Ask Meatball (Have Audio questions answered by our resident expert)

[cico7]

Jeff,

I don't like jacking someone elses thread to ask a question, so hopefully you will respond and others will join in to this thread.

I would do a 3" coax in the dash and a killer set of 6" or 7" in the door

6 or 7 in. coaxial speaker? or mid?

[Meatball]

Is the factory stereo and amp being used? This makes the biggest difference.

The factory stereo and amp use crossovers which cut out higher range frequencies (treble and midrange) from the door speaker. This works in reverse for the dash speaker which plays treble and midrange.

You can use a 6x9 coaxial speaker with the factory amp and stereo, however it will just cut out the frequencies that normally play through the tweeter on the coax speaker.

The dash speaker from the factory plays the midrange and trebele (these frequencies include human voice, and most non-percussion instruments, excluding the piano and guitar) To replace these a 2-way coaxial speaker works great providing the midrange and treble.

Now if you are using an after market amplifier and stereo, the freedom is yours. You can play the full range of frequencies from both locations in the vehicle.

Now if you are looking for the ultimate sound possible with out doing something drastic to your vehicle. I would suggest a coax 2way speaker in the dash with a crossover point of around >200hz, and a woofer in the door playing <200hz. Most after market amplifiers have crossover built into them to obtain these crossover points fairly easily.

Sorry, thats the long version. I figured using my buddy Cico7's question as a catapult I could try to answer several questions that have been presented about the stock stereo.

No matter what anyone is trying to accomplish in a stereo in their jeep please feel free to ask. I love to help people enjoy their music. You can contact me via PM and if you, need I can walk you through problems even by phone.

[Meatball]

Hope that helps a little Cico, just though with the chance I would through as much info as possible at the community.

[cico7]

Now if you are looking for the ultimate sound possible with out doing something drastic to your vehicle. I would suggest a coax 2way speaker in the dash with a crossover point of around >200hz, and a woofer in the door playing <200hz. Most after market amplifiers have crossover built into them to obtain these crossover points fairly easily.

This is great! Thank you!!

[hogwash]

Meatball,

So if you are powering everything with aftermarket amps, does this mean you will need 3 separate amps:

1 - 4 channel for the front four speakers
1 - 2 channel for the rear two speakers
1 - mono amp for the sub(s)

I always assumed that the reason someone bought a component kit is that the cross over allows the front four speakers to be wired to the same amp as the back speakers.

I'm looking at head units with front/rear/sub rca outputs.

Thanks,

John

[Meatball]

Good point hogwash:
The scenario I listed is for the maximum performance. If you use a component set. You can use only a 4 channel amplifier to amp the rear doors and the component set with their crossover. This is a good solution and would sound better than the stock stereo.

What this doesn't provide is midrange at eye level. Where as the OEM stereo does do this. This provides a stage height in the car.

Have you ever been in a car and it sounds like all the sound is coming from the floorboard? This is due to the lack of stage height. The XK would never be that bad though, due to how high the factory location of the door speakers are.

Ill have to appologize now for me not talking about the rear door speaker. I do not have any rear speakers in my truck.
They are a full range speaker and can be replaced with any coaxial speaker.

Jeff Kidwell

[Meatball]

Hogwash:
I looked at what you posted in the other thread. I beleive this would be an excellent upgrade over stock.

As for an adapter for the tweeter, tweeters are self contained speakers. They require no airspace and can be mounted in open space. Otherwords, you could screw the tweeter mount to an angle bracket under the factory grills and it would sound the same. Makes for easy and creative mounting

[chef7047]

Just installed alpine media reciever, 2 sets alpine 6.5 components, two kicker amps, kikcker RCA and 4 gage wire through out. My question is about engine whine.

I have the entire system grounded to the frame... and it is still whinning??? any thoughts?

[Meatball]

Ground noise or whinning can come from alot of places. The first point is to find out where it is coming from.

To help yourself troubleshoot this problem you will first need to make yourself a small tool. Take an old set of rca interconnects, cut the ends off with about 2 inches of wire attached to the interconnect end. You will need four of these. An rca cable has two multistrand wires inside of it. Strip these wires back, and connect them together, so that the rca grounds in a loop. Put these in the amp in place of the rca's and see if you still have whine when you turn on the stereo. If so the whine is from the amps, if not, check your stereo headunit. Let me know, ill help you from there.

[cico7]

On mine, the radio turns off. when you turn off the ignition, but the amp stays live until you open the door. So if you turn the radio off, you hear amp noise. if you turn the volume to 0, there is no noise. I think it has to do with the canbus connection......but i am going to try your tester.......