Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Audio Tweeter Advice

I'm sorry if you found my post "harsh", I don't mean to rip on the location where you placed your tweeters, but I was warning against what IS a poor performing location. So, you like it, more power to you, but there are a great deal of better performing locations. A pillar, dash, kick panels, door panels, etc...You can be offended, but I will scream from the mountain top to avoid what you did for performance reasons.

I didnt get offended, I just believed the advice on the location was good. If you dont mind, can you explain why (besides too close to your ears supposedly) it would be a bad spot. Ill pick a mountain too. lol
Sorry about the post being so serious, ive been in a pissy mood today.

Here's another good reason not to install tweeters in the B-pillars: The speed of sound.

340.29 m/s at sea level. So for the sound to travel the distance between the tweeter and your left ear at that speed would probably be somewhere around 3 milliseconds less than the sound travelling from the right side. May not seem like a large number, but it does have an effect and time correction wouldn't even be enough to fix the other problems that arise.

Your second problem would be the volume on the left side being much higher than on the right since the tweeter is little more than a foot from your head. I suppose you could adjust the balance to compensate for this, but heaven forbid you have a passenger. As you make it better on your side, the passenger side would get worse and worse. With my setup I have all the time correction and EQ settings set to my liking. When I have passengers, I just shut off the time correction. Because my speakers are closer to being equal distances from my head

Midrange -2.5 feet/4 feet, 1.3 milliseconds difference

Tweeters -2.7 feet/4.3 feet, 1.4 milliseconds difference

Although it's also not perfect, the time difference is much less than it could have been had I put the tweeters in my B-pillars right beside my head.

The ideal setup would be nearly impossible to achieve. You'd have to break out your windows and mount the speakers on poles. Nobody is going to do that, but the truth is, cars were not designed with stereo systems in mind. When working out your soundstage, you want the speakers to be as equidistant from your ears as you can get them. That is why kickpanels are such a popular option. They allow you the option of placing the tweeter and the midrange driver pretty much as far away as you can get them. I actually had my tweeters in the kickpanel location for a while



Although I initially thought the placement was good and it did sound good, people were kicking them when entering the car, that and I felt the sounstage was noticeably low. I have since moved the tweeters into the A-pillars, aimed slightly forward. I'm quite happy with this change, as the sounstage has moved both up, and forward.

The location is poor because:

(1) The tweets are too far from the mids. There's no point source, and different frequencies which should reach your ears at the same time are not.

(2) The tweets are too close to your ears. You want the speakers in a car to be as far away from you as possible to help minimize the difference from your ears to the left and right speakers (equal distances are optimal).

(3) The tweets are behind you. As the common question goes "Do you turn your chair around when you go to a concert?" This makes for an extremely messed up front soundstage, especially with the mids mounted in front of you.

(4) I'm guessing that you're running your front and rear speakers in full-range in addition to the two pairs of tweets you've mounted up front and in back? You've got eight different speakers producing highs in your vehicle when only 2 are needed (maybe 4 if you've got whiney rear seat passengers, but I've never had complaints from back-seaters with just a pair up front). You've got highs bouncing every which way from every direction, not exactly idea for a good front soundstage and accurate sound.

You should try and come to one of the SVT Heart of Illinois car shows this summer and listen to Bob Johann's SVT and hear a phenomenal front soundstage. He's got 8" subs in the front doors and the mids/tweets mounted in custom kick panels. You could even listen to mine - you'd be surprised what kind of sound only 5 total drivers can produce (2 tweets, 2 mids, 1 sub).

All of you bring up valid points. Actually the tweets are not set to be behind me, they are closer to being in front. Ive been playing with time correction today and havent felt too much of a difference. It did sound a little bit better when I set it at about 3 or 4 (forgot what its measured in.) Either way I barely BARELY noticed any difference. Is the setup perfect? No, obviously. Do I regret doing it? Not really. The tweets in the back are amazing in sound. I sometimes just sat in the back with the remote and listened to music from there. Ive always had complaints from rear passengers of bass being higher than the music itself, and I wanted to fix this. Im still looking for better mids, but at the time, the only price option for me was tweeters. If I wanted to move the front tweets, I guess my only option would be going to a junkyard for these plastic cover pieces that I drilled into. Either way, I have major problems with the mechanical part of my car, and im looking into Audi's. All I know is that when I go all out, ill make sure everything is perfect. Including our illusive "soundstage"

Thanks for your kind advice, and if I ditch the 'stique, I know I will still stick around here. Who knows, I might even find an SVT for auction somewhere.

All of you bring up valid points. Actually the tweets are not set to be behind me, they are closer to being in front. Ive been playing with time correction today and havent felt too much of a difference. It did sound a little bit better when I set it at about 3 or 4 (forgot what its measured in.) Either way I barely BARELY noticed any difference. Is the setup perfect? No, obviously. Do I regret doing it? Not really. The tweets in the back are amazing in sound. I sometimes just sat in the back with the remote and listened to music from there. Ive always had complaints from rear passengers of bass being higher than the music itself, and I wanted to fix this. Im still looking for better mids, but at the time, the only price option for me was tweeters. If I wanted to move the front tweets, I guess my only option would be going to a junkyard for these plastic cover pieces that I drilled into. Either way, I have major problems with the mechanical part of my car, and im looking into Audi's. All I know is that when I go all out, ill make sure everything is perfect. Including our illusive "soundstage"

Thanks for your kind advice, and if I ditch the 'stique, I know I will still stick around here. Who knows, I might even find an SVT for auction somewhere.

Sorry, I haven't got any pics. She's asleep under her blanket for the winter in the garage. She's a black/black base model with a 5-speed and currently stock with about 68K miles.

I just got her last spring and had a very fun summer. I'm looking forward to some track events this summer, so I can go up against my wife in her newly turbo'd Miata (Greddy turbo going in this winter).

I need a bigger garage.