Me personally, I would mount the MB Quart components in the front doors and dash, and put the kenwoods in the back. Run the quart's off 2 channels of the amp, and the kenwoods off the other 2. Save some money, buy an 8" bazooka tube( or whatever floats your boat), pull the kenwoods out, and bridge the rear 2 channels for the sub.

I do not have rear speakers in my crx, or my truck, and love both systems. I have rear speakers in my 96" Jimmy, but they are turned down to the point I barely notice them.....so whats the point really?

I would not mount the quality midrange/midbass in the back, and the quality tweet in the front, and want some mediocre coaxes to fill the gap. I especially wouldn't want to underpower part of the front stage, and them amplify the rear, that would be hard to balance out.

Have you considered putting the kenwoods in back, and disabling the tweeter from the coax, and making small enclosures for them. After doing this, and amplifying them, they may provide a decent amount of bass....nothing earth shattering, but some anyway.

Good luck

 

KICKER ALL THE WAY DUDE!!!!!!!!!! Kicker smokes ALL!!!

 

Also, shop online for the components, may be able to buy more than you think....if you are comparing to retail.

 

Install the MBs in the front, [mids and tweets], x-overs behind the kick panels or behind the tweeters, install the Kenwoods in the rear, cut the leads to the tweeters, or better yet, if you don't want to run a sub, [I don't] get a good set of 6.5" mid/mid bass drivers for the rear, or if you can swing it , a set of just the MB mids, no x-over or tweeter, wire the amps front outputs to the MB components and the rear outputs to what ever you install in the rear, adjust gain and x-over as needed, a little more gain for the front. 94

 

That really doesn't help him much, though I do like Kicker products, I think his heart may be set on the quarts.

Not intended for FCM......dang, everyone answered at the same time. LOL

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by *****est_raver &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">KICKER ALL THE WAY DUDE!!!!!!!!!! Kicker smokes ALL!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>
I haven't heard Kicker stuff but I have heard the MBQ, and I fell in love with the bright highs. That's most of the reason I'm going for these components. The JL and Alpine stuff also set up in the store didn't even come close.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crux131 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">2. Save some money, buy an 8" bazooka tube( or whatever floats your boat), pull the kenwoods out, and bridge the rear 2 channels for the sub.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I kind of don't want to take up any trunk space and I really don't want to get a second amp, so that's why I'm trying to milk the 6.5s.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crux131 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I do not have rear speakers in my crx, or my truck, and love both systems. I have rear speakers in my 96" Jimmy, but they are turned down to the point I barely notice them.....so whats the point really?</TD></TR></TABLE>
I'll have to fade the system all the way to the front and see what I think. That's kind of the idea behind filling the rear holes with just woofers though: all the treble and mids come from the front.

Maybe I'll leave the Kenwoods in the rear and cut out the tweeters (as per fcm) and hope a nice amplified signal will make them thud more. In that case I'd definitely get the whole set of quarts and put them in front.
I'll probably buy them online, although I want to trust the vendor. I bought my amp from a shop because I like them and nobody was discounting it heavily.

Thanks for the advice guys, keep it coming.

Dan

 

If the reference series speakers you have have the capability of being biamped (there should be an INL and INH marking onthe crossover), you can use an amp channel for each individual mb quart woofer and tweeter. each amplifier channel will be working on a narrower bandwidth and you will get more effective power going to your front stage. the result will be more power for musical peaks and transients. Since you will have more power going to the 6.5" quart woofers in this setup, you'll get tighter, cleaner bass or midbass from the 6.5" woofers in the front.

The cheap kenwoods you have can be just powered off deck power for rear fill. I'd fade them out so they just add a little bit of presence to the back of the car.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If... you have have the capability of being biamped...

The cheap kenwoods you have can be just powered off deck power for rear fill. I'd fade them out so they just add a little bit of presence to the back of the car.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Hey, that's not a bad idea, I'll check on that tomorrow morning when I drop by at the place that carries quart. I think the Premiums have bigger crossovers than the References, so that might be the step up. As far as the rear fill off deck power, I have a used deck (Eclipse again) I bought on eBay that only works with an amp, apparently. So unfortunately that's not an option. But it's a good idea, thanks! I could set it up to do that in the future if I get my HU amp working.

Dan

Edit: For this, wouldn't you need an adjustable low-pass and an adjustable high-pass on the amp? The high-pass is adjustable but the low is not. Still a little foggy on how these work though.

 

if it is a set of rce216s, they can be biamped. if you have not power to power rear fill, i'd leave them out. besides, you want to enjoy the front speakers, right?

a set nice of amplified 6.5" component speakers powered off a clean amp with some dynamat or similar material in the doors will make them sound even better.

 

forgot about the crossovers on the amp: you don't need them for now.

you'll want to biamp through the passive crossovers. it will highpass to the tweeter and lowpass to the mid. if you had a subwoofer you'd want to highpass the conplete component set on the amps active crossover (which is also duplicated in many of todays headunits) making it a bandpass. since you have no sub, you want to keep the woofer playing as low as it can, so right now the full component system would be receiving a full range signal.

 

Give me your or plus your rant.

The car: 94 Prelude Si. 6.5 speakers front and rear + tweeters in the dash.

The current configuration: Cheap-@ss Kenwood coaxial speakers in the doors and rear deck, stock Honda tweeters in dash. The Kenwoods reproduce music but I wouldn't call them quality speakers. I'm installing an Eclipse 50x4 RMS amp under the passenger seat, one channel to each speaker. No sub.

Here's the idea: I'm thinking about getting a pair of MB Quart Reference 6.5 component speakers, but I wouldn't be able to afford anything else. To get the most potential out of these, I'd put the woofers in the rear deck and the tweeters in the dash, both hooked up to the front channel. I'd keep the front Kenwoods in the door but hook them up to the rear channel. That way I could fade to just the MBQs if I want. The crossovers go under the passenger seat with the amp if there's room.
Or: I hook up the rear channel on the amp to just the woofers in back and the front tweeters and the coax Kenwoods get the front channel. The advantage to this is that the rear woofers each get 50w without the tweeters stealing power. They have to do the heavy lifting for bass, since there's no sub in my setup. The disadvantage is that the front channel is powering both coaxes and tweeters. The fader would then basically function as a bass adjuster.

Edit: I'm sound deadening the doors and trunk deck, so that will all help with bass. From my experience with Preludes I think the trunk creates a decent bass enclosure.



Dan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">forgot about the crossovers on the amp: you don't need them for now.</TD></TR></TABLE>

By crossovers on the amp, you mean the high-pass adjustment? Leave the high-pass setting on "through?" That means the passive crossovers are the ones that come with the speakers. Yes, they are rce216s.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you'll want to biamp through the passive crossovers. it will highpass to the tweeter and lowpass to the mid. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I faded all the way to the front the other day on the freeway (dash tweeters + coaxials) and the bass almost disappeared. I'm guessing that's because the extra tweeters robbed power, and because the un-deadened doors made a crappy baffle. Anyway, I liked the surround sound more. I'll have to listen to just the two quarts again in the store.

I am doing sound deadening, so I'm relying on that for my bass.

Each tweeter won't mind 50 watts? They won't be way louder than the lows?

Dan

Edit: By bi-amp through the passive crossovers, are you talking about bridging the amp to two channels? Sorry for my confuddlation.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudemanDan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

By crossovers on the amp, you mean the high-pass adjustment? Leave the high-pass setting on "through?" That means the passive crossovers are the ones that come with the speakers. Yes, they are rce216s.</TD></TR></TABLE>

you are right on the money.

the passive crossovers do all the filtering after the speakers. at speaker level. electronic or active crossovers do all the filtering at preamp level, whether it be in the amp or the deck.

what i as proposing you to do it connect channel 1 and 2 (usually used as front channels on INH (in mb quart speak, this is input high) for the tweeters. connect 3 and 4 (or the rear channels) to the INL for the woofers. in the crossover there is a jumper that says standard or biwire.biamp. set it to biwire. remove the brass jumpers on the terminal of the crossover. wire your crossovers to the proper speakers.

basically, you will be using an independent amp channel for each tweeter and woofer. the signal for all the speakers will now be separated at the amp instead of the crossover. you'll have 2 ins and 2 outs at each crossover, instead of 1 in and 2 outs.

 

I did some experimenting with fade and I like having some surround. So, I had another idea: The rear channels on the amp go to the woofers (like before). I put the Honda dash tweeters in the back (by themselves) and hook them and the quart tweeters up to the front channels. Each front amp channel powers two tweeters. That way the tweeter power is split. One problem is getting the rears not to play so loud so they don't drown out the nice sound from the fronts. The other problem is not having fade control on the deck.

Thanks for putting up with my brainstorms.

BTW, the amp is an Eclipse 3422.

Dan

 

tweeters should allways be mounted in the front dash vents.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what i am proposing you to do is connect channel 1 and 2 (usually used as front channels on INH (in mb quart speak, this is input high) for the tweeters. connect 3 and 4 (or the rear channels) to the INL for the woofers. in the crossover there is a jumper that says standard or biwire.biamp. set it to biwire. remove the brass jumpers on the terminal of the crossover. wire your crossovers to the proper speakers.

basically, you will be using an independent amp channel for each tweeter and woofer. the signal for all the speakers will now be separated at the amp instead of the crossover. you'll have 2 ins and 2 outs at each crossover, instead of 1 in and 2 outs.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hey dc24me, before this thread is completely dead let me respond to this. I'm still brainstorming heavily about car audio.

You're saying bi-wire: Have the front two channels powering the tweeters and the rear two channels powering the woofers, to fully power the MB Quarts and really bring them to life.
My 4-channel amp is bridgeable. Is there any advantage to bi-wiring the crossovers over just bridging the amp? If I bi-wire them I can use the active crossovers and have more flexibility, which I like. I can also adjust the front and rear (hi and low) gain individually. If I bridge though, the crossovers get to distribute the power between the drivers, possibly sending more to the woofers, at the expense of the tweeters, without having to strain the amp.

Thanks,

-Dan

 

if you keep the amp in 4 channel mode and use each channel through its respective crossover, each amplifer channel will be working on a narrower bandwidth (range of frequencies) and effectively more power to each speaker. your supposed to have better tighter bass and better imaging and dynamics. this was what i was told to say to people back in 99-01 when i was tech support at mbquart usa.

there is less strain on the amp when its at a 4 ohm load. i'd take the 4 channel amp myself running 4 channel over 2 ohms bridged handsdown.

i would use the supplied crossovers, as the crossover points are carefully selected for those particular speakers to operate within their limits. it also give tonal characteristics to the speaker and offers tweeter protection. until you get a subwoofer, have all the channels operating full range.

did you loose the kenwood coaxials yet?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i was tech support at mbquart usa.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Awesome! Now I want to discuss Quart speakers all day.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i would use the supplied crossovers, as the crossover points are carefully selected for those particular speakers to operate within their limits. it also gives tonal characteristics to the speaker and offers tweeter protection. until you get a subwoofer, have all the channels operating full range.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Now I'm confused. According to an Internet article I read, the passive crossover routs the tweeter and woofer signals totally separate from each other when it's bi-wired. That means you can set the frequency cutoff points at the amp. So if you bi-wire it, how can the passive crossovers set their own cutoff at 4.2khz?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dc24me &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">did you lose the kenwood coaxials yet? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, I still have to get the Quarts, so no. Dealers can't get them right now because of some drama with RF buying MBQ, and one dealer I called said they won't be shipping them for like 3 weeks. There's some confusion about who owns the distribution end of the company. I'm worried I won't be able to find them at all next week in an actual store anywhere.

Anyway, here's my newest idea:
1) Someone on BayAreaPrelude.com said high-end speakers aren't meant to accomodate low bass, since you're supposed to use a subwoofer on nice systems.
2) One dealer over the phone told me that even though the References are rated at 60-130w RMS, they're efficient and will do fine at 50w.
So, I'm thinking of powering the Quarts in front with 50w each and then getting some cheap 6.5" drivers for the rear shelf and using the low-pass on the amp (set at 90 hz) to send them the lows. (The low-pass sends frequencies at and below the cutoff point, not above, right?) This would make sense because the trunk on a Prelude makes a great bass enclosure while the doors make a terrible one, and it's not good to ask the Quarts to act as subs in the doors. This would leave just the 90-4200hz for the mids. It would be like having a 100w subwoofer with small efficient drivers. Look like this:



I could just snip the tweeter wires on the Kenweeds for this and leave them where they are!

Is that a reasonable setup?

-Dan

 

if you run the connect the passive crossover to the speakers, regardless of whether you are bi-amping or running it in standard mode, it will get filtered at its respective crossover points.

you can not use the passive crossovers at all, but you'll need to filter it electronically or actively and you need to make your amp or your deck is capable of filtering at these points. if the tweeter sees full range, it will pop out of the voicecoil gap. the passive crossover also offers tweeter protection. something to keep in mind.

put everything through the passive. turn off the crossovers on your 4 channel amp

Yeah, i heard that quart is in trouble once again. that company has gone bankrupt 9 different times since it started. in germany, declaring bankruptcy apparently is no big deal.

1) yes, you should still get a subwoofer. you don't want to turn the bass **** up much at all.
2) 50w rms is about right. the kenwood 6.5" coaxials with the tweeter clipped off will not be able to act as a sub very well. its frequency response probably starts to roll off (diminish) where sub frequencies start. get a sub.