New door speakers

[jaylee]

Thanks Blobber. My van had the loom for the rear speakers running to the back behind the grilled panel, but no stock speakers fitted. Not even the the bracket for the rears..
There was no evidence of any rear speakers being removed, just a white 2 pin female connector at the end of the loom...

Even the Jap stereo that was in the van on purchase 5 years ago could pan a signal to the back..

I took the line in to the crossover from the speaker loom connector, run the 2 clearly marked outputs one going to the woofer, & the other (which i had to extend using the generous same rated length cut off the input to the CO) up to the tweeter..

Maybe i wasn't looking hard enough behind the roof lining.....?

I may have to have a look.....

2) The bass exists soly in the front. Go in the back and it is 100% gone! I expected some loss but not total loss. Must be the acoustics of the van.

Blobber may have thrown up a question.. If the factory speaker loom is there, & possibly with the addition of hidden a tweeter loom running above the cab?
Wouldn't a crossover be in the line for the "non existent" tweeter, & wouldn't that cause frequency response issues with the after market speakers in the back???

[Dodgey]

You misunderstand me. The bass from my rears is fine. The bass from my fronts is fine. The bass from my fronts cannot be heard sitting in the back - it just doesnt travel, so to speak.

[jaylee]

You misunderstand me. The bass from my rears is fine. The bass from my fronts is fine. The bass from my fronts cannot be heard sitting in the back - it just doesnt travel, so to speak.

Sorry Dodgy... I do find the rear woofers a little muddy listening to em from the front, but good in the back.. Yet the range on my fronts cut through lovely to the back...! Seats soaking the bass up?

[P-Med]

You misunderstand me. The bass from my rears is fine. The bass from my fronts is fine. The bass from my fronts cannot be heard sitting in the back - it just doesnt travel, so to speak.

Sorry Dodgy... I do find the rear woofers a little muddy listening to em from the front, but good in the back.. Yet the range on my fronts cut through lovely to the back...! Seats soaking the bass up?

This loss of bass in the back is probably due to 'phase- cancellation'; due to the difference in path length from each set of speakers to your ears when you're sitting in the back, the bass from one set will cancel out the bass from the other. You'll notice it in the back more than in the front because your front speakers are beefier than the back ones, so it's only when you sit next to the back speakers that the sound levels from each set of speakers is comparable. When the path length difference equals half a wavelength, then the frequency with this wavelength will cancel out. In the Bongo the path length difference is probably about 6', meaning that 90Hz will cancel out, and frequencies either side will be attenuated.

You can solve this problem with a head unit that allows you to set the listening position - this feature introduces time delays into the speakers according to how close each speaker is to your head so that the sound from all the speakers arrives at your ears at the same time. e.g. ehe Sony GTX CD550ui lets you do this. You can set the position to: 'front', 'front right', 'front left', or 'all'. The next step up is to get a head unit that allows you to programme in the exact delay for each speaker, which allows you to personalise the delays specifically to your car (e.g. the Alpine CDA-117) I have one like this in my car, and it really tightens up the sound. In the Bongo I've got the Sony head unit, which is really good for the money.

[Dodgey]

Fascinating! I know about standing waves and cancellation that way (from setting up Home theater subs) but didn't know about this. I'm now a little more educated

[minidaz123]

Been having a good read through this, after my post in teccy. Very helpful stuff ... think i'll be adding some JBLs to the shopping list soon

[jaylee]

Fascinating! I know about standing waves and cancellation that way (from setting up Home theater subs) but didn't know about this. I'm now a little more educated

As am i...! However i read P-Med's informative post too late after biting the bullet & replacing my 15 year old head unit for something a little more versatile, like not skip on the CD play back over pot holes & play mp3's....?!!

After fiddling about with the my new JVC units menu on a rainy afternoon on a Dutch camp site the other day, i found it does all that speaker adjustment stuff..!

I had absolutely no idea you could get that sort of stuff in a car stereo...

[cavey]

Just changed mine to the JBLs, after a bargain purchase from Halfords - ex-demo units, advertised at £15, but as they came with no box or any accessories, they did them for half price - so just £7.50!

For info, as I didn't have any of the spacers or cone protectors mentioned in this thread, I had to try something else. What I did was screw them on to the door card instead, using a short length of electrical flex I had spare as a spacer. The cable was simply run between the outer outside rim and the suspension material on the outside of the cone. I trimmed the plastic ridge off the door card, as per others' photos in this thread, then used self tappers into the plastic of the door card. The cone doesn't foul with the cable or the door card and the magnet does not touch the window bolt, so the card fits back properly. Result! There's a reasonable air seal at the front, with just a small leak at the join in the flex, but we're talking about car acoustics here, not a recording studio!

Wiring-wise, I made some short extension leads using appropriately sized spade connectors at each end. A small amount of experimenting to get the polarity correct to get in phase with each other and the rears (still originals, but I'll be on the lookout for some bargains to replace these with too!)

A marked improvement on the originals. I had to turn the 'loudness' off, as there was too much top and bottom!

Cheers, Dave.

[Alkers]

The JBLs seem to be no longer available, anyone got any links to speakers that fit the front door mounts and I'm also after a set of 5*7s for the rear spaces?