shadow350

Is there not enough room to mount a set of 6.5" in the doors? All you need is maybe 3" or so. Has anyone tried this? I like the kick panels but manual tranny+big feet= problem.:lala:

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

The kick panels provide far better imaging, that's why.

When you move the speakers farther forward, your soundstage winds up in a more appropriate position. (i.e. farther forward), plus with the speakers in the kick panels, the distance of the speakers to your ears is as close to equal as you're going to get in a car environment. With them in the doors, one is within arm's reach, and the other one is over 6' away.

shadow350

ok, well how about a better speaker for the 4x6 spots? Pioneer makes a nice one here: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pi...429,68,00.html

mudaholic

4x6s dont provide for good sound, if you cant get kicks then you cant get them.. but they really shouldnt interfere with your shifting.

shadow350

I like the kicks, in fact these are really nice: http://www.subenclosures.com/
I am just concerned about my big feet and the clutch.

MdFormula350

they do look nice!!

mudaholic

you should be able to shift just fine with the kicks..

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

I've got kicks in my IROC and even with boots I have no problems shifting. My dead pedal is a thing of the past, but there's still plenty of space between the clutch pedal and the speakers.

REZN8R

Here's a pic of one of the vinyl kicks installed in a manual trans car. It looks like plenty of clearance to me. I guess it depend on how big your feet really are!

shadow350

anyone know where to get these other than www.subenclosures.com ? His are nice, just wanted to compare price/quality.

REZN8R

Here's a link to a place that sells Q-forms. I've heard bad things about them though. I've heard of other people selling fiberglass ones, but I don't know who they are or how to find them.

http://www.sounddomain.com/sku/QLCQLK1005B80

REZN8R

On second thought, I'll just post the pic:

(This one is for 4th gen, but I think they're the same basic design)

SSaudio

the kicks in my Z are pretty tight because of the fact it's a 6spd, but worth the sacrifice. Better imaging makes the whole system

Wootah

I drive with my shoes off

shadow350

where did you guys get your kick panels? Are they easy enough to make?

mudaholic

unless you have a lot of fiberglass experience, your best bet is probably gonna be http://www.subenclosures.com/ -- you wont find better quality kicks for cheaper anywhere else.

FiReBReTHa

soon, ill have production Doorpods, fiberglassed easy install.

it will hold a 6.5 component set. i used to run these. but now want more professional ones.


theyll be done by Fyberdesignz, ill letcha kno, im sending my panels to him, jan 6, so theyll be in a couple weeks after that.

87GTA Runner

I'm selling a pair of brand new Q-logics on ebay right now, cheap!!! I started them at $35+$11 S&H. Item # 1945528478

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

I wouldn't waste much time looking. You'll never find something anywhere near that quality for that price. Talk to a local car audio shop and ask them how much a custom pair would cost. I know personally I had planned on charging $450 per pair for my custom kicks, but after DJ Sexay/REZN8R came along I scrapped the whole project because there was no way mine were worth double what his were worth. Those kicks are the bargain of the century.

caleb

i had a set of q-forms, but after hearing them in a friends car i thought they sucked, i contacted dave, sold my q-forms and got a set from him (rezn8r subenclosures.com one and the same) i am so glad i switched, the sound is not even comparable, especially for the price

Pukka

Not sure if it was mentioned, but if you have power windows, the window motor is exactly where you could mount a door speaker. It simply would not fit.

Gotta get the kicks

shadow350

thank you so much for that info! I do have power windows, so that just saved me a bunch of hassle. I will definately get me some kicks

FiReBReTHa

mine dont interfere with motor. and the kit when produced will be bolt on...

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

How far do they stick out? You need to build the door out almost the entire depth of the driver.

Cronic3rd

I'm not sure about the rest of you but I haev kicks and they play directly into my legs and sound like @$$. IMO the best front speaker is a 4x6 plate.

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Then you have it set up wrong. I'm guessing you're talking about the stock bose crap?

Dash speakers suck. For one, they are incredibly harsh because you're getting the reflection off the glass. Secondly, because one is so close and the other is a mile away, you get a horrible imbalance which translates into lousy imaging and terrible staging. If you tweak the balance **** to get a somewhat tolerable balance, the passenger gets blasted all from 1 speaker.

With kicks that are properly set up you get a much, much wider soundstage with more precise imaging and a much smoother frequency response. When you close your eyes, the vocals come from the center of my windshield... for BOTH driver and passenger. Try that with dash speakers.

The other advantage is that you can fit much higher quality stuff into the kicks than you can into the dash.

GKK

Actually, I measured the distance from my ears to each left & right speaker location (Dash, Door and Kickpanel area) to find which area was more Balanced and I found that the Dash speakers were the Closest to being Balanced than any other location. The Kickpanel location was 3" further off balance than the Dash location. The Door location was the worst.

I researched this speaker placement for Months before deciding to change my speakers to Polk Audio 4x6's and rear 5 1/4"s and also Time Aligned my speakers. The imaging and staging is great and it's the best compromise for people that can't use kickpanels do to space limitations.

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

I'll need to remeasure, but I recall the kickpanels having a much lower differential.

But in any case, regardless of distance, my system images far better than anything in a dash can do.

Cronic3rd

Personally I really like the way dash speakers sound. And my kicks are Q-Logic with Directed 6 1/2 components amped with a 50x4 crossfire amp. he **** is setup good it is just that I'm a big dude and there is no way the sound can excape past my legs. BTW I wear a size 15 shoe and have no problems with the kicks interfearing with the clutch.

SpeedJunkie

Remember 4x6s may look balanced on apaper but the sound is sticking straight up into the windshield and then directed out towards you, kicks are palced directly at you for far better imaging then dash speakers could ever give, and WILL be better than 4x6s any day in a properly put togetehr system set up right. Im not saying 4x6s would not sound good cuase they do, i have them in my sig. but kicks take the cake.

GKK

I have my 4x6's wired in a "Time Aligned" configuration which Greatly improves the imaging. Please refer to this sight for an explanation of Time Aligning the speakers. www.decware.com click on Car Audio then click on "Schematic for better RTA scores".

My Polk Audio 4x6's and 5 1/4"s sound Awesome wired in this fashion compared to the traditional four channel wiring. I paid the $10 to get the wiring Diagram and it was the best investment I ever made.

Azure

I'm with a few of the others on here, though it may not be my area of expertise (whereas home audio is)...home can speakers of that size in line with feet provide better imaging...? I could understand something moving a bit more air, but 6" or whatever...? I'd love more details.

Cronic3rd

Car and home audio are completely diffrent. In a car since the area is very small and enclosed speakers have much less air to move and therefore smaller speakers are much louder than they would be in a home enviroment where the air to move is nearly infinate.

FyreLance

The sound produced by midrange and tweeters is very directional, therefore having it pointed towards you (or your ears) is much more desirable than having the highs reflect off the windshield. You have to take the time to properly set up the kicks or you won't get the full effect.

Take your home audio speakers (the ones that produce mids and highs) and angle them towards the wall and stand behind them, and then turn them around and play the same sound/music, and tell me you can't hear a difference....

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Take FyreLance's advice and point your speakers toward the wall. Then stand right next to the left one, and see how good your imaging is. Make sure to put a whole pile of crap in the way to help deflect the sound.

A car environment is a VERY non-ideal place to listen to music. Fortunately, good car audio drivers take this into consideration when they are designed. Unlike a pair of home speakers, whose design is usually centered around making a very narrow vertical projection area, the car drivers are designed for a very wide dispersion pattern. This helps to overcome the all too common situation where you can not have the drivers aimed directly at you. This works well not only for the obvious reason that you can't always point them at you, but also because it allows you to be able to intentionally focus the drivers away from you. By focusing the passenger speaker directly at you, and focusing the driver's side speaker toward the passenger, you wind up with an attenuation of the speaker on your particular side without disrupting the overall sound characteristics. The result is a good image for both passengers, and an overall tonal balance that's as good as can be expected in a car environment.

joezero

Is there a lot of additional expense to wire it like that? The site explained what time aligning is, but didn't say how it was done, so I didn't want to spend $10 to find out that for another $100 in parts I could "time align" my system.

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

time alignment can work well for only 1 position within the vehicle. If you use it to get good imaging from the driver's seat, the passenger image is going to be destroyed. Not a big deal if you're the only one that listens to tunes, but if you have passengers or if you compete, you're not going to be happy with the results.

Plus, time alignment helps with the distance issue, but doesn't address phasing and frequency response issues. It can be helpful, but it isn't a cure-all.

GKK

Actually it's quite the Opposite. Time Aligning the speakers helps make the sound appear to be coming out evenly from All speakers no matter where you're sitting in the vehicle.

All you need to do is buy the Schematic wiring Diagram for $10 and wire the speakers up according to the Diagram you don't have to buy anything else. I have the Diagram but, will not post it because I feel it's wrong to give out other peoples information without them getting paid for it. (Everybody needs to make a living somehow right?).

Anyways, the sound from my Polk Audio Dash and Rear speakers sound Great wired this way and IMO is a good compromise for people that can't or don't want to use Kicks.

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Can you explain to me how time alignment is going to benefit multiple positions?

Let's take dash speakers as an example. Let's say that the driver's dash speaker is 3' away from the left ear, and the passenger speaker is 5' away from the right ear. So... assuming a 1ms propigation time per foot of difference, that means that you'd want a 2ms delay on the driver's speaker in order to have proper time alignment at the driver's head.

Then there's the passenger, who has the driver's speaker 5' away, and the passenger speaker 3' away. Add the propigation delay with the added 2ms delay, and you have the equivalent of a driver speaker that's 7' away... worse than you started.

I'm no time alignment expert, so it's quite possible that I'm off track here. If you care to take the time to explain the theory behind how it can benefit multiple positions, I'd appreciate it.

P.S. I've seen the advertisement for this $10 wonder, and half of the description is full of technical sh*t. From the sound of his description, all he's doing is introducing a phase shift to one of the drivers, which is a lot different than true time alignment. He uses a lot of buzz-words that add up to complete bullsh*t.

Hua? Your ears don't give a sh*t what time it gets there. I don't see how time alignment could possibly change fatiguing like he says, but I'm no doctor so I'll stay out of that discussion. I've got enough ammo on the rest of what he says.

True. Too bad he doesn't mention that the phase change is relative to frequency when dealing with a fixed distance from the source. Every time the frequency doubles, so does the degree of phase change. If you've got a 90* phase change at 2k, at 4k, since the sine wave is 1/2 the size, you will have a 180* phase change.
Oh please. The only possible way for any of this to have any truth is if this "circuit" lowers the overall impedance, which will create a load that's difficult for the head unit to drive, and can result in damage to the deck.
At what frequency? At what distance? This is just an arbitrary number that doesn't mean anything. And what's this about being wired in series? 2 series-wired drivers will not have a phase shift. Furthermore, if this wiring scheme requires you to series wire them, your stereo image is going to vaporize.

After reading about this miracle device, I'm 10x more skeptical. His description alone has enough techical bullsh*t for me not to believe any of his claims. Now I really need a good, physics-filled description to satisfy my skepticism.

GKK

I'm sure the Time Alignment Diagram will not sound as good as a Professionally set up sound competition vehicle but, for a modest 4 speaker system with an amp and subwoofer it does Wonders.

And all for just a few simple speaker wiring changes.

joezero

But do you still have left and right channels, or does this create a mono setup?

FyreLance

Booo, mono, you said the M-word

GKK

Yes, you still have Left and Right Channels.

Cronic3rd

$10 bucks isn't alot of money at all. Why not pay the man 10 bucks see his diagram. try it out and see what you think? as long as he doesn't have you do something stupid and blow your amp/deck what harm is it? it might be **** it might be the **** how can you know with out trying? 10 bucks is worth a try IMO.

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

I know that pouring sand into your carburator isn't going to help the car run better, but I've never tried it.

I don't know for sure that it doesn't help. All I do know is that he's offered no legit information to help me believe that it does work. The info on his website is bogus bullsh*t. Some of the crap he spews on his subwoofer box descriptions is even more ridiculous than the stuff pertaining to this $10 diagram. Everything on that site is techno babble that makes no sense to anybody that actually has knowledge of physics and electrical theory.

AJ_92RS

I've seen this diagram. I don't recall who gave it to me, but I do remember it was someone from this message board.

We had an agreement that if I liked the results I would then pay the $10 to "officially" buy the diagram. If I didn't like the results I would not pay..... however I would still keep the diagram confined to my computer.

Unfortunelty I'm a man of my word, so I'm not going to post it here. I can tell you, based on my experience with it, it was a waste of my time. It didn't help with my overall sound quality at all. Did I notice a difference..... Yes. I noticed that the phase shift caused a loss in midbass/midrange.

This could easily be percieved by the average "Joe" to make his system sound better because the higher and lower frequencies would seem louder. That's what the average "Joe" is normally impressed by, so it wouldn't be hard to do. To someone like myself or Jim (and a few others here) who are impressed with ambiance, imaging, and "flat" sound, it would not sound good. It's equivilent to cranking the bass and treble controls on your HU up all the way.

Again.... this is based on my ears, not someone else's. A friend of mine also heard it (yes....he sat in the driver's seat) and he said he didn't notice a difference at all. But since he doesn't hear my system everyday like I do, his judgement was not as critical as mine, therefore I doubt his concern was either.

AJ_92RS

BTW..... to remain on topic of the post.....

I have kickpanels. I still have the "unhooked" Alpine 4x6s in the dash because I have no intention of using them again.

I bought the kicks from DJSexay RIGHT when he said he was selling the molds. OMG!!!!! What a difference. All I have in there for now are some Jensen 6.5" coaxials. The next stereo upgrade is gonna be components .

Just changing the location of the speakers like that was beautiful. The Jensens have a tweeter I can aim, so I was able to angle them toward the opposite side passenger, and it sounds like my dash speakers are still hooked up.

Anyone who's never heard my system before gets in, listens, then asks me what I have in the dash. I say "nothing". They look at me funny, then put their hand up there to try and cover the sound I just laugh after they figure out there's nothing up there.