[chuyler1]

In a lazy effort not to start doing a bunch of dash fabrication in my wife's AW11 MR2, I'm wondering if anyone has ever taken a cheap set of coaxial speakers, clipped the connections to the tweeter, and run the drivers with separate channels of an amplifier to gain better control over crossover points.

The factory location on the dash in this model year MR2 isn't half bad. I have been able to use an older processor with time alignment to get a nice sound stage. However the Alpine Type S speakers I dropped in years ago to replace the worn out originals just cannot handle loud volume. I can't tune it out with an EQ, it's just overall harshness.

I know I could pull them out, and put in a dedicated 3 or 4" midrange, install some tweeters in the sail panels, maybe woofers in the doors, etc etc, but if I can solve the issue without buying and installing more drivers it would be nice. I don't need to win any sound competitions, I just need a bit cleaner audio for windows down cruising.

 

[lithium]

If you need output than try to fit a 4 inch or use a 3 inch with higher sensitive. Maybe a faital pro midrange would be something to try for not much money. Doesn't look like you can get the mid on axis from the angle so you will probably need a tweeter. Something small like a Dayton ND20 or ND16 can work if you don't need them to play low. Just stick them somewhere on the pillars, sail, or dash. They're pretty small so that shouldn't be hard.

Some other ideas would be a decent coax like you asked about, gl there. Maybe this dayton coax?

Home

Dayton Audio CX120-8 4" Coaxial Driver with 3/4" Silk Dome Tweeter 8 OhmThe Dayton Audio CX120-8 is a full-range coaxial loudspeaker providing high quality sound in a very compact format featuring a 4" curved linear poly cone woofer mated with a 3/4" silk dome tweeter. The poly cone woofer...

www.parts-express.com

Interesting option for you to try out would be BMR drivers from tectonics, they have wider dispersion pattern due to the driver design so they should work well off axis as a full range. But the sensitivity is probably going to kill this idea at 81dB/2.83v compared to high 80s to low 90s from a driver like the 3" or 4" faitialpro drivers.

Home

Tectonic TEBM65C20F-8 3-1/2" BMR Full-Range Speaker 8 OhmTectonic TEBM65C20F-8 Balanced-Mode Radiator (BMR) features extended frequency response and wide dispersion compared to that of a conventional drive unit. It combines the benefits of Tectonic Elements bending-wave technology and pistonic...

www.parts-express.com

 

[Hintzyboy]

Is there a space for larger drivers in the doors, or are the dash openings the only stock locations?

If there is a stock place for door speakers, I'd just do a larger mid in the doors and put the tweets in the dash location.

Or just put a nicer, larger coax in the doors and forget the dash altogether.

 

[chuyler1]

I can probably fit a 6.5 in the doors if I want to cut them up. I have a complete set of MB Quarts (old school pre buyout) that I’m considering, and I have some Boston woofers (missing tweeters) and a 3 way DLS set. All of this stuff is nicer, but will require cutting up doors and sail panels. If I can make improvements without doing that, it would be preferred.

i also have some 3” Fostex full rangers but those absolutely need midbass to sound good.

 

[daloudin]

Yes - numerous times - both for xover changes and simply to have more finite control over the wattage and timing.

The last one was the Morel Integra Line - owner wanted point source imaging but we had problems with comb filtering due to the woofer playing well into the tweeter region so we cut the wires and raised the tweeter xover and institued a BP on the midrange (4" Integra) with 8" Morel Hybrid midbasses for a full 3-way setup.

 

[Hintzyboy]

I can probably fit a 6.5 in the doors if I want to cut them up. I have a complete set of MB Quarts (old school pre buyout) that I’m considering, and I have some Boston woofers (missing tweeters) and a 3 way DLS set. All of this stuff is nicer, but will require cutting up doors and sail panels. If I can make improvements without doing that, it would be preferred.

i also have some 3” Fostex full rangers but those absolutely need midbass to sound good.

Maybe go with the full range and put Midbass under the seats? Not sure if you have much room there but there are some options for powered slim subwoofers out there.

 

[lithium]

Are you running a subwoofer?

Idk how much you're trying to throw into this system but something like a jbl fuse under front seats as midbass/sub (40hz to 150Hz) will get you close enough to any decent 4 inch midrange/full range you can fit in the factory dash location.

 

[hurrication]

To answer your question: Yes, I've done it years ago using one of the original Minidsp 2x4's on some Pioneer 6x9's. The main reason for doing it was to lowpass the mid and to cross the tweeter over lower with a 24db slope since the cap they usually put on them is a 6db.

 

[Kaspers126]

They cant handle volume probably because its running full range. Try crossing it around 300-400hz high pass and they should produce plenty of clean volume

 

[chuyler1]

Yes - numerous times - both for xover changes and simply to have more finite control over the wattage and timing.

To answer your question: Yes, I've done it years ago using one of the original Minidsp 2x4's on some Pioneer 6x9's. The main reason for doing it was to lowpass the mid and to cross the tweeter over lower with a 24db slope since the cap they usually put on them is a 6db.

Thanks guys, assuming it solved the issue I think I’ll give it a shot.

They cant handle volume probably because its running full range. Try crossing it around 300-400hz high pass and they should produce plenty of clean volume

I’ve bumped up to 150Hz, tried higher, but the breakup and harshness is easily identified as being in the upper range and not really affected by increasing the high pass. I’ll wire things up for running the tweeter as a separate channel and midrange band pass, if I can’t clean up the quality I guess I’m only out a cheap $100 pair of speakers that can be easily soldered back to original configuration.