OP
OP
Mr. Mac
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #31
Nice! Good to hear. If you love music and driving as much as I do, I completely understand the motivation.
A: If memory serves correct, Audison and Hertz are the same company, Audison being considered the higher-end of the two. No personal experience with either of them, but both have extensive product lines and solid reputations. My understanding from others with experience on these two is that Audison stuff is more refined, Hertz more ballsy.
B: Don't remember available mounting depth of rear speakers. It wasn't much, but enough for the Pioneer TS-A879 3.5-inch coaxial speakers I used. And no, 3-inch or 4-inch will not fit (3.5-inch only) unless you want to completely redesign the interior panels to accept them, which I don't recommend if you view rear fill duty they way I do described above. This is also why I don't see the need for expensive, articulate speakers for rear fill duty.
C: Yes, pretty much anything is going to sound better than the factory Bose garbage if executed properly (processing, power, installation, etc.). Again though, my opinion and preference for rear speaker is strictly to act as fill to widen front stage and add a bit of ambience. That's it, not the focus at all like front stage.
D: I do not recommend coaxial for doors at all. Doing so would compromise the front stage, particularly the height, as well as imaging because it would pull upper mid and high frequency downwards. That's what the dash locations are for (or by fabricating custom A-pillars), to bring staging/imaging higher with upper mid and high frequency so the instruments and vocals sound like they are coming from out on the hood rather than floorboard area. High frequency which is highly directional would also by physically blocked by legs if coming from door locations. Midbass on the other hand works great in the doors as it's not nearly as directional as upper mids/highs. And no, high frequency isn't missing at all in my system. It's exactly as it should be; sparkling, airy, sweet, and not fatiguing.
E: The FRAK drivers are exceptional sounding, and because they get down to 600Hz it brings that how sound stage/imaging way up where it should be instead of down low. I've got them crossed at 1kHz @ 24dB/octave, and of course time aligned. I wanted this system to by totally stealth/factory looking, and because there's only 2.5-inches to work with in factory dash locations the FRAK was perfect for this. Moral also offers a driver on this size that gets down that low too. I think Frog does as well. If I ever get itchy and want to go beyond this I would design and fabricate custom A-pillars to house a separate mid and tweeter for a three way front speaker system, but that's very doubtful given how good it already sounds as a two-way front setup. Contrary to popular belief, less is often more when it comes to this.
F (mislabeled above as D again): Yes, all new cabling was ran for every speaker, not only for optimum performance, but also so factory system stays completely intact for resale should the time come. Everything I've done can be converted back to OEM without a trace of aftermarket ever being done. The only interconnect are from the OEM signal tap to one of the VX800/8i then optical out of it daisy chained to the VX1000/1i.
G (mislabeled above as E above): Yes, system is 100% active, no passives. Every speaker has it's own dedicated channel, and every channel has it's own set of DSP controls (filters, slopes, parametric EQing, time alignment, level, etc.)
H (mislabeled above as F): iPhone is source (which technically is a DAP) using uncompressed high-resolution files. I can either run iPhone through factory head unit's Apple Car Play OR direct via USB-C to optical digital. VXi amplifiers have two sets of inputs that I can select with the control knob shown in OP installed in center console area in front of shifter.
