The Install 2010

MacLeod

So I started my install Friday night and made some progress but not much. Ive come to the conclusion that the Ford Edge is a lousy SQ car.

1st - door speakers are halfway up the door and in front of the arm rest that sticks out 6" and totally blocks the speaker from the seat.

2nd - the door panel that the speakers are mounted to is PLASTIC!! Yes PLASTIC! 2 layers of Dynamat helped a ton but still......plastic?!

3rd - the trim panels just inside the door are welded to the floor practically. Theyve got some fancy new popper Ive never seen. I actually CRACKED one of them trying to pry it out. Luckily Ive been able to shove wires under there so far. The 1/0 power wire was a lot of fun.

4th - there is no flat surface anywhere. The A pillars which look flat are sloped and swoopy as hell. This is no problem to a skilled fabricator but for a guy like me that relies on slapping on a mounting cup for my tweeters, this is a problem.

5th - for an SUV this big, there is no freaking room to put anything!! I could take out the spare tire but kinda need that. I could use the area behind the back seat but the whole reason we bought the thing was for more room for baby strollers and stuff. The area under the back where the spare tire is, is jagged and swoopy with metal sticking out everywhere with no flat surface. I could build an amp rack above all this crap but that would raise the floor of the cargo area up several inches which would look like crap.

6th - there is nothing even close to resembling an easy way to get wires into the doors. Im this close to running speaker wires up and hooking into the OEM wires behind the CD player.

7th - I had to remove the battery, tray and a couple other things just to get the power wire thru the firewall.

There are a couple good things about it though. Its stupid simple to replace the CD player. Pop off the trim panel, 4 screws. The doors are held on by 8 screws! Takes longer to get it off but it makes the door panel much less likely to rattle. The underdash area is cavernous! Makes it easy to route wires.

But still, Im stuck right now. I got my CD player installed and my SR5250 mids in the doors but after spending 4 hours yesterday trying to find a decent and solid spot for my amps I decided to take a break and figure out a spot to mount my tweeters and when I found there is nowhere I can use a mounting cup and not look like crap or point straight down, I got frustrated and said forget it. I took out the Alpine 9861 and slapped in my 9855 for the EQ and TA, re-installed the OEM speakers in the door and am done for a week or two.

I need to step back and actually WANT to do this install cause right now I dont. I love competing and tuning but I hate installing and with a car this big a PITA to install with, its really making me question if Im going to or not.

If I use stock speaker locations, Im gonna be at a SEVERE disadvantage to guys with normal locations like in my Accord (low and to the front). Q Logic doesnt make kick panels for the Edge so Id have to get some made.....thats pricey. Then Ill need a whole other amp for the 3 way setup and since I really dont even have a good spot for 2 amps thats a problem.

I read this on DIYMA about using PVC end caps for cheap tweeter pods and it sounds like a great idea so I think Im gonna try this. I may try a different tweeter, one that can play down to 2.5 KHz or so to help make up for the left mid being completely blocked.

I have no plans as of yet. Im definitely not giving up but Im just gonna have to do this little by little so I dont get pissed off and set this Ford on fire.

This is that thread on DIYMA. Damn good idea I think. http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-tutorials/53732-cheap-adjustable-easily-replaceable-tweeter-pods.html

Topper

"Goals can be elusive which makes the difficult journey all the more rewarding. "

- Alberto Salazar

TakeTheTime

Great HU though, I like the TA of the 9855r. So you're gonna use SR5250 this time?

MacLeod

Yeah, they fit better. The 6 would fit with some work but with the door panel being plastic, I didn't want to stress them any more than I had to. Maybe I can make up for the midbass hit with aome creative tuning with the subs. The 5 have better midrange than the 6 so that could also offset any points I might lose on midbass too.

jay27

Are you at all thinking about switching over to class d digital amps? The install would be much easier. I don't think I'll ever go back to traditional amplifiers again. I have the JL HD's now and don't know what else I could want from an amp. They're small, easy on my electrical system, and powerful. Installing is not my strong point, so being able to mount them under my seats cleans up everything in my car.

arun1963

Good to hear that you're up and running.

If you're going two ways, you may want to look at custom kicks. The biggest advantage of mids up high, is stage height. 2khz and up is physically higher, which is great. This gain is lost in the price one pays. The speakers are physically closer to your ears so they are louder. You may need to attenuate everything more, than if the speakers were further away (low on the door and forward). Slight loss of impact.

The other thing you lose a bit of, is cabin gain. Further loss in impact. In my car with the mids up high, the near one fires directly into the steering column. Dunno if its the same in your Edge. This is a killer. Maybe a processor would help in bringing back better balance and impact. But I always feel short changed trying to get around this issue with the 16 band l/r.

If you're going three ways, I would do the 50lbs A pillars. Then the mids in the door playing up till 200hz should be fine. I hope you decide to go this route as I have a gut feel that the fountek and sr tweet would match up really well.

But I feel the real issue is, that the Ford is not conducive to a budget SQ install. You're going to be stuck in a catch 22 between budget and sq. I'd rather that you focused on the sq. The budget would probably fall into place once you put your mind to it. Thats my $0.02.

Good luck with the season.

MacLeod

You guys obviously dont realize just how tight my budget is....tight enough that buying the Dynamat Wedge Pack for $40 was my monthly allowance! Custom anything is completely out of the question. I have to do everything myself and very cheaply. Thats why I always loved the MECA Street class. I could use the stock provisions and be ok. My Ram had decent speaker locations and plenty of places to mount a tweeter. My Accord had terrific speaker locations and tons of tweeter spots. This one is a different story.

I think that PVC cap idea I linked to off of DIYMA is going to be a big help. $15 worth of parts and I dont need a flat surface. The Edge doesnt have sail panels but where the A pillars meets the window is about 3" wide so Im thinking of mounting them there on axis. Theoretically that would give me a VERY wide stage.

Kinetic

where's the Accord Mac?

Kinetic

ooohh I already saw that post, congrats for the family..

and we all miss that Accord

hifonix

MacLeod, look into rattle trap on ebay alot cheaper than dynamat.

bigaudiofanatic

I get my dynamat off amazon.

arun1963

MacLeod wrote: »

You guys obviously dont realize just how tight my budget is....I think that PVC cap idea I linked to off of DIYMA is going to be a big help. $15 worth of parts and I dont need a flat surface. The Edge doesnt have sail panels but where the A pillars meets the window is about 3" wide so Im thinking of mounting them there on axis. Theoretically that would give me a VERY wide stage.

Talk is cheap when its not your cash flow. Work at your pace dude. But keep an open mind.

Tweets deep into your dash, should potentially give you a wider and deeper stage. I need to fix my tweets with some permanency (no more sr tweets fixed in JBL snap on pods, stuck on 3M double sided tape on the dash) but the one guy who can do the right fibre glass work to give the permanency, happens to be a seller of 'equipment'. Someone I've scrapped with defending Polk 'honour'.

diy sucks when you're clutzy enough to drive a screwdriver through a cone while tightening the screws on a speaker. Hats off to ya'all diy type guys.

MacLeod

Got music playing finally. Still gotta hook up the sub and sub amp and secure them a little better but I'm mostly done.

I mounted the tweets temporarily in the sail panel. I want to make them work there but theyre kinda beamy.

I'd almost forgotten how good these things sound! I think tonally, this setup could sound better than my Accord. The Edge is so wide and open inside and the dash is basically flat all the way across so this things got potential. The door speaker location is pretty bad and I'm gonna take some hit on the midbass but overall I'm pretty damn excited and cant wait til I get this thing sewn up and can start some serious tuning.

greg2350

pics mac your installs are top notch would like to see visuals.:)

MacLeod

Really not much to look at. The amps are stuffed under the back seat, the speakers are in the stock locations and I'm going to use a premade sub box so I can pull it out whenever we need luggage or baby stroller room. The tweeters are gonna be ghetto rigged in PVC end caps cause Im tired of cutting 2" holes in trim panels then trying to cover them up 3 years later when I trade it in.

I'm mainly just trying to get things up and running fast cause the season is half over and I haven't done a single show. Plus we bought this car cause we needed more room for baby stuff so the wife will kill me if I take up all the room with stereo stuff.

arun1963

Have you got the 701 hooked up? just want your validation on the following and possible solutions to having the mids mounted high on the doors.

1. lower cabin gain and less mid bass. I think you've already pointed that out. Anyway around this w/o a processor? If I boost 50hz yes it improves the mid-bass but locates the sub.

2. The mids are closer to your ears and hence are louder at all frequencies. To get the desired balance 800-5khz has to be attenuated more than you would if the drivers were mounted low and forward.

3. Issue of the near mid firing directly into the steering column. Not sure if this applies in your case, but if it does, how are you handling it? By running 800-5khz hotter for the near side? Wonder if you've done the spl meter and test tones to validate this.

4. Did you get a bump up on your stage height?

The tweets will sound much better on the dash.

MacLeod

I don't know about cabin gain and all that, just that it puts one speaker much much closer to you than the other one so you have to rely more on time alignment an EQ'ing.

As for the tweeters on the dash sounding better I'm not to sure. The SR tweeters are so directional that they sound best when on axis and you can't get anymore on axis than sail panels. You'll have some issues with them beaming at you but if you can make it work it really helps out your width.

Width is more important than depth to me. You get scored on width (0-6 points) AND left and right placement (0-3 points) so if you have a super wide stage you can get 12 points just for that. on the other hand you only get 0-6 points for depth. So you'll end up with more points with width forever and depth at the edge of the dash than you could with depth halfway down the hood but width limited to the A pillars.

Plus a wide stage adds to the wow factor more than depth which helps scoring as well.

Granted its best to have both but when using stock speaker locations but can put tweeters anywhere, you can have width or depth but really not both.

arun1963

MacLeod wrote: »

The SR tweeters are so directional that they sound best when on axis and you can't get anymore on axis than sail panels. You'll have some issues with them beaming at you but if you can make it work it really helps out your width. .

Yes, the far tweet would be on axis in the sail, but the near one would be almost totally off axis. Which I guess, is causing the beaming. I guess it also depends on the angles of your sails. If the sails are x firing'ish it would be better than them firing at each other. On the dash, you can set the near one a bit more on axis. I have'nt really tried the tweets in the sails with the sr's. But if you do find a solution to the beaming bit, I'd put the tweets in the sails. The tweets on my dash are very ghetto and there's no way I can do permanent fibreglass pods.

MacLeod wrote: »

Width is more important than depth to me. You get scored on width (0-6 points) AND left and right placement (0-3 points) so if you have a super wide stage you can get 12 points just for that. on the other hand you only get 0-6 points for depth. So you'll end up with more points with width forever and depth at the edge of the dash than you could with depth halfway down the hood but width limited to the A pillars..Granted its best to have both but when using stock speaker locations but can put tweeters anywhere, you can have width or depth but really not both

As I understand it, width is a factor of speaker placement (a bit more on axis), managing phase with TA and handling early reflections. Eg with the far tweet on the dash, firing on axis to me, I get part of the sound as direct and part that is reflected of my window. The sound reflected of the windows, is actually defining the limit of my stage width and is also contributing to a bit of comb filtering. If I roll down my front windows and eliminate the reflections the stage width increases dramatically.

For depth, the off axis response is important. I.E. independent L/R eq for your off axis drivers. So what you're saying is that one can either go for great depth or width, but not both. Which makes sense, because the requirements for each are different. Whats essential for one is a limitation for the other.

Left and right placement, I assume refers to locating each instrument at a fixed point on your stage. This is L/R eq and partly your TA. I hope this is what you're refering to. A 31 band L/R eq would be much better than the 16 bands I have.

Tks for sharing and keep talking bro. There's a lot to learn.

MacLeod

I have the tweets aimed at a spot between the front seats so both are directly on axis to me. With some work, EQ and TA, I'm pretty sure I can smooth them out.

Width, depth and height are determined almost 100% ny speaker placement. With some creative EQ'ing you can extend them a bit but chances are you're not going to get width outside the car if all your drivers are inside the A pillars.

Left and right placement is judged differntly by each judge but it all boils down to if your stage is imaging 6" outside the car, you're gonna get full points.

TakeTheTime

Pictures please, I want to see the SR's!

arun1963

MacLeod wrote: »

Width, depth and height are determined almost 100% by speaker placement. With some creative EQ'ing you can extend them a bit but chances are you're not going to get width outside the car if all your drivers are inside the A pillars.

Yes placement is key. That said, dsp plays its role too, like you mentioned. I remember reading this thread, where the claim was that mounting the tweets closer to each other and towards the centre of the dash (hence both tweets more on axis and no reflections of the windows) actually widens the stage.

MacLeod wrote: »

left and right placement is judged differntly by each judge but it all boils down to if your stage is imaging 6" outside the car, you're gonna get full points.

Talking about judges, I read this really funny comment on another forum. Apparently as a competitor, you are allowed to screen your car from the outside, so that the judges don't get distracted by the PYT with a great derrier, when they should be focusing on rebecca pidgeon

TakeTheTime

arun1963 wrote: »

Yes placement is key. That said, dsp plays its role too, like you mentioned. I remember reading this thread, where the claim was that mounting the tweets closer to each other and towards the centre of the dash (hence both tweets more on axis and no reflections of the windows) actually widens the stage.

I'm gonna try tweeter angle/placement like this now:



This is how the norwegian European champion 2009 mounted it,
like this you get less issues with reflections (it "ends up" in the trunk)...

MacLeod

I refuse to believe moving your tweeters IN will widen the stage. I could be wrong but I'd have to hear that to believe it.

And I am one of those guys that covers their windows. It was some of my Alabama teammates that actually started that. It works like a charm too. Try listening to your car one night while sitting in the driveway and you'll notice more detail and tonallity cues because your brain has nothing else to pay attention to. Plus it makes the physical boundaries of the car harder to see which gives more of an impression of size to the overall stage.

TakeTheTime

Yeah, I don't think the width is gonna be better,
I scored nicely on width in competition like this:



But the main reason I'm doing this is to get more distance
(the stage is a little too "near" right now), and a little higher...

arun1963

MacLeod wrote: »

I refuse to believe moving your tweeters IN will widen the stage. I could be wrong but I'd have to hear that to believe it.

It was a thread over at diyma. There was a lot of maths and physics that went with it. All that of course went over my head, but yeah that was the jist of it. If you try dash mounted tweets in the edge it may be worth experimenting just for kicks. Come to think of it, my tweets are in temp pods stuck on the dash with double sided tape . If I spliced some extra wire to each tweet I could try this, just for kicks.

MacLeod wrote: »

Try listening to your car one night while sitting in the driveway and you'll notice more detail and tonallity cues because your brain has nothing else to pay attention to. Plus it makes the physical boundaries of the car harder to see which gives more of an impression of size to the overall stage.

I do, for an hour or so, almost every night. That's where I was 10 mts ago. This is after being in the damn car for nearly 4 hours a day commuting. But this one hour is different. I normally listen with my eyes closed and on some numbers, I'll roll the windows down.....;)

I understand the rationale for screening, I just thought the reason offered was funny.

MacLeod

I guess it all depends on the car really. If youre in a smaller car, then maybe A pillar locations would be better because you get them a little further away from you.

If youre talking about sticking the tweeters in the corners of the dash firing up and leaving the mids in the doors, then I agree, thats a good spot. The mids in the doors help with the width though and not the tweeters. The SR tweeters are way to directional to do that though. I never could make them image worth a damn in that spot but when I tried the Morel dome tweeters, it made a huge difference.

arun1963

MacLeod wrote: »

I guess it all depends on the car really. If youre in a smaller car, then maybe A pillar locations would be better because you get them a little further away from you.

That's something I've never tried. The sr's come with these mounting cups / rings which you can use on your A pillar. But I'd need to cut into the A pillar. A task well beyond me.

MacLeod wrote: »

If youre talking about sticking the tweeters in the corners of the dash firing up and leaving the mids in the doors, then I agree, thats a good spot.

Can't do that either, I dont have a mounting locations there. Plus the dash slopes sharply down at the corners so the tweet would be firing into the bottom of the windshield.

MacLeod wrote: »

The mids in the doors help with the width though and not the tweeters.

Absolutely. Sometimes I'm thinking on the fringes and I'll post without linking to the main story. If you play only the mids, thats where the width is. If you hear only the tweets, the sound is focused in a small area around the rear view mirror. The sound is focused and it has a vertical spread, but there's no width here.

If you're playing only the mids and then kick in the tweets, the tweets will lift the stage and they will add the top end to everything. This includes adding to / brightening whatever's out there at the edges of the stage. Hence the perception of width increases slightly. This is what I was talking about.

With dash mounted tweets there is also an issue of reflections of the side windows which limits the width. Rolling down the windows reduces these reflections and widens the stage. Of course the reflections being reduced would include everything up from 800hz onwards. Yes 95% of width is mids the tweets if anything only add the seasoning.

MacLeod wrote: »

The SR tweeters are way to directional to do that though. I never could make them image worth a damn in that spot but when I tried the Morel dome tweeters, it made a huge difference.

My sails would only allow for the tweets firing at each other. Thats based on the opeing on the sails. I can't toe in the near tweet to bring it more on axis. I had this issue with the momo tweets as well.

Plus, I don't have anywhere close to the processing power that you have. I can't set 1.25 / 2 / 3.15 / 5 seperately for mids and tweets. It's combined. s. Further, I don't control 1khz / 1.6 / 2.5 / 6.3 and 10khz at all. Tuning for L/R is in 2db steps... It just seems that the dash location while not perfect, may just be the best of the worst options for me.

I'm sure that with better placement and more dsp the image would be a lot sharper and cleaner across the width of the stage. As things stand the image at the centre and about 10" either side is really sharp, beyond that it starts getting a bit fuzzy.

Damn, just when I had stuffed the genie back into the lamp and forced myself to start enjoying whats there instead of constantly hearing whats wrong...........kinda accepted the limitations of placement, tuning tools and ability, you come along and give the lamp a nice rub. I really had'nt tweaked much over the past month or so. . But as usual ure spot on.

PoweredByDodge

MacLeod wrote: »

I refuse to believe moving your tweeters IN will widen the stage.

Dispersion pattern is never 180 without appreciable loss. If you move them in a wee bit in order to place them more 'heads on' with the audience rather than at a 90 degree angle to the audience, you can, in effect, 'widen' the soundstage by shrinking it. Dispersion is better, that's all that matters. It's the whole deal where a 6 1/2" midrange sounds better in a kick panel enclosure than it does in the door. ...you've moved it inward, but it sounds like you've moved it outward.

MacLeod

Great, another newb in here thinking he knows everything.

Good to see ya Vinny!

Actually, moving your mids into kick panels almost always narrows your stage as opposed to in the doors because theyre physically further in. I agree with ya on tonality issues maybe but stage width, depth and height are almost completely determined by the drivers physical location.

arun1963

PoweredByDodge wrote: »

Dispersion pattern is never 180 without appreciable loss. If you move them in a wee bit in order to place them more 'heads on' with the audience rather than at a 90 degree angle to the audience, you can, in effect, 'widen' the soundstage by shrinking it. Dispersion is better, that's all that matters. It's the whole deal where a 6 1/2" midrange sounds better in a kick panel enclosure than it does in the door. ...you've moved it inward, but it sounds like you've moved it outward.

Hey Vince, really nice to have you back.

MacLeod wrote: »

Great, another newb in here thinking he knows everything.

Do I get three guesses as to who the 'other' is?.......:D

PoweredByDodge

MacLeod wrote: »

Actually, moving your mids into kick panels almost always narrows your stage as opposed to in the doors because theyre physically further in.

I'll give ya that, but when it sounds like jabber coming at you five ways, there really isn't much appreciation (let alone perception) of the sound stage attributes. Listeners start to pay attention to the finer points of the audio program once it starts sounding nice to begin with. Hence the whole notion that you 'make it bigger by making it smaller'. It was big... but nobody wanted to or cared to notice it was there anyway.