Dash Tweeter Option

[sh10792]

Thanks again for all of the great feedback and ideas. I think I will leave the dash tweeters in for now and just not use them. Perhaps if I get a little more practice with the dremel maybe I'll try Duster's approach.

At this point I have two followup questions:

- component vs two way speaker in door: I probably know the general concensus, but have any of you guys with component speakers up front start by just putting in 2 ways in the door but then upgrade to components? If so, is there a huge difference/were you disappointed with the 2 way or did you just get the upgrade bug bad?

- those with components - if you mounted them in the sail, are you flush mount or suface mount? I have not pulled the sails off yet so I was not sure how much room was there. I have a GT so I have electric mirror controls.

[mopar_man]

I would go with components. Having the two-ways in the door will get muffled by legs when you're driving. The sound quality suffers a lot.

[Candyman]

Hey their sh10792

Here is a good write up over at PT Crew including pic's of an install of Polk Tweets without modification I figured you might be interested in checking out. It looks almost pretty close to mine, but mine are a little taller so I had to modify mine. You might need to fill out a quick registration form if not a Memcer, but it is a good write up showing how to do it.

PTCrew.com - Learn it or Burn it.

Other than than, go easy, and I'll catch ya later.

Candyman

[sh10792]

Good feeback and nice link Candyman. It looks like the components are in. Now, I'll just have to play with some mounting plate ideas for the dash and weigh that against cuting the sails. Intuitively, I kind of like the idea of the sail versus counting on the "bank shot" of the tweeters against the windshield. That's not a great analogy, but I do wonder if the imaging with the tweeter in the sail would out shine the tweeter in the dash. Perhaps I'll start with the dash. It is probably easier to start with the dash position and decide to go to sail later versus the other way around. Unless of course I can find some cheap spare sails somewhere.

[Candyman]

Hey their sh10792,

No problem. I figured that might give you a bit of insight. Now for me, I always love trying to think a bit outside the box, and try new things that I have seen little to no one else do yet. That to me kinda defines the meaning of custom, or cool! With that said, here are a couple of ideas you might wanna maybe kick around or use as inspiration to come up with something totally original on your own!

First off is a little trick I picked up from a friend who is a serious Audiophile. What he does to set up Tweets for optimal staging according to his ears are, instead of just mounting them in one place and hoping for the best, he swings by Lowes, or Home Depot and grabs a couple PVC Fittings and a couple cheap pieces of metal to either use as a stand or temporary mount, and makes a little Tweeter enclosure which he can move around the front anywhere to see where the best sound will be before making a firm decision. In your case you could then set them pointing up on the dash like they would be mounted, and then point then towards each other and see the difference really quick and easy. It's simple, cheap, and I have now seen several people doing it. Here is a quick pic of what the PVC Ball thing looks like.



As for finding good placement for sound, I would look hard at two locations as they would provide a great center stage for really clear sounds.

1. Stealth hidden behind your center vents. Yeah, you are going to lose a bit of air flow out the center dash from the AC/Heat, but not all of it, the Tunes will sound pretty tight with no one able to figure out where the sound is coming from, and as I recall at least in mine the center vents are turned into a "V" formation so each tweet would be pointed directly at each individual! If you's is not already in a V, it should be really easy to make one out of PVC to use with no problem.



2. The other idea is maybe use a Gauge Pod.They are not really expensive, you can mount Tweets in them, Look cool, and they are still in that general sweet spot for decent imaging.






Just Google Gauge Pod, and you will find a ton of them in all sizes, configurations, prices, etc.

Anyways, I hope that might give you a couple idea's to kick around for a bit. As always, if you got any more questions, or need to bounce an idea off someone, I am always around here and happy to help where I can.

Go easy, and Ill catch ya later,

Candyman

[sh10792]

Nice pics Candyman. I may start with the factory tweeter position. I think I can fashion some mounting plates from some plastic or light weight lexan. I can move them later. I have to admit, I like the looks of your picture that has the pod mounted on the dash above the center console. Is that your handy work? If so, is that a completely custom built pod or did you modify an aftermarket pod so that it looked made for the PT?

Kind of off topic, but in your builds, have you used dynamat on the doors? It seems if I am going to dynamat, it is best to do it now, but was unsure if there was a noticeable improvement by doing the dynamat door kits on the front doors.

[chris15]

I'll beat Candyman to the punch on this one, though I'm not sure of his position on Dynamat, but he'll be by (sure enough) to let us know.

After I installed my components up front, even with my high-pass filter at 125hz I was getting some pretty bad vibrations in my front doors. I took it to a friend of mine who has been doing audio installations for a long, long time and asked him about installing Dynamat. His response was basically this in a nutshell: 'I had a <insert car here> with a $5,000 sound system in it that had extremely bad rattling in the doors and the trunk. I went ahead and spent a couple hundred dollars on Dynamat and removed all interior panels, my seats, dash, etc. and Dynamatted the entire car. It took me almost a week to Dynamat the whole thing and toss it back together. And when I finally did, I took it around the block, fired up my amps and guess what? It still rattled.'

He eventually told me why. Dynamat was designed specifically to reduce resonances throughout the cabin. It was not designed to suppress noise or vibrations. If you're inquiring about Dynamat from an audiophile point of view, let me suggest an alternative that my friend gave me as well..

Instead of spending a few hundred bucks on a couple rolls of Dynamat, go to a site like this and buy a section of medium-density foam between 3 and 4 inches thick (that's the first measurement listed in the dimensions) and from there you have two options:

(Before I explain these options, let me explain the reasoning behind the foam. Vibrations and sound quality are greatly affected by the air's ability to move from one medium to another. When your speakers make a sound, you hear it because of the movement of air from the cone. One way to increase sound quality is to install speaker baffles, which are typically constructed of plastic and are used when installing the speakers. They sit behind the speakers themselves and redirect all moving air directly out from the FRONT of the speaker, into the cabin, as opposed to exiting to the side and going through the caverns of your door. It's like talking to a friend from 300 feet away. If you just yell at him, the sound waves from your mouth move in all different directions away from the source. On the other hand, if you yell while cupping your mouth, your hands act to 'redirect' the sound waves so that there is almost a 'focal point', if you will, of sound. The problem with baffles is that they can directly interfere with the movement of the cone, and typically break very easily. A fix for this is the usage of the medium-density foam. What it does is: it reduces the amount of air that lies stagnant inside of your door by filling all of the extra space inside of the door, meaning less vibrations. By cutting a hole in the foam the size of the speaker, you're essentially performing the same action as cupping your mouth with your hands, except you aren't interfering with the speaker cone and the foam will never break. )


1) Do it yourself and pull the door skins off, cut the sheet in half, and use a marker to cut out sections of the foam sheet so that your speakers are exposed and all of your mounting points, electronics, etc. are as well. Then, use a small amount of adhesive and glue the foam to the metal on the door itself. After the adhesive dries, it'll take a lot of force, but you'll have to push the door skin back on. It typically takes one or two people to do this correctly and if you're worried about breaking your door panel, you shouldn't do this method. It isn't that the door skin is easily broken, nor is this a difficult task to perform.. I would liken it to the first time anyone pulled off their center bezel in their PT Cruiser to replace a stereo or install new speakers. After you did it the first time, you knew it wouldn't break, you were just worried.

2) Call up an audio installation place (Best Buy isn't bad for installations, just don't ever buy parts from them) and tell them what you plan on doing. Typically they will charge you the same cost to install the Dynamat (I think it's something like $20 per door for the labor), but instead, they'll use your foam. Depending on the guy you get, they may even cut and size the foam for you.


Anyway, like I said, this is just an alternative suggestion with a little bit of experience tossed behind it. After I did it, I've not heard ANY vibrations whatsoever, and I also noticed a drastic increase in sound clarity/quality and a somewhat large increase in the relative volume of my door speakers.. So for the cost ($40 for the foam and $40 if you're lazy) of about $80, you could potentially have yourself a solution to something that Dynamat may or may not fix.. It's entirely up to you.


I also apologize for the long-winded response, but I like to be as thorough as I can.. Hope that helps.

[sh10792]

Thanks Chris15. Thorough explanations are always welcome. My primary goal is to reduce some road noise. I will only occasionaly get the opportunity to push the system hard enough to induce rattles (at least from moving air). The wife doesn't like the music loud..... have to wait until she's not in the car
I just wanted to minimize the cabin road noise so as to be able to let the system do it's magic at lower power levels. I live in Southern California and unfortunately have to drive a lot of freeways during my commute. I may be tilting at windmills but had to ask the question!

[chris15]

Just automatically assumed that in a tweeter conversation, we were talking car audio here. My fault. I assume at least it will provide some information to people thinking about Dynamat, since I haven't quite posted anything like that on here until now.

Anyway, if you're looking at attacking road noise, Dynamat's still a little overpriced (the only GOOD product they make is the Xtreme), so I'd research some alternatives. Fatmat makes a decent product. Just be sure to stay away from the spray deadeners. They're crap.

[sh10792]

No problem Chris. As I said the feedback and well explained info is always welcome. The info definitely pertains. I am for certain after audio improvement, but due to my constraints (my wife's tender ears) I thought I would try to improve the audio by allowing it to be heard at lower power levels. One way I thought was attack road noise, but driving on the poorly maintained concrete freeways in SoCal may make that a lost cause. This is my second PT (the first was a limited). I traded for the '05 GT. I've never really made any big changes to the vehicle but I'm ready to take the plunge. (paid off the GT note last month) So, I've probably been bouncing around a bit on topics picking you guys brains. Feel free to suggest I kindly move along and start a new forum topic when this one becomes too painful!