A bit of technical advice on Ti9's

[paintguy]

I apologise now for this being a lengthy post, but I want to get this right and I've tried to break it down so it's easier to read

The problem:

I collected all my kit together for a 3 way install, which includes HAT L1 & L3 for the A pillars, and some 8" CDT midbass for the doors.

Since then I've changed my car to an Audi S4 (B5 shape), which has absolutely no inner door skin. Remove the plastic door card and you just have a gaping hole right through to the outer metalwork! Clearly this means I'll have nothing solid to mount my midbass to, and depth is a problem too, so I started to look around for something else.

The Solution:

A knowledgeable friend suggested finding a fairly shallow MB that would work in an enclosure I could build inside the door. He suggested something like twin Focal mini subs (5WS, 13KS), but I've thought about the Ti9's instead. The enclosure could be mounted solidly to the metal framework inside the door, and I could then fabricate a new door card to simply cover the enclosure, without having to worry about strength too much.

Ti9 suitability:

Does my basic idea sound suitable for the Ti9's? I see the manual suggests anything from 0.1 - 0.4 cuft, but I'm guessing I need to go to the top end of that if possible. Will I need the whole 0.4, or will I be losing too much bottom end or gain peakiness by making it smaller? The enclosure will be fairly shallow, but stretch the whole width of the door. Any problems with that?

A question of power:

Then I need to consider what to power them with. I'll have a pair of ZX350's that I can bridge to give each one ~400W, or I could bridge my ZX450 to give them ~250W each, and use the ZX350's on the mids and tweets.



Sorry there are so many questions, but I might as well get them all out at once, and where better to ask than here

Thanks,
Andy.

[stipud]

Sounds like a peachy idea to me! Lots of people do just that with their installs

How are the stock speakers mounted?

[Stryker]

yes, sounds good.

[joerg]

If your intended frequency range is from 60Hz to 125Hz i suggest u to go with an enclosure from 0,1cuft to 0,15cuft and use a ZX350 on each of the 9´s.

I have 0,15cuft in my BMW doors and run every TI9 of a channel from the Nickel. That´s gotta blow your mind for sure

[paintguy]

How are the stock speakers mounted?

4" drivers screwed to the back of the plastic door card

yes, sounds good.

If your intended frequency range is from 60Hz to 125Hz i suggest u to go with an enclosure from 0,1cuft to 0,15cuft and use a ZX350 on each of the 9´s.

That small? Really?

I may need to go a little higher to meet the 3" mids. They'll play down to 140 Hz I believe, but are better rolled off around 200 Hz

And Marko said exactly the same - hammer them with a ZX350 each

[ttocs]

I am getting ready to put a pair in my mustangs doors. Not sure if it would help or not that it doesn't have the bracing, it will leave you more space for your enclosure but less places to mount it. I am going to build my enclosure out of wood and fiberglass and mold it into the door panel/card. I made my rings already and now it is just a matter of getting the time to tear into the doors.

[paintguy]

That will be interesting to see, since I'm a long way off that stage just yet. Can I ask what size enclosure you're aiming for?

I'll probably be using as much fiberglass as possible, since it's guaranteed to be waterproof, but will have wood or steel rings set into it.

[ttocs]

not to be a smart ass but I am going to make it as big as possible, not sure how big that will be. I will measure it after, and if it is too big the I will take some space away but with the shape of the enclosure(long and wide, but very short height) it is hard to get an estimate until you can measure it. I am going to use 1/4" reinforced on both sides with glass as well as alot of bracing to make it waterproof and strong enough.

Like I said I cut the rings and have held them up in place to get an idea, but that is as far a I have gone.

[paintguy]

Thanks.

I wish I'd gone that route with my wood & 'glass sub enclosure. I worked to what I though would be the correct volume, and it ended up being too small so had to extend it! Would have been so much easier to have made it oversize and pack it with wood blocks down to size.

It's still in progress as I'm trying to make it look as much like a stock panel as possible, which is eating up the time, but a gallery of it so far can be found here, or there's a full thread over on Talk Audio here

[paintguy]

So going back to the power question. Clearly a ZX350 bridged onto each would give me the most headroom, but then I'm worried I may be underpowering the other drivers in comparison. Run 'normally' of a ZX450, the mids and tweets will be seeing around 75W each, with the midbass around 400W.

Would I not get a better balance by swapping things around like so:

ZX350 ~ 100W - Tweets
ZX350 ~ 100W - Mids
ZX450 ~ 250W (bridged) - Midbass
ZX500 ~ 600W (bridged) - Sub

I don't really want to be buying any more amps just yet so would like to use what I have. And besides, someone's just bought up all the UK reserves of ZX amps so there aren't many around

Of course all this depends on me actually finding some Ti9's! I have dibs on a set that may be coming up for sale soon in the UK, or there's always your old set ttocs, if you decide to split

[longboard]

whos been buying all the zxs then??

[paintguy]

whos been buying all the zxs then??

And hoarding all the Ti9's....

Gimme gimme