I'm trying to buy some mids for my ride and I wanted to know the pros and the cons of each of these brands. I'm willing to spend the money and I want my highs to sound like a live concert, with no head ripping hisssing. Also I want something that sounds clear and crisp. Please help I need your professional advice......

 

I had experience on all three brands before. The MB i hate the most. The high is just way too bright. After listening for a long time, i get sick sometime. It got a very good midrange. Now the boston pro, i like their tweeter. Very smooth and easy on the ear. As for focal, i always love their equipment. I had a great deal of experience with their home speaker (JM Labs). I have the focal 6.5 and 5.25 in the front and rear. This set of speaker is the best mid i have ever hear for a car system. The problem with the focal is the tweeter. It is bigger than most brand and you will have to do some minor cutting and shaving on the tweeter to fit where the factory tweeter are located. The other problem i found about focal utopia is that the tweeter is very detail. If you have a very bright amp running, then the high can be really high at time. I encounter this problem using the pheonix golf ti500.4. After i switch to Arc Audio amp. This amp is so smooth and much warmer than the phoenix gold.

Lastly, no matter what i say. It's all my opinion. You have to go to the audio shop and listen urself. Everyone have a different taste. Therefore, it's best that you go and audition it yourself.

g35mt

 

Focal Upotia sounds like the speaker to get. What model of the Focal's did you get and how much were they? I also have a jl 300/4 do you think thats the right amp to power the focals. Remember I'm just like you, I hate hissing and highs that make you sick. I just want something soft but crisp. What amp is idle for the sound that I want???

 

Utopia is their top of the line components. You will need the 6.5" components up front. As for the rear you can forego it or put in coaxials there. As for amps, I have a friend running Phoenix Gold amps on his Focal polykevlar components and they seem to sound very nice. A bit warm and soft, but not mushy. I use a JL amp with an MB Quart components which is a bit harsh on the highs, but then again I'm not using an LOC and I have the stock HU. After I switch out my HU, I should be able to attenuate the highs properly to get the sound I want.

Good Luck

<font color=red>Shibal G-Thang</font color=red>
<font color=blue>'04 TB 6MT Graphite: Aero Pkg, Premium</font color=blue>

 

I'm running the Boston Pro 6.5s in all 4 doors and am very happy with them. Nice detail, could use a little more thump in the midbass. The sound is amazing and LOUD, especially playing rock music. Not bad for $300/pr. These are powered through a PPI DCX 600.4. I also have a 12" 2ohm DVC PPI Sub...

 

Do any body know what spec's on a amp causes hissing in your highs??? Is it the THD level (I know the lower the better, but what is the sound difference if its higher or lower?) and fequency level, etc. I want to learn how to read the spec's and what what it means.... Does anyone have experience with this??

 

I believe they say a THD less than .1 is inaudible? Someone correct me if that's wrong. It's really hard to judge your purchase based on specs. Many amps that are bench tested put out much different Watts per channel numbers than they are rated at. I know JL amps usually put out a lot more. So the same could probably be said for the THD. Factor in the signal from the H/U, any loss from the cables/speaker wires, speaker properties/materials, etc... You get the picture.

Personally, I've learned to not pay SO much attention to sound quality in my cars because they will never come close to the sound of a nice home theater. But I guess with enough money, you could put some 7.1 surround in your car with a front projector!

 

Where do you think a good place would be to put a projector??? hahahah j/k Damn but I have heard other peoples system and they didn't spend that much money and it sounds freaken good... I've spent more and still the [censored] don't sound that good.... I'm trying to locate the problem!!!!! I have

2 jl 10w3v
jl 500/1
4 6.5 boston pro
custom box
jl 300/4
audio control "EQ"

The bass is good but the highs suck..... anyone have any suggestions???

 

What exactly is it doing? Is there a problem or you just aren't happy with the sound? Send me a pm and I might be able to help, I always forget what threads I post in...

 

THD has nothing to do with the high frequency hissing. It's just a measure of total harmonic distortion on the output of the amp. Hissing can be eliminated by properly adjusting the gain levels on your LOC and amp. Try turning the gain on the LOC all the way up and gain on the amp all the way down and work your way up. If you still hear hissing, maybe turn the gain on the LOC 3/4 way and adjust your amp gain. Another factor may be RCA cables being near power cables or improper grounding. Did you sand all the paint off the chassis where your ground connects?

Black on Black 5AT Coupe, Navi
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Falken FK-451 245/35 F 285/35 R
HKS Legamax Exhaust
350Z Duct
Stillen Hi Flow
7 Wire Hypergrounding Kit

 

Also.. make sure your LOC is installed BEFORE the bose amp. If its after.. thats your problem I was in the same boat untill I moved the LOC. Good luck with that.

"Dont start none, Wont be none"

 

i have the utopia 165w and 136w. i also have a cheap alpine center speaker for 5.1 dolby/dts system running. But 98 percent of the time, i am using only the front channel. No need to use the rear cause it destroy the sound stage and imaging.

g35mt

 

Can you explain what sound stage and imaging is???

 

What is a LOC?? And I don't have a bose system... Does that make any difference???

 

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

Can you explain what sound stage and imaging is???

<hr></blockquote> it is somebody's idea of how the car audio "should" sound like when you in a live concert or a event, when you in a live perfromance, the sound are coming from front of you and the sound wave will bounc back from the back "wall" so "they" want to reproudce that in an car! and 'stage" and "imagin" were borned...please do not take my head off for what i said [img]/w3timages/icons/frown.gif[/img]...just we are talking about "car" audio after all, it suppose to have wind noise and road noise...ect, those "someone's" idea of how should your car sound like? its just nonesense, as long as it sounded good to "you"....but it is hugly important if you are competing tho, cause "someone" else will judge the "idea" of "stage" and "imagin"...

i forgot to mention about the "imagaing"[img]/w3timages/icons/tongue.gif[/img]...close your eyes and listen to your system, dont it sound like its coming from outside of your car?, if not? then you have bad bad bad "imagaing"[img]/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif[/img] j/k...but thats idea of it, to make your car sounded lot bigger than it is...many thing you can do to make this happen, in late 80's was to place your highs on the dash board so the sound will bounce off windshiled, then was to place them as far from listener's ears as possible, like in the kick panels, also you want the high-mids and left-right's imformations arrive at your ears at same time, can achive them by an time delay or DSP device, before then was simply leave the cable to the left side 100~ish feet longer (dont really work tho)and place the high-mid closely[img]/w3timages/icons/shocked.gif[/img]....hehehe..again please please do not take my head off [img]/w3timages/icons/frown.gif[/img]

03 coupe 5AT DG/G premium,performance,
AVIC N1, Volk GT-7<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by limeg35 on 06/25/04 09:12 PM.</EM></FONT></P>