Question about tweeter placement and aiming...

[Lowcountrypsulion]

Hey everybody.

I recently received and will soon be installing an old but awesome set of MB Quart 6 1/2" Q-Series QSD 216's to replace the old and tired Quart 5 1/4" reference-series components in my doors. This is a serious all-around upgrade: bigger mid, much bigger tweeter, and better crossover.

My issue is with possible tweeter placement and aiming.

My 1999 Civic has factory tweeters mounted on the door at the junction of each A-pillar and window sill. The factory tweeters are aimed inward. In fact, the passenger side tweeter is aimed directly at my head or on-axis. However, I have read that Quart tweeters are best positioned off-axis.

My initial thought was to place the tweeter down on the door with the mid (similar to my current situation), but recently I have been seriously considering fabricating new pods to house the Quart tweeters in the factory locations (at the A-pillar and window sill) and aiming them toward the windshield. This should raise my sound-stage, right?

Thoughts and comments?

Thank you in advance,

LowcountryLion

[dwnrodeo]

I personally prefer mounting the tweeters up high and on-axis. This has more to do with a "direct" unobstructed path to my ears than stage height, as our ears have a hard time locating sound up or down (which is why tweeters in the kick panel can be quite effective). I've had tweeters in the bottom of the doors and as soon as a passenger is present, it ruins the imaging and puts the tweeter out of phase acoustically with the other speakers. As far as on or off axis I prefer on axis to make tuning easier, but it isn't necessary.

[Eric D]

This is what I was told by a rep for MB Quart back in the day when the QSD-216s were a currently produced model.

If using the tweeters on axis, cut off the star shaped phase plug on the front of the tweeter. If using them off axis, leave them alone.

Now, if it were me, I would not want to cut apart my new tweeters. So, I would mount them off axis.

[ttocs]

putting them up high does give better seperation and an un-obstructed path for the sound but it also moved the drivers side tweeter to less then half the distance of the passenger side. I would recomend putting the tweeters down by the speaker minimize the difference of the distances traveled by the sound. I too have a spot on my sail panel behind the mirror on my mustang but opted to make kick panels then to use the sail panel.

[Eric D]

I just remembered this installation I did many years ago...

http://www.soundbuggy.com/Eric/chuck/Kick%20Panels.htm

In it I ran the components down in the kick panels, and I added a set of tweeters up high in the factory locations with a passive crossover set to very high frequency. This added just enough high frequency information at eye level to draw the stage up and in front, instead of down at your feet.

I got the idea from Boston who has been making ambient tweeter add on kits for years, and even included provisions for ambient tweeters with some of their crossovers.

[ttocs]

cdt has done it for a long time as well and in that case i could see it, but for just a standard 2-channel componants I still recomend keeping all the speakers as close together as possible.

[Lowcountrypsulion]

Hey guys. Thanks for all of the information and great advice. I really appreciate it.

I think I'm going to mount them off-axis down with the 6 1/2" mid instead of the sail panel. I'm happy with how the current tweeter sounds on the bridge over the current 5 1/4" mid, plus it will be significantly less work.

Thanks again!

[ttocs]

off axis down by the 6.5?