[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Hi everyone!

With all these DIY components floating around, I'm curious how people are matching them up and how they sound! When you guys post your setup, could you also give an approximate price range of the drivers so I know which one is in my budget?

Several of my friends have recommended the LPG 25nfa and the seas CA18RNX to me. (I'll be putting only 7.5watts RMS @ 8ohms to the tweeters, would that be enough?). I think that's the route I'm going, but this is my first DIY purchase and I want to see what else is out there.

Thanks
David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Not yet. Worry not, Npdang's got my order out and I should have my components soon! I will post a review as soon as I can!

David

P.S. I'm really interested! Also insterested about what everyone is using for their components.... Let's hear it!

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

kappa546: Man I heard those tweeters were pretty sweet. Did you pick them up from ECA for dirt cheap prices? How did you end up mounting them? (the ones on ECA were glued to a ring I believe)

|Tch0rT| : Phass NT 28TC 28mm.. Wow, I was going to pick these up from npdang but you beat me to them! Hehe I ended up picking the 25NFA. How are the phass NT?

minitruck_freq : How much power are you givng the 25NFA... I'm thinking of feeding them 7.5 watts @ 8 ohms. I hope they can balance with the CA18RNX that's getting 40watts RMS @8ohms.


David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

|Tch0rT| - Good luck with those. Hey if they don't match, that's not necessary a bad thing either It's an excuse to buy more details mids!

Let us know how it sounds when you get them hooked up! By the way, how are you mounting them? Another thing stoping me from picking them up was that I don't think those screw holes would look good if it was mounted on the door panel.

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Update!

I got my CA18RNX and 25NFAs today! NPDang got them to me in excellent packaging!

It was late at night when I had them in my hands. I didn't want to use my power tools (too much) so I did a really rough baffle. It turns out that with a 1" baffle, the mids perfectly my 94 accord coupe! It turned out a big surprise because Npdang looked at my car, he and I both agreed that it couldn't be done. I guess the saying always holds true "you never know until you try!"

The bad news is that i already made holes for my orion HCCA 5s tweeters. Removing the tweeters gave a hole slightly larger than I need for the 25nFA. I'm going to give hot glue a try tomorrow. I'll make nice Baffle and take picks to show you guys how tight of a fit I got it in!

Also upgrade my Clarion 7.5watts x 2 for a Coustic 25x2 (8ohms) for my tweeters. This is going to sound sweet! (I hope!)

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Got most of the stuff installed today. Didn't have time to wire up the Amp yet, I'm give the LPGs just 7.5 watts right now. They actually sound really nice too.

I didn't even have time to EQ it. It's left as stock for now. I spent the entire day putting these mids in. They are trickly since I had exactly just enough space to work with.

I'll install the 25 watt (8ohm) amp by next week and do a little EQ'ing and let you guys know the results.

Here's my day's work


This is my old setup, Orion HCCA 5s mids. These 5.25" mids were beefy! They had pretty good midbass and had a 2.75" mounting depth...

Here's the beast!

The Orion HCCA 5s tweeter mounts are just a TAD larger than my LPG tweeter. What I had to do was sand the inside of the orion mounts until it's the tickness of 2 sheets of paper! Then I managed to slip in the LPG.

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

It sounds really clear and crips even without the deflex pad behind the mids or any major EQ'ing. The midbass is by far the most noticable, brining my sound stage very upfront. I definately need to get some damping in there.... But I haven't found a good price/source for damping yet. Still waiting for rick's respond (from Raamaudio).

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Hehe! Cool, I'll take a look at that to hear how good my system sounds now!

Thanks

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

npdang, Yeah, stupid door cover covers the mids :/ But the good news is that there's a bit more than 1/2 inch for the surrounds to move.

Tirefryr, The mouting depths were 3.1" and I can still roll my windows all the way down. (the trick is, install the mids while the windows are down so you can see where it will touch the window).

David

PS. I will have a complete review in a few weeks

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Ryan, that tweeter would look very big if you mount it on top of the doors. MAYBE you may want to build super small kicks. It'll cost no more than $50. The advantage is that it will look cleaner. Also if you decide to try other tweeters in the future you can.

What I mean is, if you drill a huge hole on your door right now (and those ugly screw holes)... Then when you want to try something compact (like the beautiful/remarkable LPG 25NFA), then you would have to fiberglass over the old tweeter hole... You see what I'm getting at?

Also, I saw a friend get his tweeter kicks done. Man they look really really nice. It adds a bit of style to his car. He had in a 94 carmy XLE, and it sounded sweet. Also it was big enough so that in the future he could swap out other large tweeters (ie the 2" large dome ones).

As for midbass. The seas CA18RNX is BY far the best midbass drivers I HAVE ever heard. I love it so much! I don't know about pearless (which I heard is pretty good as well)... But I'd just go with the CA18RNX, make sure you have 3.25" mounting depth.

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Ryan, what kind of car do you have? You'll be surprised when you have the mids in one hand and your door panel on the other. I DID NOT think mine would fit. It fit suprisingly well in the end. Seas drivers (CA18RNX) are pretty cheap so give them a shot, you'll be happy with the results!

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

You're Right Vinny!

It's roughly 3.08267717 inches!

No wonder I was able to fit them in my car

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Good luck trying to fit those XXX's They were a dream for me, A dream I could never reach. I'm happy with my CA18RNX though!

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

BBOYSTEVIE, nice choice on the ribbons. I was thinking of those but didn't want to move away from the stock looks. So i stuck with simple door mounted 25NFAs

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

MiloX,

Yeah your right! It's a good old 1994 Honda Accord 2 door coupe

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Cool. Great ride.

It looks like I am going to be running the same front stage setup that you have.

Where do you have the SEAS mids crossed?

Thanks! I love my ride. and you will LOVE your front stage

I have yet to have time to tweak mysetup. But right after dropping them in, I found that 63hz to 2khz was pretty decent on the mids. And then 2khz and up for the tweeters. I may try to move the xover point up to 2.5khz but haven't had time to even try that!

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

Update:

Decided that 7.5 watts RMS for the tweeters were enough. I did install the larger amp, but it gave me too much noise at low volumes (tweeters are sensitive to noise).

Bought 30sqft of Raammat from Rick! Awesome stuff. Easy to work with and does a great job of stopping rattles. After installing the CA18RNX, I thought I could never shut those panels up.... but Raamat did the job. Even on my huge coupe doors! Here are the pictures:

Since I didn't show you guys before, here's the 1" baffle I made. Actually it's like 1.125" baffle since 1" didn't quite do it, I had to add a layer of Edead in between

Still haven't really tweaked the system yet. But my favorite part is that it still somewhat looks like a stock setup:

I'll hope I can have time to EQ this later!

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

demon2091tb, thanks for the complents!

I used two layers on the door itself. and just 1 layer on the outer door panel. I was going to do double on the outer door panel, but it go too thick to close!

To seal off the openings I used thick cardboard. You can use that too, or use plexiglass like npdang did. Anything thick and sturdy would do.

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

xDx,

From the specs it appears that there is a 4 point gap in input sensitivity, how well matched are they out of the box, or did you attentuate the tweets at all?

Actually the tweeters had to be boosted by a good 2db because they were only getting 7.5 watts rms! After that and with a little slope adjustment, they were pretty well matched.

David

 

[xDeLiRiOuSx]

will be swapping in peerless xls 8's soon....and most likely lpg 25na's....

60 watts on each midbass....150 watts on the midranges....and about 90 on each of the tweets...

Wow! That's going to sound sweet! When are you going to install all that? I personally would put 150watts on the midbasses and 90 on the midranges, and 60 on the tweeters, just because lower frequency seem to need more overhead power.

David