adlezama1909

So, I recently got a Christmas gift from my wife... a Sony XAV64bt...




Other than that, everything is stock. I ordered sony's XSH20S tweeters



For my next steps, I will most likely be changing the stock speakers and installing a subwoofer in the trunk. Any recommendations?

forester06x

Many forum members have gone with the Polk Audio dB651s for door speakers and like them. General consensus is to upgrade the tweeters first, then head unit, then front door speakers, then rear door speakers. Many have also bought 1 or 2 of the Sea-scooby 8" subwoofer kits that fit right in a side cubby in the hatch, and they like them as well.

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Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX

My recc.... Ditch the Sony tweeters, buy a proper "component" set... The Polks mentioned above are an option...

Subaru's require a spacer to get anything "decent' in the car, in terms of speakers...

This is part of the reason "slim" models are made (Polk 651s)

First off, ditch the tweeters.... there's a lot more to car audio than haphazardly adding speakers..

forester06x

A proper component set will include an adjustable electronic crossover unit that goes in the door panel as well. This can help you tweak the sound, controlling what frequencies are played by which speakers. If you get a subwoofer, the amp might have an adjustable crossover unit built-in. Don't crisscross frequencies between the bass and midbass too much, it could cause cancellations. I lowpass the subwoofer in my house at 100hz with a steep slope crossover, which means that only frequencies >100hz are played by the subwoofer. Frequencies below 100hz are omnidirectional, which means your ears can't physically locate where they are coming from. Therefore you won't be able to tell that your subwoofer is in the rear driver's side hatch cubby, etc. This phenomenon is perhaps more useful in home theatre where the subwoofer could be in a corner far away or such- but in the cabin of a car, no matter where the subwoofer is placed, it will still only be a few feet away from your ears.

I highpass my mains speakers at 125hz with a wide slope, and the "wide" slope means that the crossover doesn't roughly cutoff frequencies at 125hz, but is more forgiving with the frequency range I have prescribed - the mains speakers might play frequencies below 125hz, but at lower volumes than that of the specified passband of 125hz-20kHz. So the mains speakers themselves will play frequencies <125hz, and the tweeters inside my mains speakers will play all the way up to 20kHz. The mains speakers have a passive crossover built into the cabinet that splits the highest frequencies going only to the tweeters.

What does this mean for car audio? Perhaps your head unit might have a built in adjustable crossover function. You can customize which frequencies are sent to which amplifier/speakers much like a home theatre amplifier would. It's fun to play with the crossover and see how your settings influence the sound. There are no specific rules that you MUST follow, just use what sounds best to you. Although, it is recommended that you don't crisscross frequencies between different sound sources (like mixing 200hz between the subwoofer and mains speakers) and that you don't use a "bass booster" equalizer setting, as it could fudge your overall sound quality- if you want more bass, turn up the gain on the subwoofer amplifier. Have fun and do report back if you decide to mess with the crossover settings; we'd like to know what sounds good in the Forester cabin.

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adlezama1909

Thread Starter

Thanks guys! I will definitely give it a try.... Might take a little longer, and since I'm kinda broke after the holidays...


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Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX

1. Component speakers don't come with electonic crossovers, they come with passive crossovers and they typically come with 2 options of attinuating tweeters

2. "criss crossing" frequencies is what crossovers DO Telling someone to NOT play with thier crossover settings is SILLY... as there isn't a SINGLE situation that emulates YOURS... Stop now...

3. Frequencies below 80hz and even at that you can localize far lower.


I have to stop, this is possibly the most confusing mess I've seen recently...

Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX

Not to be completely harsh to 06x...

Your new headunit comes with a highpass crossover function, use it, but try different frequencies...

First, the deffinition of active/passive crossovers...

Active, is powered externally via some 12v power source, it used on PRE AMP (RCA) level signals ONLY..

Passive, is powered BY whatever power is going TO the speakers, it is inline and has no external power input of it's own and works on SPEAKER level outputs (high amp)

What I think dude was trying to say, yet puts the cart WAY before the horse IS...

Using a crossover is a very good idea, it splits the frequency range up and gives it to the speakers that can faithfully reproduce it...

This is why there are subs/mids/tweeters, not any one can produce the range, even if they get fed it...

So, you crossover the frequencies, sending highs to tweeters, mids to mids and lows to subs...

In basic systems they are full range (your stock system) so you are asking ONE speaker to complete the range, is it a wonder it sounds bad?

by adding the simple high pass crossover built into your new HU, you'll "cut away" the lows that the stock speakers can't HOPE to produce... by doing so, everything else WILL sound better.. at least on the low end, because now that power that was being wasted, isn't being used..

In a semi-stock 2 way system you have a split between subs and mid/high...(adding a sub to the stock system) you get better lows, highs still suffer...

In a passive 2 way you have a sub and either a component set or coaxial speaker providing a "passive" crossover between the midrange and the tweeter, this "upper" crossover point is NOT adjustable in 99% of passive crossovers and usually you DO get a tweeter level adjustment (2)..

Then you set up to active systems (not really your concern) where you have to amp each speaker individually and remove all passive components from the system...

I personally run active in my car and while this has been to try and NOT confuse you MORE, let's just say it's complicated...

forester06x

EDIT: I was writing this while Aaronz was writing his, may be some repetitive content.

1. Right, I confused myself with the attenuation and electronic vs. passive. Most you can attenuate the tweeters 0dB and -3dB for example. You can buy separate electronic crossovers for car audio for serious tweaking, but the average listener doesn't need it.

2. Crossovers create a certain passband to send certain frequencies to the different types of drivers in your audio system. Passive crossovers are fixed, but with electronic crossovers you can modify the settings. I was talking about active crossovers here. You don't send a 20hz signal to a tweeter and you don't send a 5kHz signal to a subwoofer. You do criss cross the frequencies between drivers to gently mix them together- but you generally don't want to send 500hz to a subwoofer, why would you do that when your mains speakers can handle 500hz just fine? It is well known that different sound sources producing the same frequencies can cause cancellations... quote from acoustic designer Bill Fitzmaurice:

Of course a lot of other things can cause cancellations too, like reflections off walls and room modes and such, but this is more useful in a different setting, and car audio and home audio are vastly different so I should have mentioned that. The steep cabin gain of a car makes room modes moot. And I definitely encouraged playing with crossover settings?
3. Right again, I confused myself with my 100hz lowpass on my subwoofer and 80hz localization frequency. I believe that "localization" is kind of user-defined. I mean, if you go to the middle of a field and put one subwoofer 50 feet from your left ear and play a 60hz tone through it, you should be able to tell that the sound is coming from the left, right? But is that true "localization"? Could you find a subwoofer producing a 60hz tone in a living room with your eyes closed? But generally, 80hz is considered to be the cutoff frequency for localization. Again I mentioned that this is more useful in home theatre.

I need to have my memory checked.

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forester06x

To add to that, cutting away the lows that the stock speakers can't produce is also better for the drivers, so they don't reach the excursion limits (xmax) as easy. Lower notes=more excursion required to produce them- this is why subwoofer drivers have far more excursion travel than midrange drivers. That "farting" sound you hear on a low note at high power is the driver reaching that excursion limit, "bottoming out". With a proper highpass in place, it will sound a lot better and you'll find that it will take more power than before without creating that farting sound. Be careful, if you overpower your drivers you run the risk of burning up your voice coils and killing the drivers.

Highpassing is useful for subwoofers as well, so you don't bottom them out with say, a 20hz note that your subwoofer box is not tuned for. Some higher end subwoofer amps have an active adjustable highpass crossover, a lot of subwoofer amps have an adjustable lowpass crossover, and most all subwoofer amps have at least a passive lowpass crossover, at somewhere around 100-150hz.
Highpassing and voltage limiting is essential for true horn-loaded subwoofers at least, where the high pressure from the horn path can break a driver if it continuously bumps against its excursion limits, and where the "farting" sound of a driver in distress is filtered out by the long horn path, rendering this warning sound inaudible. If you don't properly limit and highpass a horn-loaded subwoofer, your driver could blow without warning- sudden silence.

Sorry for getting OT but I do feel it's relevant to the thread.

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Aaron'z 2.5RS/WRX

Relivent in confusing the OP

adlezama1909

Thread Starter

Thanks guys.... Not the reaction I was aiming for, but certainly useful, since I know nothing about audio modifications...

Don't worry about confusing me if I feel baffled, I'll certainly ask...

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adlezama1909

Thread Starter

By the way.... Anyone could point me in the right direction? What is the difference between 2way, 3way speakers? I understand active and passive refer to the source of power, and but I am still lost in many other ways...

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forester06x

2-way speakers, also called "coaxial" speakers, consist of two drivers, usually a tweeter and a woofer. The tweeter produces higher frequencies of course and the woofer handles midrange and lower frequencies.

3-way speakers, also called "triaxial" speakers, consist of three drivers, usually a woofer, a midrange driver, and a tweeter. The tweeter handles higher frequencies, the midrange driver handles mid-range frequencies, and the woofer handles lower frequencies.

Usually with coaxial and triaxial speakers, they are all in one unit, with the tweeter/tweeter+midrange sitting on a post on top in the middle of the woofer driver. Like so.

Coaxial:



Triaxial:




What you probably want is a 2-way component system with a separate woofer and tweeter. Like so, in fact these are the Polk Audio db6501, which is a 2-way component system:



The stock tweeter is placed in the sail panel at the bottom of the A-pillar in your Forester, and the woofer is in the bottom of the door of course. In your system with an added subwoofer and highpass crossover (does your HU have this function?), the woofers in the doors would probably handle <125hz and the tweeters might reach all the way up to 20kHz, which is nearing the high frequency limit of human hearing. 20hz is about the low frequency limit of human hearing.

3-way component systems are found in nicer audio setups than the Forester, and the woofer is in the bottom of the door, the midrange is about where the door arm rest is, and the tweeter is in the sail panel.

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adlezama1909

Thread Starter

Got it! Thanks for the detailed info... So if I went with the dB651s you guys were recommending, I'd probably not need separate tweeters, since they are coaxial, right? I'm thinking a pair of dB651s, and a woofer on the back, most likely filling up the pocket on the driver side.

Sound good?

adlezama1909

Thread Starter

whoops... make that a SUBwoofer in the back...