actually the dealer who did my installation recommended I do something similar with my system & skip the rear fill speakers. But since my Bostons were only a few years old & performed so well in their previous role as the primary speakers in my Tracer wagon, I simply didn't want to put them away in boxes unused.

Your amp is a 75x6 amp, correct? If that is the case, I would bi-amp the front components to provide 75 to each driver (woofer and tweeter) and then use the remaining two channel amp to drive the rear two speakers.

Another thought to consider would be to replace the eclipse with some sort of larger midbass (7"-8") to mount in the door and do a kick panel install for the current mid and tweet. In this scenario you could triamp a 3 way component set up front.

I guess what it comes down to is that if you have passengers in your car in the back seat often, you may want to run rear fill speakers. If you don't frequently have passengers, either fill or no fill can be made to work well.

I doubt that cleared anything up but I think Trapps and SVTContour said most of things I would have.

Well your right about my amp being 75X6 but I have the 5/6 channel bridged and going to my 2 310rs.2 subs. So I'd be working with the front four channels. I think I'm going to try it with the four channels going to just the front comps and then with the 2 channels to the front and the other 2 to the rear.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Thanks again for the help, mainly I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to blow the speakers by putting too much power to them.

front & rear!!! run a seperate amp for the subs and use a cap!(capacitor-1 farad) and go to an mecp cert. technician!enjoy your music