I'm new to car audio...and I have another question. A lot of people put the tweeters in the plastic triangles of the front mirrors. Reading some websites, and it seems that for components kits, they all recommend putting the tweeters above the woofer (from the kit). I was planning on putting 5-1/4 in the front doors and the tweeter up in the mirrors.
What do you guys recommend ?

 

Knowing the guys on the board, you will get both answers. Many like the mounting location of the mirror location, the effect of raiseing the sound a little.
Others will tell you that with correct placement you will get the same effect from more coventional mounting locations, and having the tweeters on axis with the mids is important to aviod hystersis, out of align and phase sound problems.
I would suggest you mount the mids, then use tape and try the tweeteres in these and any other locatioins you might be willing to try, and then listen to source materal you know well, and decide for your self. Like purchasing clothes site unseen and not tried on, installing tweeters might go better if you tried on the locations before commiting yourself to one or the other....
Just a suggestion- listen before you drill!

 

Good suggestions. Another part of the issue is how much do you want to modify the interior of the car.

I suspect most people who would mount their tweets near the mid range would want to flush mount them, for appearance sake.Some people feel comfortable drilling holes in their door panels, others don't.

The mirror triangle is the factory location for the 2002.5 tweeters, and only requires drilling a couple of small holes.

Personally, I'd use whichever location sounds best, given the speakers selected.

I think it's Kicker components that allow you to mount the tweeter in the center of the mid range, not requiring any additonal mounting space. I'm not sure how this sounds, but it is another option, if "stealth" is one of the goals of the installation.

 

But wouldn't that be back to coaxials? just that it has a more fancy crossover...

Anyway my Blaupunkt components gives me the option to mount the tweeters on top of the midrange also (in fact it came packaged that way and i was shocked, thinking they shipped me a coaxial speaker)

 

I know the Kicker tweets also come with separate mounting hardware. I would guess that sound is comprimised if you leave the tweeter mounted in the center of the mid range. I don't think that would be my choice, unless it sounded better in the car than the other options.

The key is having options. Cars are not concert halls, and factory speaker placements certainly aren't the best for imaging or sound quality. The more things you can try with a given set of speakers, the better the chance of finding the combination of factors that will give the best sound possible.

When I visit car audio places, most have some sort of a car setup in the store. I tend to concentrate on the sound I hear, not the type of component providing the sound.

If it sounds good, and is in your price range, go for it regardless of whether it's two way, three way, component, etc. With most audio stuff - home and car - mid level products give you about 95% of high end. You get into diminishing returns real quick for most people.

If audio is you thing, however, no expense it too much for that little bit extra. That's why people get into $100/ft speaker cables, tube amps, etc.

 

Iroc, I think I've got your number again! If you read my reply to your "Infinity and Rockford" thread, you know what I mean.

I've done BOTH (again!) - originally, I had tweeters in the mirror panels, and now I have switched to the near-woofer location (drilling into the door panel). Replacing the mirror triangles cost me about $15 - no sweat there.

Anyway - you will get lots of different opinions. While the mirror location does raise the soundstage higher, it's at the sacrfice of imaging and stereo separation. I found that the driver's side tweeter was just too close to my face and a bit overpowering. Unfortunately, due to the stock speaker location, the passenger side woofer seems more powerful, too (more direct line to your ears, and more inline with the speaker). So fading the sound to the right solved the tweeter issue, but worsened the woofer issue. I considered re-wiring everything, and having the driver's tweeter work with the passenger woofer, etc., thinking this might help - but decided against it because that would totally screw up the left/right separation.

I eventually just moved them to the door panels.

The "goal" in car audio is generally to try to equalize the sound path to your ears - that's why people build kick panels near the flooboards. This is the best location in almost any car to have the speakers facing you, and have them as equidistant as possible from your ears.

Using some tape and playing with location is your best bet. Most component speaker manufacturers recommend either having the tweeter within 3" of the woofer, or more than 7 or 8" away from it - anything in-between can cause frequency cancellations, etc. I don't know how much weight the argument holds, but following those "rules" seems to work okay.

If you would like, consider mounting the tweeters (only) in a kick-panel location, near your feet. You just might get some great imaging there.

Experiment with the locations, and find what sounds best to YOU - that's all that matters, even if it breaks the "rules". Try even some unorthodox locations (like the kick panel idea with tweeters only I mentioned before, or up high on the A pillars, etc.) - you never know what sweet-spot you might hit. And buying tweeters that can be angle-mounted or - better yet - have an adjustable mounting system, can help greatly in proper positioning by giving you more options.

~HH