need some advice

oldskoolmseriesfan · Post by **oldskoolmseriesfan** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:33 am

Hey guys, Ive got a few ideas for my door panels that I would like some advice or help with. I was going to do some kick pods, but I dont trust my wife with them.... shed probably kick the shit out of them.So I am tossing around the idea of some sealed door pods for my Focal 6's. I am thinking of glassing them in a pod, not sure of the air space at the moment. I would glass them and then I was going to deaden the back side of the enclosure with the oil based putty that Ryan used in his Pathy. Would I still have to deaden the rest of the doors with mat, or would I get better sound from mounting in the doors and sealing and deadening the door. Im looking to get the midbass out of these drivers that I know they can put out.
Whats your guys thoughts, ideas?
Thanks, Dean.
Sorry I forgot to mention that the tweet was going up in the a pillars.

Post by **stipud** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:49 am

Fiberglass done properly should be more than stiff enough, so you won't need any clay for damping. Fuzzy had to do his, since he had plastic cups as his enclosure. Odds are if he used the cups as a mold for fiberglass, it would probably work well without clay.

How deep are your doors? Would the glass get in the way when it's rolled down?

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:50 am

Pathy? PATHY?!? It's a 4Runner!!!!!!!!!!! Pathy's are my mortal enemy!

Deadening doors is great for reducing road noise and lowering the resonant frequency of the doors so they don't buzz and rattle. Also keeps your sound in. Deadening the pods won't do any of those things. Deadened pods with clay might help if you can't glass up something uber strong. The reason I used clay on my kick panels is because they were open-backed before, it was a non-glass way to seal them up and ensure they don't fart and buzz (there's a plastic cup under all that clay).

I would say that if you're going to go balls out and play with glass, you may as well glass up an enclosure and then deaden the doors with whatever product suits the application the best. If you have a sealed door pod and a dead door, I think that will sound great. That said, I don't know if your Focals like IB or sealed or what airspace they'd want.

oldskoolmseriesfan · Post by **oldskoolmseriesfan** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:52 pm

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:Pathy? PATHY?!? It's a 4Runner!!!!!!!!!!! Pathy's are my mortal enemy!

Deadening doors is great for reducing road noise and lowering the resonant frequency of the doors so they don't buzz and rattle. Also keeps your sound in. Deadening the pods won't do any of those things. Deadened pods with clay might help if you can't glass up something uber strong. The reason I used clay on my kick panels is because they were open-backed before, it was a non-glass way to seal them up and ensure they don't fart and buzz (there's a plastic cup under all that clay).

I would say that if you're going to go balls out and play with glass, you may as well glass up an enclosure and then deaden the doors with whatever product suits the application the best. If you have a sealed door pod and a dead door, I think that will sound great. That said, I don't know if your Focals like IB or sealed or what airspace they'd want.

FFFFFUUUUCCCKKK DOO0D, so sorry my bad!!!!
Ib sux ass, they are half assed in the doors as we speak.I might aswell say they are IB right now, I can go balls out now that the wife isnt around to get in my way! Im going to glass them in the doors for now, and when I get the car back fuulltime(once the ex gets something

) Then I will glass some kicks, and then I will see witch enclosure sounds the best. Ive got more room down there than I thought.
I'm trying to do this while juggling my kids at the same time. I was able to wire the tweets up in the a pillars for now, soundstage is wear I want it, but its not quite centered yet.
Im going to stock up on coffee and be ready for some latenights this weekend. Ill have more time when the kids are in bed. I have enough mat for both doors so glass and mat it is!

oldskoolmseriesfan · Post by **oldskoolmseriesfan** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:00 pm

stipud wrote:Fiberglass done properly should be more than stiff enough, so you won't need any clay for damping. Fuzzy had to do his, since he had plastic cups as his enclosure. Odds are if he used the cups as a mold for fiberglass, it would probably work well without clay.

How deep are your doors? Would the glass get in the way when it's rolled down?

This is one of the obstacles Ive encountered. Its going into an 03 Pontiac Sunfire

The door panels are really odd shaped, I want a 1/4-1/2 inch clearance from the back of the glass to the window. The problem with this is I have crank windows, and of course the crank rolls infront of a small portion of the driver. Im going to mock something up and see what kind of clearance I have to play with. The Focals need a mounting depth of 2and 3/8 of an inch.

gkitching · Post by **gkitching** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:54 pm

Actually, most mid drivers are designed to work IB in the door. Manufacturers know going into the design phaze that the door is where 95% of them will end up. So most will work best that way. Enclosing drivers like that in a small amount of air space will end up choking off the lower freq. Detail and efficiency will suffer as well.

I learned that lesson many times trying to improve midbass response in our comp cars. I personally replaced the PG XS8's in my doors, which were in sealed enclosures, with the Focal Utopia 7". Thinking that the Utopia was 10 times the quality driver then the XS's were, I was excited until I turned them on. They sounded like shit! I pulled them out and used them in an other vehicle IB style and they came alive! I remember well because I was soo jealous/mad.

Point being, you may want to do IB first to see if they perform as desired, before going to all the trouble of doing fiberglass pods.

Post by **stipud** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:10 pm

Interesting Greg...

My Ti Elites fall off rapidly below 200Hz... it's quite frustrating. I have absolutely zero deadening on my doors.

I was thinking it would be really easy to convert my factory speaker pods to be fully sealed. I would be able to add on a bit of airspace, so they would be about par with a kickpanel.

I would probably cut the back off (the slats), and extend it with a cup, and fiberglass the whole thing together.

I would do sound deadening, but cost, weight, and effort is substantially higher. I really don't want to mess around with my door panels either, and I know I have to cover all the holes to get the best results.

gkitching · Post by **gkitching** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:30 pm

I would bet your Saab doors are pretty solid/dead to start with too. Unlike a jap or american car. So I don't think going hog wild with deadener will gain much. With the exception of covering any holes. That may be the biggest cause of the lack of midbass. Allowing too much of the rear wave to meet the front wave.

Also something that would be easy enough to try would be to reverse phase on one of the drivers. (I always start with the passenger side) It sounds like it may be a simple phasing issue. That would be an easy enough fix/try!

Post by **ttocs** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 6:22 pm

glassing enclosures for doors is a PIA. I have been making enclosures for 6" speakers for some time out of tupperware for some time and been really happy with the end result. You need to add some damping to the flat bottom to keep it from flexing, but the curved surfaces are much stronger and will not flex. I just staple the "enclosure" on the back of the baffle, seal it up with a good bead of silicone and then again use some sound damping(I used damplifier pro only) cut into a strip to co around the lip of the baffle and the enclosure to further help it seal.

gkitching · Post by **gkitching** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:24 am

Sound deadener will never keep a surface from flexing.

oldskoolmseriesfan · Post by **oldskoolmseriesfan** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:37 pm

I have finished mounting the tweets in the a pillars and have tweaked the x-over point.

WOW! Huge difference! I now have more snap and kick out of my mids and my stage is exactly where I want it.
Im going to go ahead and deaden and seal the doors, and go IB Greg's advice makes sense pertaining to the manufacture's engineering of the driver and ware most consumers who buy the product are going to mount them.
@Greg you mentioned phasing, my stage is perfect, but my imaging is still a little off centerd to the left, would this help? Ive also read that my tweets should be run this way.What exactly does phasing do?Im running passive for now, until Summer (amp swap).

gkitching · Post by **gkitching** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:22 pm

If the imaging and focus is good, then it sounds like the phase is correct. If the placement is a little off that could be improved by adjusting the balance between left and right output levels. Do you have independent left/right gain control anywhere along the signal path? Of coarse you could just use the head unit balance to test this. But using the head unit tends to degrade the signal a bit. Not the optimal way but it would be an easy way to tell.

Phasing refers to how the wave form of a given freq. from the left and right speaker arrive at the listener. I'm not the most technical guy so I'll try to explain and hope I can get the point across. But picture say an oscilloscope. You can visualize the sound wave being much like the readout of a sine wave. It starts it's cycle at 0 .. increases to a point then drops continuing below 0 to it lowest point then back up to 0. That is considered a full cycle. It is a time interval as sound travels at x feet per second. Now picture that wave arriving at you from 2 different sources. Ideally they would arrive at the same position of it's cycle. either during it travel up or down. If the left speaker's wave arrives while in the upswing while the right speaker's wave arrive during it's down swing, they counter act and our hearing can't translate that into a sharp image of what is being produced. And if they are exactly opposite, they will cancel each other out.

To be honest, I've never really heard much difference when switching phase on tweeters. I'm sure there is a tool that could measure it but actual listening .. eh. I think because the cycle of high frequencies are so short it doesn't really make a dramatic enough change to notice. But thats just my guess. there may be a different reason.

To give you a good idea, the cycle or wave of a 40 hz tone takes some 6+ ft to complete. Not sure exactly how long but you get the idea.

I hope that made sense!

Post by **ttocs** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 6:35 pm

gkitching wrote:Sound deadener will never keep a surface from flexing.

I would beg to differ and have seen and heard the difference. With the speaker mounted you could feel the bottom of it moving almost inch-for-inch to the speaker. With a circle of deadener(damplifier pro) on the inside and the outside you thicken it up almost 10x and add much more mass making it harder to flex. Also remember that I was only dealing with a 6", it isn't gonna make that much pressure.

dedlyjedly · Post by **dedlyjedly** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:50 pm

Sound deadener may very well make an audible difference to an enclosure like that, but the degree that it could actually increase the rigidity of a surface would be extremely marginal if anything at all. Any improvement in the sound would best be attributed to some other positive characteristics of an enclosure such as resonance, etc. If you want to stiffen something like that up the best approach would be a layer or two of fiberglass. I know you're trying to avoid the hassle of glass by using the tupperware, but on something pre-formed like that it would be very quick and easy.

on a related note, I've been trying to decide whether to seal up my most recent set of kicks for my Ti5 elites. I'm trying to avoid using the 9's for a 3-way in what I hope is a temporary car.

Post by **ttocs** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:22 pm

I have done plenty of glass work and while you are correct that it would completely stiffen the enclosure you will need to find a way to get the glass to stick to the tupperware. I use the tupperware to mix my resin in because after it dries I can just pop it out. You could try some holes but I really think it is just too much trouble and it will not buy you anything in the end.

Your ideas are nice in theory but I would invite you to try it yourself. When the baffle and the enclosure was done and the speaker was mounted by simply tapping the cone of the speaker you could feel the back of the enclosure flex outwards. With 1 layer of damplifier it was greatly reduced but you could still feel it moving a little. With the 2nd layer there was almost no movement that could be felt. Really, try it out.

dedlyjedly · Post by **dedlyjedly** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:36 pm

good call on the resin not bonding to the tupperware and other plastics. haven't actually used tupperware in an install and I agree I oversimplified things. but when I do have to do a build up on plastic I just perforate it with a drill bit and work it from both sides. I suppose the best method in this case would be to use the tupperware as a mold, pop it out after it cures and throw it back in your toolbox and use the fiberglass!

just think how much money you'd save on your mother's rubbermaid and secondskin!!

oldskoolmseriesfan · Post by **oldskoolmseriesfan** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:08 pm

gkitching wrote:If the imaging and focus is good, then it sounds like the phase is correct. If the placement is a little off that could be improved by adjusting the balance between left and right output levels. Do you have independent left/right gain control anywhere along the signal path? Of coarse you could just use the head unit balance to test this. But using the head unit tends to degrade the signal a bit. Not the optimal way but it would be an easy way to tell.

Phasing refers to how the wave form of a given freq. from the left and right speaker arrive at the listener. I'm not the most technical guy so I'll try to explain and hope I can get the point across. But picture say an oscilloscope. You can visualize the sound wave being much like the readout of a sine wave. It starts it's cycle at 0 .. increases to a point then drops continuing below 0 to it lowest point then back up to 0. That is considered a full cycle. It is a time interval as sound travels at x feet per second. Now picture that wave arriving at you from 2 different sources. Ideally they would arrive at the same position of it's cycle. either during it travel up or down. If the left speaker's wave arrives while in the upswing while the right speaker's wave arrive during it's down swing, they counter act and our hearing can't translate that into a sharp image of what is being produced. And if they are exactly opposite, they will cancel each other out.

To be honest, I've never really heard much difference when switching phase on tweeters. I'm sure there is a tool that could measure it but actual listening .. eh. I think because the cycle of high frequencies are so short it doesn't really make a dramatic enough change to notice. But thats just my guess. there may be a different reason.

To give you a good idea, the cycle or wave of a 40 hz tone takes some 6+ ft to complete. Not sure exactly how long but you get the idea.

I hope that made sense!

Thanks Greg, your explanation was easy to understand.At the moment, I dont have independant L/R gain controls, but I do have an MX2 I can throw in the mix

I agree withe the degradation of sound while trying to fix this off of the HU balance control, its either 2 much or not enough, and to me it sounds like shit. Ill see how much time my kids will allow me 2moro, if any

to get that MX2 in the mix.

brenzbmr@sb · Post by **brenzbmr@sb** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:40 pm

hey stipud,

deaden those doors man....

cut out quarter inch masonite to fill in all the openings on the door

lay about 5 layers inside your door and 7 around the back of woofer area

if possible spray some undercoating or bed liner over that..

lay from bottom going up to always keep the water from running against
the mat when layered

then if possible lay one layer on the inside of skin that holds speaker baffle

you will have stuff in the way but just do the best u can.

then plug the holes with the masonite panels and lay two coats on front of door skin that holds your baffle

then i would glue a thin ensolite over that..

make a nice baffle out of some good solid mdf that is coated with bed liner for moisture

secure thta to door as solid as possible

then line one coating of mat on the door panel itself and a layer of foam or padding material.

then install it and be blown the hell away...

i did that to my lexus doors and i have some serious midbass from my jl xr..

i have them crossed over at 60hz with a ms2125 running the doors.

i really do have some serious attack on my frnt stage with no smearing of vocals..

good luck

brenzbmr@sb · Post by **brenzbmr@sb** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:43 pm

a 40hz note to reach full cycle is 28 ft.

quarter wave is about 7 ft

so im gonna set my seat back about 4 ft so i can get my quarter wave from my door speakers...lol

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:39 am

Stipud,

Spend a weekend and wrap the back of those stock locations. i had almost the same things in my imapala, and it helped extend the elite a ton. i cant remember how exactly I got the glass to stick, but I do remeber it was a bitch. It does suck having them so far off axis from the tweet (mine are in kicks), but the elite plays excellent off axis.

If you dont like it, you only wasted a weekend and practiced your f/g skills.

dBincognito · Post by **dBincognito** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:34 pm

Why not skip the doors and go for custom kick panels