Does anyone have any more information on the horns, specifically the CD-1E MH's. I'm contemplating buying these but i'm looking for a little more background info on them such as install tips etc.

also i notice they make teh mini-horns for smaller install spaces but i was wondering if theres any difference in the sound of them being close to half the size.

oh..and its for a for a 2000 Civic SI

 

Besides kick panels, this has been another dream setup. Post lots of pics etc, if you decide to do it.

Sorry I don't have any useful info.

 

Wheres Rcurley55? i'm sure he's got something to say about this

 

From what I understand the installs are rather difficult due to the size of the horns. I believe they get placed as far back under the dash as possible. I've never heard or seen them in person.

 

They are definitely badass. Installs are tricky due to lack of space under the dash. You will need a 1/3 octave crossover to tune them after the install.

 

You have to give me at least a few hours to get to these questions!!!

I've spent the last two days either covered in fiberglass, bondo, and primer, or working on my car with my orbital and a bunch of 3M products!!

Let me start of with this...a Civic is both the best and worst horn car on the planet. Its a great horn car because there is virtually no center console...it's low and tucked way back. It also has a very symmetric dash...these are all good things. The bad...it's small. You will pretty much have to learn to drive your car (if it's a stick) with your toes rather then the ***** of your feet...a big bummer for me considering that I heel-toe everything.

You really fight the pedals on the drivers side, and then it's the heater on the passenger side. I don't have the horns you are looking at (I have the cd1pro's).

As far as horns are concerned, there are a few rules to install.
1. As far back toward the firewall as you can get them
2. As far toward the outside of the car as possible
3. Parallel to the floor board
4. Dash pad
5. Under dash pad (to couple the leading edge of the horn to the bottom of the dash)
6. 1-3-5 - this is the power levels you should use...that means for every watt on your horns, you should have 3 on your mids and 5 on your sub. Horns are EXTREMELY efficient, so even 20W will tear your head off.

#1 Horn Myth: you NEED 31 bands of EQ.....that's a fallacy....this was true back in the day when large format horns and horns not designed specifically for car audio were being used. Tonally, the new horns are far superior...every system can benefit from EQ. Saying you need it...not true...would I recommend it...yes. You can do a hell of a lot with just a 5 or 7 band parametric as opposed to a full 31 bands per side.

When you start comparing "mini" horns to "fullsized" horns, there are a few differences....the minis have a bit better tone to them...they are a bit less "nasal" then what a full sized horn sounds like, while a minihorn starts to run out at 1000Hz (maybe 1200 if you have a shallow slope), a full sized horn will get down to 700-800Hz.

As far as your horn selection...I don't particularly like the 1e's....they use a Piezo driver while the CD1pro uses a titanium driver. The ve's are good entry level horns, and they are a bit easier to install especially if you get them with their passives and with matching ID midbasses. It will greatly simplify your life as you only need two channels of amplification, and all the level matching is taken care of for you. IIRC, you will need the passives to run the ve's. If you were to step to the pros, I could highly recommend that you go active. Keep in mind horns are 8 ohms each, so that will help with the level matching. A large midrange (6.5" usually) is a bit easier to pair with horns because of their increased sensitivity over a 5.25" or even 4" midrange.

The e's are a good place to start, but the CD1's are superior. On a side note, the CD1e horn body with a CD1 pro compression driver is a great combo as well. It's not that horns are that expensive, it's the added cost of amplifiers, and the recommended (but not necessary) EQ that drives up the total cost.

Let me know how that goes and if you have any more questions ask them. carsound.com and elitecaraudio.com are GREAT horn resources. There are a lot of guys out there that compete using horns (mic wallace - mic10is, jason winslow - winslow, jason ewing - pvd-12v) are all good guys to listen to. You can always call Matt at ID and he will be more then happy to chat with you about horns.

As a disclaimer, the above only applies to ID horns, I don't know much about other companies out there like veritas, USD, Illusion, etc.

Hope that helps.


[Modified by rcurley55, 7:52 PM 3/31/2003]

 

"6. 1-3-5 - this is the power levels you should use...that means for every watt on your horns, you should have 3 on your mids and 5 on your sub. Horns are EXTREMELY efficient, so even 20W will tear your head off."

Thank you, now I dont have to ask.
I knew it was high, but I thought it was a lot higher.

 

My main reason for going with the component set is beacuse it has the crossover and the mid already.

I guess my other option is CD1-pro horns with a pair of CX64 up front and an IDX24 crossover but i'll have to look into the cost issue. I'd rather not spend a lot of moeny on my stereo as i hardly drive my car and i'd rather save for my home components.

 

Like I said the comp set works very well if you don't want the added cost of crossovers and amps. If you do go active, I suggest that you go for the IDCX62's or even some IDQ62's if you can find them. It's a bit easier to get your power levels to work out that way. That way, if you use a 4 channel amp, you already have a 1-4 power distribution on your horns/mids. Remember, at 8 ohm, you make half the rated power, at 2 ohm, you double, giving you a factor of four.

The IDX24 is a sweet piece (see sig ) I just got my processors back from Image Dynamics. I got a few mods on the IDX, and then had all the faceplates re-powdercoated and silkscreened to match my black chrome Arcs. One word of caution on the IDX (if you have not seen one before) they are ******* huge and are a real PITA to mount in a civic....there are not a lot of places to hide one. I will be replacing my torsion bars on my trunk hinges with some struts so that I can mount all 4 processors on the rear shelf, and they will barely fit.

 

I know what you're saying about the size of the processors as i've seen a pic of your trunk.

I should probably tell you what i have so far.
HU : Alpine 7995
Amp : Alpine MRV-F340

After the fronts i plan on adding a single IDMAX 12 to the picture. A friend of mine has one in his audi and I'm very impressed with it.

so given that setup what would you suggestions be.

 

hehe...I forgot about those photos!

It really does depend on how much you want to spend. If you want to go active, you will need an outboard crossover, as the Alpine amp/head you have don't have any crossover points up around 1kHz. That amp bridged would run a CD1V comp set very well. I think that if you ran an active system (CD1pros) with that amp, and then an idmax with a ton of power you would be quite bass heavy. 300W and an IDQ12 would be a better match IMO.

It's really a money issue. The CD1V's go on ebay all the time, and you can get them at significantly reduced prices...you may want to think about that route. I got my horns from sounddomain for under 300 for just the horns, and they may price match some of the other sites around.

One other question, do you plan on using kicks or door mounted mid's?

It's really a budget/work tradeoff....the CD1pros will be more rewarding in terms of SQ, but they are a ton more work....trust me!!

 

i plan on using kicks for the mids


why do you ask?


[Modified by EBP_SI, 2:15 AM 4/4/2003]