Has anybody tried mounting an aftermarket tweeter in the OEM location and replacing the midrange 6"?

I am going to swap the OEMs with my JL audio component 6.5"s, and i want to have decent staging...

I'd look into adding an additional mid in the 4" location in the future if it is possible to adjust the staging accordingly.

 

Some extra info would be helpfull, like do you have the HiFi system or the standard system?

The standard system does not really have a tweeter and the HiFi system has the tweeter in the window pilar.

Others have replace the full range driver (3.5") in the door with plate and mounted the tweeter in that. if you search for tweeter you will probably find it easily.

As for the tweeter in the window pilar be carefull pulling the pilar cover off.

Look at this thread if you have not already done so. It gives lots of details https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=95211

 

i have the hifi. tweeter located in pillar by windshield.

I am aware of the swap with the 3.5", but I may expand it later to accomodate a dedicated midbass driver.

My concern is if the tweeters are swapped, the distance between the drivers would create an imbalanced sound stage...which brings me to my original question...

Has anybody tried installing an aftermarket tweeter in the OEM location while using the OEM 6" for the midrange component?

 

I bought Infinity Kappa 60.7cs 6-1/2" component speakers and put the tweeter in the A pillar. I'm not sure how to judge the staging. Don't really know what "staging" means, unless it is volume balance between speakers. I would assume that it would be reasonably decent since the tweeter was designed to go with the woofer.

 

In the HiFi system, the A pillar tweeters are in parallel with the 4 inch door speakers, and run off one channel of the amplifier. The 6.5 inch door speaker runs off another amplifier channel.

I haven't run response curves on the 6.5 inch door speaker channel, but at this stage, very little would surprise me!

You could try swapping wires in the door -- that would be the simplest approach.

The WDS site (plenty of pointers in other threads) will let you look at the wiring diagrams, connectors, and such for speaker wiring in the doors and such.

 

I understand what you mean about sound stage but the biggest problem with the speakers in the car is the quality of them to start.

The highest quality drive in the car is the tweeter and the 4" (3.5") and 6" are probably the worst ones in the whole car.

The best thing you could do is go with a 3 way component speaker system such as the Focal 165 V3E. These are rather expensive at $699 pair but your other choice is to go with a two way component from Infinity, Polk, Pioneer etc. and then place some sort of cover over the 3.5" hole in the door.

As for the sound stage. The car is small that you will have a very limited "sound stage" any way that there really is no reason to be concerned about it IMHO.

For those of you reading this post that do not understand the term sound stage, the easiest way to explain it is. It is the ability of the listener to be able to pick out exactly where the instruments, voices etc are located on an imaginary 3D stage.

 

Is there a problem with the way I did it? I bought the Infinity Kappa 60.7cs 6-1/2" component speaker for the 6" hole and the A pillar. Then put a Infinity Kappa 42.7i 4" 2-way car speaker in the 3.5" hole, but didn't connect its tweeter.

What would be the disadvantage of doing that?

 

you want your midrange and tweeter to be as close together, ideally. staging is when the stereo image is in front of you (preferably way out past the hood) vs. hearing distinct left and right. Usually, a proper stage is not low - human hearing is very, very sensitive in the horizontal but notsomuch in the vertical (thanks to evolution for that....). If you hear a 'low stage'...things are very off.

The problem in a MINI, especially the R56 is that the mid is mounted next to your thigh while the tweeter is either there or in the a-pillar. My suggestion for proper staging is to put the 4" and tweeter together in the door and run another pair of tweeters in the A pillar but crossed over higher around 8-10K and padded down 3-6db to compensate for the horn loading effect. CDT sells a set for just this purpose.

there are also some interesting tricks you can play...reverse your right and left rear speaker signals and put one out of phase (reverse the polarity). This makes them similar to a 'dipole' rear speaker in home theater and also helps to center your front stage.

 

Although all of what you said is true in large sand even medium spaces the Mini is so Small that you will not have a proper sound stage with out electronics controlling it with delays and such.

As for reversing the polarity of the rear speakers that would only make the lack of base worse in a car that has limited base response as it is.

 

correct....especially on the driver's side. my CD has that ability and I put it to good use.

sorry, I should have said 'only do this if you have a separate subwoofer'

 

Hi,
I added an aftermarket system and am quite pleased with the results. It was fairly expensive, but included installation and complete dynamat.

When first installed I was not happy as the system imaging (staging) was very poor. After about three return visits and custom tweeter enclosures, the imaging is just about right. We found that the imaging was very dependent upon tweeter location, and even a fraction of an inch difference would collapse the three dimensional image. When all was completed, my reaction was "of course!" The best tweeter location was almost directly above the six inch speaker opening in the door panels. I added a red circle to the photo in photoshop to clearly indicate the location of the tweeter.

The system was not completely tuned until a Rockford Fosgate 3Sixty.2 was tweeked for the proper time delay and frequency response correction.

There have also been a few posts on this forum about stealth subwoofer installations. I had my installer add one of those also (in the boot). He used a combination fiberglass bottom to contour with the center recess in the boot and topped it of with MDF. The woofer is recessed into the box so the cover board can be mounted flush. The cover board uses an industrial type ventilation screen over the subwoofer hole (for support) and is "feathered" with cardboard between the board and the carpet so the edge of the screen can not be felt or seen. I used an ALpine 4.150 amp and used the space left under the amp for the Focal corssovers for the front speakers.

Let me know if you have questions.
Regards

 

question is in the subject