Thanks Gavan,

The tuning itself was pretty easy. We used the original crossovers as a baseline. After all that was how MB Quart designed their speaker system. From the basline it was easier for me to start the tweaking process.

Out of the box the system sounded fairly blanced. Then again my music type lends itself to having extreme high and low frequencies. (personal opinion here folks, please no flames! )

I did play around with the sweep for the sub and woofers. Wanted to add more depth to the woofer and drive just a little less to the sub. I typically have the sub gain (via the HU) set to -3 and when at speed on the frwy it's at -1 to 0 tops. It also helped that I removed the spare tire cover and now have the amp exposed when opening the trunk.

All in all I'm really impressed. The only crit I have is with the Kenwood iPod adaper... the scolling interface is not very intuitive. But that's a small sacrafice considering I have over 2,500 songs and counting on my iPod!

 

So you are using both the active crossovers in the amp and the passive crossovers that came with the separates.

Now not to start a war but in doing this you are redundant, do you understand if the cross over point of the passive networks are anyway different than that of the amps settings you will lose power from the amp and if the per octave slope is off you will double bandpass the signal and have a hole in the music per say.

A passive crossover actually blocks a powered signal from the amp, which in turn the blocked frequencys are lost as heat in the crossover itself so it is set at say 3500 and up all the power under 3500 that the amp is reproducing is LOST.

An active crossover blocks the unamplified signal before it gets to the amp so the amp only reproduces and amplifies a signal of exactly what the speaker is made to reproduce.

Try running the amp straight to the speakers, set the tweeters for 2500 and up at 25w per channel and the mid/basses at like 100 to 2500 band pass at 100w per channel (as per MB Quart, which I use to sell)

Every speaker manufacturer out there will say that their crossovers sound better than active systems, I've got 20years of installing them to say if you can afford to do it, bi-amp them, esp. in a convertible where your noise floor is high as hell.

I have the same amp in the same setup and the difference is amazing but it takes a little tweaking but it's well worth it, it plays louder, clearer and never distorts the mid/basses at full volume, it will sound like you added an amp.

 

Constructive. I appreciate that Gavin. Are your final specs are you indicated because I can use that as a reference. I'd be willing to try that option. I'll share this info with my installer and take it from there.

 

This is how I do it:

email JL Audio, explain the system, have them tell you a base setting

make sure you get the recommended slopes for the mid and highs, and the cross point

email MB Quart, do the same

compare the info, sometimes it will be the same

do it, listen to it, then tweak, or it might sound great there

if you tweak, do

the slopes first 12 vs. 24

then the cross point, the more mid in the tweets the more the soundstage moves from say your feet up to your dash, BUT BE CAREFUL IF YOU GO TO MUCH TWEETER DAMAGE CAN OCCUR

another question, did you set the gains with the voltmeter as specified in the manual?
if you didn't, do it, it make a hell of a difference

 

sweet!! I got a project this weekend. Thanks Gavan.

 

Gavan:
those aren't the manual and site published specs for that amp.

actually - not only is this true that you will lose power, but if you are using dual crossovers, the crossover slopes will be additive in nature regardless of whether they are the same or not... so, even if they are set identically w/ the same slope, you will still be creating some holes in the spectrum.
i agree with Gavan, if you're going to do this... do it with either the amp OR the crossover, but not both. BUT, by doing it w/ the amp, you do run the risk of blowing your tweeters if you screw up or if the settings are tweaked by accident.

these are the correct published numbers... i'm guessing you've corrected your above numbers? and mavas' numbers?

regarding which crossover point to start at, 2500 hz may be correct, but if i were you mavas, i'd double check where the crossover point is for the MB Quarts (as listed in their manual) and start there.


also, by using the amp (vs the OEM crossover), you're sending a full signal above the crossover point to the midbass.... i doubt MB Quart had it set that way. i doubt it will harm anything, but....


i don't think this can be stressed enough or repeated enough...

 

25+25=50

100+100=200

or

50w to the tweeters total
200w to the midbasses total



just messen with you

oh, and the crossover point for the MBQuarts is 2500 in the manual, but some companies say to move it if you use an active crossover because of the use of a 24db slope

 

also, by using the amp (vs the OEM crossover), you're sending a full signal above the crossover point to the midbass.... i doubt MB Quart had it set that way. i doubt it will harm anything, but....


with most amps yes but not with this amp, the crossover in this one allows you to bandpass the mids so you can run just 100 to 2500 to them and thats it, almost every other amp on the market doesn't allow this, they expect you to deal with the natural rolloff of the driver to do it, this can really screw up imaging for your frontstage

 

a 24 dB slope on the tweeter!? yikes, that is pretty severe... yeah, if they are that steep, you'll want to push it a bit higher when using a more gradual slope. that should be fairly easy to figure to get a smooth response.


the 500/5 offers this?? wow, i need to keep that in mind. i totally missed that 'HP or BP' statement in their specs... thanks! that's a good nugget of info to know.

edit: looks like the 300/4 also offers this as well...