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Silver Fabia vRS
Ive got Pioneer TS-E1395 3 ways all the way round along with a Pioneer head unit and 12 disc cd changer and it sounds so much better than standard. Now all I need is an amp and a sub to handle the low frequencies!
Excuse my ignorance but what exactly is a stealth shelf? I assume its a different rear shelf for housing larger speakers?
If I dont want to go this route and just replace the side speakers in the rear will this still be adequate? Thinking of using <a target="_blank" href="http://www.focal.tm.fr/gb/car/polyflex/130hc.htmthese.
A stealth shelf is basically a parcel shelf with holes...
Mine is a normal shelf, with an MDF backing for rigidity, holes cut out for speakers and mounted underneath, holes are meshed and the whole thing covered in accoustic carpet...looks from outside like nothing has been done to it.
MDF helps speakers pound out the bass better cos it doesnt flex. You can buy them over here for about £90 or make them yourself if you can be arsed.
Ta
Jamie
Speakers dont make a significant differance, its the amplifier driving them. When you turn your stereo up and it destorts, thats not the speakers, but the feeble amp in your head unit. As for fitting new speakers on a rear parcel shelf, why? You should spend your money on a new amp and front speakers, or do you normanaly listen to your home hi-fi with your back to it? Ever heard of sound staging?
I think the speakers do make a significant difference.. theyre often the weakest link in any given system, especially a factory-fit one. 9 times out of 10 if youre hearing distortion its because the speakers arent able to handle the power coming through from the amp. After all, the physical limitations of 5.25" speakers make it very difficult (and expensive) to have an anywhere-near decent RMS rating. And the Blaupunkt-made factory standard speakers in Clios are no exception - the magnets are tiny and they have flimsy cones. Unless your head-units cranked up to maximum volume (or amp at max. gain) then the amp wont be distorting but will sound clean. Clipping distortion will only occur when the amps being driven at its maximum potential on dynamically demanding sound media. Any other distortions your speakers either vibrating or simply not able to handle the power. I dont dispute that there are serious limitations of the standard headunits, they dont put out an awful lot of power, and the sound quality isnt up to much. But theyre unlikely to be the cause of much distortion, and if you uprate these and leave the same speakers, you might get a pleasant step up in sound quality, but not in volume. End of sermon!
Oh yeah, and I have heard of sound staging but have you heard of surround sound? You put in as many speakers as you can all around you in your home hi-fi system to give you a multi-dimensional cinematic sound coming from every direction. You want to fill the room (or car) with sound, and the best way to do this is to have as many speakers as you can have in as many locations, pointing at you or the passengers. Hence the concept of rear fill, and the reason for buying shelf speakers. If you want good sound staging, you have speakers to the left and right of you and behind but more importantly, you have the tweeters high up, as near your ears as possible, and the subs low down.
I replaced the head unit with an entry level Apline single CD unit, I have not replaced the speakers yet but I can tell you it is noticeably louder and far cleaner than the standard Renault unit.
Secondly, distortion is rarely caused by the speaker itself (unless it is blown or incorrectly enclosed) but by the amplifiers inability to control the speaker (low damping factor). Contrary to popular belief, you are far more likely to blow a speaker with a low power amplifier (less control) than one with a high power. If however, the amplifiers rating dwarfs the speakers rating , the speaker will produce a very clean sound for the few remaining seconds of its life as the coil tries to move further than it should under the immense current and then, yes, it will let go and distort.
Eh? When a speaker is driven with a high powered amplifier to high levels, there will be a significant amount of current flowing through the voice coil. Since the voice coil has resistance, there is a voltage drop across the speakers voice coil (which the amplifier appreciates greatly). This means that there may be a great amount of power being dissipated (in the form of heat) in the voice coil. When a speaker is driven with lots of clean power, the cone moves a great deal (in proportion to the output voltage from the amplifier). For speakers with vented pole pieces, this movement forces a lot of air to flow in the magnetic gap (area where the voice coil rides). When the woofer moves out of the basket, the chamber thats under the dust cap and around the voice coil expands which pulls cool air into the magnetic gap. When the woofer moves in the other direction, the chamber size is reduced and the hot air is forced out of the vent in the pole piece. This air flow cools the voice coil. If a relatively low powered amplifier is driven into clipping (to a full square wave for a lot of people), a relatively large portion of the time, the voltage delivered to the voice coil no longer resembles a sine wave as it would with an unclipped signal. While the amplifiers output is clipped, this voltage may be considered to be DC. No matter what you call the clipped part of the waveform (DC, not DC...), the voice coil is not being motivated to move as far as it should for the power thats being delivered to it and therefore is likely not to be being cooled sufficiently (since the speaker is driven by a linear motor, the voltage applied to the voice coil determines how far the voice coil moves from its point of rest). Hence you get a f***ed speaker. It moves LESS far not further.
It is true that youre more likely to damage a speaker with a lower-powered amp, as its obviously entering clipping at a much lower volume. Use higher powered speakers and the current is the same from the amp, but the design of the speaker is such that they are more thermodynamically tolerant. Such features as a high temperature Kapton voice coil (2nd/3rd order), suspension-resistant spiders, etc. which will allow you to go louder will also get hotter without damage. However, if the power handling of the speakers is matched to the amp (as factory fitted ones tend to be, they wont waste money on better speakers or better amp for no reason!) and you get a louder amp, the speakers will overheat when their power handling capabilities are exceeded for a completely different reason: the speakers exceed their Xmax position (Thele small parameters). By definition the Xmax is the peak linear travel of a driver. If you measure the distance that the voice coil can travel in the gap (in one direction) while the number of turns in the gap doesnt change, you have the Xmax. If you go past this point, by feeding too much power (clean) for the rating of the speaker, the actual windings in the voice coil start to leave the gap. Speaker distorts, possibility of blowing/cone detachment.
Oh my god !, that reads like one of my old A-Level MT textbooks, you really know your stuff when it comes to speakers, incedently, do you write text books for a living? (only joking).
I had three lots of in-car kit stolen from my last car so I am reluctant to do too much to the Clio, upgrading the home system at the moment so no money either. What ICE do you have in your car as your informed choices could benefit others?
lol, yeah I used to do a course in electronics with music in the evenings when I was in 6th yr at school. Amazing how much I actually seem to remember! Im not sure my informed choices of ICE are all that helpful to ther people, as Ive been constrained by budgetary considerations, etc. so I usually preach better than I practice! Also, I regret not going brand-specific for the pro-look, instead I have a total hotch potch of stuff, but here goes:
JVC El Kameleon KDLX3 head unit (3 5V preouts, remote, etc.)
Wharfedale Valdus 5C mid-bass up front with standard tweeters
Wharfedale Valdus 5F co-ax in rear
Sony XS-HF78 high-end magnesium alloy components in a stealth shelf, with one Kicker Comp. free-air 10" sub with passive Phoenix Gold x-over running off a Genesis 100W RMS 2Ch. amp
Two 12" Kicker CompVR subs in ported enclosures in the boot, running off a Ground Zero Hydrogen (decent German gear) 500W RMS 4ch. amp
Phoenix Gold OFC cabling throughout
I left the head unit and changer the same but put in Alpine componenets front and back and added an amp. Without amping them there was no discernable difference but once amped the difference was huge.Not an award winning install but more than adequate.
Gibbo- if you are over Edinburgh way and want a listen let me know!
Renault Laguna Coupe
How do you do this? I didnt know the standard stuff had outputs for an amp?
yea, has the standard head unit got outputs for an amp?!!?
