[foofy]

I'm a novice so please bear with me ... and thanks, in advance, for considering my question.

I want "warm" speakers and am on a limited budget, so I've looked into it some, listened to comparisons and have decided to get 4 x Usher 8945A 7" Carbon Fiber/Paper Woofers ...

Usher 8945A 7" Carbon Fiber/Paper Woofer

... and 2 x SEAS Prestige 27TFFNC/G (H1396) 1" Textile Dome Tweeters ...

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...stige-27tffnc/g-h1396-1-textile-dome-tweeter/

The woofers are for placement in the front doors and rear deck of an '08 Charger. The tweeters are for the dash.

My question is this; have I chosen an amp (linked below) correct for the ohms and wattage of the speakers that I intend to use? I'm going to have them installed, but I don't want to purchase an amp with the wrong specs, ahead of consulting an installer. I just want to show up with the gear and ask them to put it in.

The woofers are 8 ohms, with 80 watts RMS (90 watts peak) each ... and the tweeters are 4 ohms, with 80 watts RMS, I think (see spec links above). I saw someone mention, in here, that hooking up 8 ohm speakers (of which there are four in this case, + the two 4 ohm tweeters) will get you less volume from an amp, so to pick an amp with roughly double the wattage of what you normally would? But I don't know if that applies differently to 4 channel or 2 channel amps and I couldn't find any amps within my budget that have the total wattage for this application, doubling it like that. Throw headroom into the equation and I'm totally confused. So I chose this one, but I'm not sure if I'm getting this right:

Sound Ordnance M-2250
2-channel car amplifier, 175 watts RMS x 2 ...

Sound Ordnance M-2250 2-channel car amplifier — 175 watts RMS x 2 at Crutchfield.com

I know very little about crossovers too, but these are what I'm looking at, for this:

Kicker KX2
Active 2-Way Electronic Crossover ...

Kicker KX2 Active 2-Way Electronic Crossover at Crutchfield.com

So ... soooo ... am I full of naïveté or what? Can someone give me an idea of whether or not I'm looking at an appropriate amp and crossovers for these speakers? Or what amp specs I should be shooting for, if not? I listen to live Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd performances a lot and all I know is that I loved the Delco in my '85 Trans Am and I run my hollow-body aluminum telecaster through an old Selmer MK II amp head, into some Fanes, at home. I like tone and abhor harshness. Car audio is new to me though and I am, as of yet, uneducated regarding the technical aspects of audio, regardless. I just know what I like and I'm aware of minor differences in sound, let's say.

Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks again!

Btw, I've discovered that people really love hearing BBC sessions of Zeppelin coming out of a retired '08 police Charger, but the weak and tinny stock system is killing my ears!!

 

[SO20thCentury]

...wellll that amp being a 2-channel is for driving one pair of speakers. You could drive all the 7s with it if you wired each side in parallel which would bring that load to 4ohm but you wouldn't have fader control. And you'd still need an amp for the tweeters.
The crossover I think is for subwoofer to mids frequencies. Tweets would need to be crossed at 2500 min according to the spec madisound gives.
Best advice I can give is Get Out Now! before you know too much!

Hollowbody Tele? Aluminum? pic?

 

[Lycancatt]

to do this right I would do the following.

run the rear deck speakers off the headunit so you can blend them in as needed, don't worry about a crossover for them as they will roll off naturally up top and have a nice laid back warm sound without tweeters.

Buy an arc audio xdi1200/6 amp and bridge four of the channels down to two and put one of the front ushers on each channel pair.

use the remaining 2 channels to power the tweeters.

The kicker kx2 should do the crossover controls you need to do and allow you to set the level between tweet and midrange very accurately, but if you have not considered replacing the factory radio..would you? something like a pioneer 80prs would really shine in this application or the clarion 702 (I forget the letters prefixing the number)

hope this helps!

oh..and do yourself a favor, find a single 12 subwoofer and amp and add it into the system, it will allow the ushers to play louder cleanly and not require them to be the only bass speakers in the car. Kinda like trying to get a 4x10 cab live to be deep and heavy without adding that single 15 under it..i don't play bass but I'm a drummer/pro audio guy so have heard damn near any setup in live and car you've ever thought of.

 

[SO20thCentury]

Crutchfield shows the kx2 as having both hp & lp filters as being variable 40-300hz- isn't that too low to cross tweeters? Am I missing something?

 

[Lycancatt]

Crutchfield shows the kx2 as having both hp & lp filters as being variable 40-300hz- isn't that too low to cross tweeters? Am I missing something?

you are not! my bad! most two way crossovers can at least do a tweeter highpassed, that's pretty limited for the price.

 

[BlueGhost]

You could get something like the NVX JAD900.5, PPI P900.5, Soundstream TN5.950D, or Polk D5000.5. They have a built in crossover network capable of running a 2-way active set up plus a sub. Then you will be ready to add a sub later.

 

[teldzc1]

Short answer, yes wrong amp.

Long answer is a little more complicated. Do you have a budget? Keeping the stock HU? Any other sources in play (phone)?

 

[miniSQ]

Curious as to why you feel you dont want to consult the installer? I am not saying you have to do exactly what the shop suggests, but i would NEVER take my car to a shop without asking for suggestions from the shop.

I have just read to many times over and over where people have what you plan to do only to be disappointed with the results.

Noone would blame the shop for taking your gear, screwing it down, powering it up and handing you the keys. That is not the best way to get a good install.

 

[foofy]

Sorry for the delay, everyone. I had a busy day. Thanks for the responses!!

Okay so, I'm trying to get my head around this.

@Blue Ghost, I checked these out:

NVX JAD900.5
PPI P900.5
Soundstream TN5.950D
Polk D5000.5

... and I like them, but they don't apply to this because the 8 ohm speakers that I'm using will require more wattage.

@Lycancatt, the Arc Audio xdi idea appeals to me the most, but it's over my budget and doesn't account for the rear deck. The problem with running the back deck off of the head is that I'd like to keep the stock HU and I think it only has like 60 watts. I tried to like the other units I've seen, but no other sources are at play (phone, etc., @teldzc1) and how my dash lighting and set up looks is pretty important to me. I haven't had a decent car in long time and all of the aftermarket units look hideous to me in this specific application. The stock HU is nothing special, but it looks good to me while I'm driving, I like the knob placement and I'm actually fine with even low-fi sound or whatever, as long as it's loud, warm and not harsh, hence why I chose to bulk up the situation with amps, Seas and Ushers.

If I had the money, I'd just get an amp for the tweeters and another four or five channel amp for the rest, but I'd have to choose an amp with enough wattage to make up for the lowered volume into the 8 ohm speakers ... and at 80 watts per speaker, any such amp would be very expensive. So, parallel looks like the way to go in order to bring the load to 4 ohms and avoid the necessity of such a high wattage amp (although I'd much prefer to retain a fade option, but I don't see that as possible now I guess?).

Even if, rather than wiring in parallel, I got two separate 2 channel amps for the front doors and rear deck (thereby retaining fade) it would be expensive, because the ohms would still be from 4 to 8 (from the amps to the speakers) right? So I'd essentially be getting 2 x (2 channel) amps with like double the watts of the 8 ohm 80 watt speaker sets, front and back. I might be able to swing that, actually, because I was already looking at that cheap Sound Ordinance amp to run the Ushers parallel, so if I separate the front and back instead, then I'd just have to get another one to keep the wattage high without the Ushers being parallel. But I'd still have to get an amp for the tweeters too and that would mean I'm running three amps; two Sound Ordinances (front and back) along with this amp, which is what I'm now thinking for the tweeters:

JL Audio JX360/2 2-channel car amplifier — 110 watts RMS x 2 at Crutchfield.com

... but three amps is a lot, isn't it? Like I said, I'm basically stupid about most of this, but not willfully. I'm trying to keep my budget for the equipment as near $1000 as possible, but I'm having to go over.

If I just get one Sound Ordinance and run the Ushers parallel off of it ... and I get that JL amp for the tweeters ... and this crossover to apply to all of it:

AudioControl 2XS (Gray) 2-way electronic crossover at Crutchfield.com

... then, with the speakers, I will be up to around $1150.

If, however, I get an additional Sound Ordinance to separate the front and back deck instead (and I don't wire the Ushers parallel) then it comes to around $1300. But wait, I'd have to use that crossover (that I just linked to) on just the Ushers (front and back) because it only has 2 stereo channels out ... so I'd have to get a separate crossover for the tweeters, which would add another $150 to the $1300 and mean that I would be using three amps and two or three crossovers, in total. AAAAK MY BRAIN IS FRIED HOW DO YOU PEOPLE DO THIS?!

Am I any closer?

@miniSQ, thank you for the warning! I've never done this so I don't know how to go about it. I figured (being that I don't like the sound of a lot of modern stereo equipment and that installers who do, may not know what I'm trying to achieve by optimizing my system to warmly play live Zeppelin or Floyd, etc.) that they may have a weird idea of what I'm going for and suggest things to me in order to meet an end result that they perceive me as having, but which they don't really get, and then I'd be in a position, in person, where they'd be like "I know what I'm talking about and I know what you want" and I'd feel pressured to trust them, because my ability to investigate their thinking and communicate specific aspects of my own in critiquing it (in accordance with my end goal) would be lacking, due to not having an understanding of how all of this works, or of even the terminology ... so I wanted to get it straight in a more communal setting (here) where I could supplement my lack of knowledge by kind of just evaluating the best way to go, based on comparing various opinions. I'm good at that. I will run whatever I decide by an installer before having it put in, though. Thanks!

@SO20thCentury, thanks for reminding me of the fade! And for pointing out the limits of that first crossover I was looking at. I know next to nothing about crossovers.

My telecaster is disassembled and packed away behind a bunch of crap at the moment. I've been renovating and we had a basement flood, so I had to inspect and relocate a lot of the equipment to one side of the house. I'd take a pic of the Selmer for you, as it's easier to get at, but it just looks like any other MK II from that era. I went with an aluminum telecaster because Syd Barrett had a mirrored telecaster, but his wasn't hollow or metal. I went with hollow because I like Alvin Lee's 335 and wanted a touch of that sound in a Barrett-esque telecaster.

 

[miniSQ]

OK...let me help a little with your frustrations and confusions.

1...the amp you choose is NOT going to contribute too, or detract from any "warm" sound you are striving for. (PERIOD)

2...you do not need or want to spend any money on rear speakers for a budget install. Delete them...make them go away.

3....don't get hung up on trying to match an amp to an 8 ohm load. I have played many 8ohm speakers thru the same amp i have played 4 ohm speakers thru and the output difference was zero.

4....What IS going to contribute to the warmth of your install is the INSTALLER. Meaning where he places the tweeters, and how well he instals the mid woofers. How he tunes the system. Find a good shop, ask to listen to some cars and point out to them what you find lacking and what you want to change.

5...the recordings themselves may fight you in your quest for hearing john paul's bass guitar. After years and years of trying, i have been able to get my car to sound great when listening to Dave Matthews, but i have never been able to hear Led Zeppelin sound good, all the recordings i have including the recent re-release of PG sounds awful to me.