Rear speaker issues

[spiderw31]

So you guys are running aftermarket speakers and only hooking up the low frequency set of wires? Doesn't that sound muddy and crappy or is it strictly bass without any midrange at all? I've been holding off on buying a set of 6x9's because I don't want it to sound like crap. Full range would be ideal. It doesn't have to sound better than stock, but I don't want it to sound horrible and muddy either.

 

I'd get a pair of 2-Way (coaxial) 6x9 speakers, and hook them up in the way that Andrei recommended above. From everything that's been described about the factory amp, that should give you you full range sound.

 

You should be able to wire up a set of standard coaxials the same way the factory speakers were wired up. Just clip the tweeter wire and hook it up to the wire that fed the old tweeters.

Edited December 1, 2011 by spiderw31

[hailukah]

I'd get a pair of 2-Way (coaxial) 6x9 speakers, and hook them up in the way that Andrei recommended above. From everything that's been described about the factory amp, that should give you you full range sound.

 

No, that will not give full range sound! The amplifier is low-passed at around 100 hz or so. It is a subwoofer amp. The factory speakers played a dual role of full range and providing extra bass. Hooking up the amplified wires to a speaker only gives low bass. It does not give any midrange. There is not any midrange on the amplified signal. NO MIDRANGE.

 

If you hook the amplified wires to a 6x9 and the other wires to a tweeter you will have deep bass out of the 6x9 and high frequencies out of the tweeter. There will be no midrange! No guitars, no voices, no snare drum. It will sound like crap.

 

I have my speakers hooked up with only the amplified signal. There is only bass coming from my rear deck. Just like if there were only a subwoofer back there. There is NO midrange. Only bass. Deep bass. It is not some muddy sounding mix of bass and mid.

 

I'm sorry for repeating myself so many times, but I don't want anyone to get confused and ruin a set of speakers or just otherwise be disappointed.

 

To clarify some more...

 

1 set of wires provides amplified bass-only signal. Those wires are hooked up to one voice-coil on the 6x9.

 

The other set of wires is a low-power, full range signal. It is hooked up to the OTHER voice-coil on the 6x9 AND the tweeter. Just like a regular co-axial speaker.

 

The factory 6x9 has dual voice coils on the 6x9. The wires do not power only the 6x9 and only the tweeter. One set powers the 6x9, the other set powers the 6x9 AND the tweeter.

 

The wires that power the 6x9 AND the tweeter are not amplified by the factory amplifier. Those wire simply pass through the amplifier and are only powered by the factory head unit.

 

If you want full-range, powerful sound from a replacement set of 6x9s, you will have to add an amplifier and use the signal from the full-range wires as the amplifier's input. That's the only way I can see to do it.

[spiderw31]

...The factory 6x9 has dual voice coils on the 6x9...

 

I'm familiar with audio systems, but I didn't realize the factory speakers were DVC. If that is the case then you are absolutely correct; there would likely be a hole in the response from 100hz to ~2kHz, and it would sound pretty terrible!

 

Without modification, I agree with you. Hooking the full range connection originally routed to the second voice coil and tweeter would be the only real way to do it.

 

Thinking outside the box for a moment though... Assuming you want to retain the factory mount points and grilles for appearance, what about getting a set of components and mounting them on a 6x9 plate? I suppose you could be really crazy and get a pair of coax 6x9, remove the tweeter, and fab a mount for a 4" coax to stack above it. No idea if that woudl come anywhere close to fitting, but it might be kinda cool to try!

[xtremerevolution]

I'm familiar with audio systems, but I didn't realize the factory speakers were DVC. If that is the case then you are absolutely correct; there would likely be a hole in the response from 100hz to ~2kHz, and it would sound pretty terrible!

 

Without modification, I agree with you. Hooking the full range connection originally routed to the second voice coil and tweeter would be the only real way to do it.

 

Thinking outside the box for a moment though... Assuming you want to retain the factory mount points and grilles for appearance, what about getting a set of components and mounting them on a 6x9 plate? I suppose you could be really crazy and get a pair of coax 6x9, remove the tweeter, and fab a mount for a 4" coax to stack above it. No idea if that woudl come anywhere close to fitting, but it might be kinda cool to try!

 

A DVC speaker doesn't create a hole in a specific range of frequencies. What you're looking at is more of a multi-way speaker. A DVC speaker has two voice coils on the exact same cone, acting in conjunction, wired to a specific impedance together. Sounds like there are two terminals here and two independent coils on two independent cones.

 

The question I have, is whether or not there's a low pass filter in the amplifier on what used to be the tweeter's output, or if the low pass is filtered by a capacitor on the speaker itself.

Edited December 2, 2011 by xtremerevolution

[spiderw31]

A DVC speaker doesn't create a hole in a specific range of frequencies. What you're looking at is more of a multi-way speaker. A DVC speaker has two voice coils on the exact same cone, acting in conjunction, wired to a specific impedance together. Sounds like there are two terminals here and two independent coils on two independent cones.

 

The question I have, is whether or not there's a low pass filter in the amplifier on what used to be the tweeter's output, or if the low pass is filtered by a capacitor on the speaker itself.

 

Yes, I'm aware that the speaker itself doesn't create the frequency hole. What I was trying to say was that I didn't realize that the stock speaker was DVC, and that one VC was given a low passed signal while the other was given a full range signal. If the 100Hz low pass was fed to the woofer of the new 6x9, and the full range signal passed to the tweeter (including its crossover cap), you'd wind up missing the 100Hz to ~2kHz I mentioned. I probably should have said that more clearly the first time.

 

I had assumed originally that the speakers were just straight bi-amplified, in which case clipping the tweeter leads as you originally suggested would have worked.

 

And I think you meant high pass on the tweeter, not low pass.

[xtremerevolution]

Nevermind what I said. I just re-read what was posted above. The factory speakers on these cars must be some complete shit. Nobody these days bi-amps a DVC speaker with two entirely different signals.

 

Sounds like the only way to correctly fix this problem is what has already been suggested, to buy a cheap and weak 2-channel amp like an old Coustic Power Logic Amp-160 for like $40 and amplify the fullrange signal. Then again, I never really believed in dumping money into rear speakers anyway.

[alec_b]

That's exactly what they did. They fed two coils in the SAME speaker two DIFFERENT signals. The 10-ohm side operated the cone and the tweeter. The 4-ohm coil operated the "subwoofer". One speaker, attempting to do three jobs, on 2 different coils, with two different sources of power, at two different loads. Awesome setup, GM.

[hailukah]

That's exactly what they did. They fed two coils in the SAME speaker two DIFFERENT signals. The 10-ohm side operated the cone and the tweeter. The 4-ohm coil operated the "subwoofer". One speaker, attempting to do three jobs, on 2 different coils, with two different sources of power, at two different loads. Awesome setup, GM.

 

I did think it was a rather creative solution.

 

And why couldn't I be so eloquent with the explanation?

[spiderw31]

So this whole discussion got me thinking, and a did a quick google search. Seems that you can actually get DVC 6x9 speakers. They're intended to be used as a "stereo" speaker in classic cars that originally had mono radios. I'll bet a pair of those would work great as almost drop in replacements.

[xtremerevolution]

So this whole discussion got me thinking, and a did a quick google search. Seems that you can actually get DVC 6x9 speakers. They're intended to be used as a "stereo" speaker in classic cars that originally had mono radios. I'll bet a pair of those would work great as almost drop in replacements.

 

It seems that these two coils on these have a different impedance, which would therefore sound different if not matched. The midrange would be louder or softer than it used to be.

 

The best way to fix this is to get a cheap oldschool 2-channel amp and get a new set of 6x9s. Something like this:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300w-Coustic-Power-Logic-2-1Channel-Amp-PlaysGreat-/280776454045?pt=Car_Amplifiers&hash=item415f94af9d

[spiderw31]

Heh... It would figure; GM engineering at its finest.

 

"Lets do a custom, high end sound setup. We'll use these custom DVC, 2-way 6x9 speakers on the rear deck, and we'll send an amplified low pass signal to one of the coils to improve bass response, and we'll use a different impedance for the second coil so our existing head units will work with it."

 

That's genius except for the part where IT'S COMPLETELY STUPID!

 

In that case, yes, just get an amp for some standard speakers, and life is grand.