I just bought the Polk db6501 kit to replace a dead door panel mid woofer and upgrade the rest. The 2000 XK8 convertible w/premium sound has two tweaters on each side, on by the pillar and one in the fascia.



Which tweeter should I replace on each side? (they're connected in paralell, i.e. they have the same crossover, are they the same tweeter?)
Should I remove one of them afterwards?
Should I solder on a capacitator like the one found on the pillar tweeter?


Cheers!
Johan

 

I believe the dash speaker is actually a mid-range speaker. The tweeter is in the triangle by the door mirror. Personally I think the tweeter is better placed in the dash as the highs will bounce off of the windshield and spread better. Just my humble opinion...

 

I see, so I'd have to move the midrange or place the tweeter next to it in the dash. The midrange and tweeter seem to be on the same crossover btw? Where can I find removal instructions for the dash speaker?

 

Just insert a flat blade (like a putty knife) into the slot surrounding the Speaker Grille and gently pry the Grille up.

 

So keep the midwoofer in the dash, and move the tweeter there too? How about the capacitator that's one the current one?

 

I soldered off the connectors to the old tweeters and replaced them with the Polks hooked them up to the crossover set to 0 dB, the crossover fits inside the door panel if you remove its cover, like this:



Verry nice, they fit snugly inside the pillar and the alpine covers fit over with no modification. Next up is new subwoofers, ordered two kickers. The dash mids are working fine and sound good to me, no need to replace those.

 

I concur w/ the Beav on placement of the new component tweeter!

 

So where would you place the midrange???

 

IMHO the stock head unit is horribly mid-range biased and the extra mid-range speakers are unnecessary, especially with the upgrade speakers you're using. In my case I know I could go up one more speaker upgrade but it still won't improve the sound as the stock head unit is what is really holding back the sound. The only thought I have is they must have been looking for clarity at low volume levels with the top down. To me it sounds like the world's best 1960s transistor radio. "It's got 97 transistors brother... it even gets AM!"

 

Funny, with the Polks in it seems to me that the midrange needs a boost, as highs and bass (sub +2) is pretty good. (Might want to turn the tweeters down 3db).

How is the head unit holding back the sound btw? Aren't the crossovers in the amp (and the DAC is in the Pure I20 iphone dock)? I have bass and treble set to 0.

 

those DB series polks may be letting you down too. I recommended the MMC series after the DBs I installed were pretty flat sounding. If you want to keep the midranges, try them down by the woofers for a little more 'voice' in your music. The distance between it and the tweet though, w/o time delay, may not sound right. Trial and error I suppose.

 

OE radios are 'tuned' for the way they want them to sound - taking into account cheap speakers (and brand name speakers in a OE system doesn't mean they're as good as the aftermarket ones from the same manufacturer, you're usually just paying/getting a name plate and a little more fiddling with the settings), interior acoustics, the type of music the car's demographic will probably listen to, etc., etc. Aftermarket units aren't subject to all of this fiddling as the manufacturer has no idea into what kind of vehicle the unit will be placed. Hence the availability of equalizers, sound processors, etc. Try adding a sub and amp to your stock radio and see how little sound comes from it - the OE radio has been tuned to not provide much in the way of low frequency signals as there aren't any speakers installed that can handle them. For example, the previous owner of my Jag left a 12" Polk sub in the trunk with a 200w amp. It barely moves, no matter how much I turn the bass up - it may as well not even be there. I upgraded the amp to 400w and it still sounds the same (or should I say 'doesn't make any sound'?.) My Lincoln has an aftermarket head unit and an Infinity Basslink in the trunk and it will drive you crazy if you don't throttle it back. Put the Basslink in the Jag - no joy. Put the Polk and amp in the Lincoln and I'm cruising around town looking for where my license plate fell off.

 

+1 w/Matt - I'm not too tickled with the DBs either. I should have listened to him and got the MMs to begin with. Duh! on me...

 

Well, what kind of equalization does the headunit actually do with all settings to 0?? I have a feeling that I\ll get more than adequate thumb out of the new 6.5 inch kickers im getting, any more and panel vibration would start driving me insane.

h20boy: how or where did you hook up the crossover if you placed the tweeter in the dash?

I'm not to worried about the DBs, people generally rave about them and their good enough to my ears, in audio there's always something better..

 

That's just what I'm saying... the engineers/marketing peeps/bean counters have 'adjusted' the radio's output by incorporating filtering circuits in the radio to support the inexpensive speakers/acoustics/etc. Aftermarket crossovers will filter the frequencies as engineered BUT if the frequencies have already been filtered out they just don't exist before they ever get to your new crossovers. Crossovers don't add, they subtract/inhibit. Equalizers/processors boost signals at specific frequency ranges, but if those frequencies aren't there to begin with (already filtered at the source) what are they going to amplify? The bass and treble controls just kind of 'muddy up or down' the signals - the 'damage' has already been done. Even if the bass and treble controls were able to restore the signal to original levels, if the OE didn't provide speakers capable of 20Hz they would probably have filtered the signal to not provide any frequencies below, say, 1500Hz - the typical low end for a cheap speaker. Providing lower frequencies to that speaker would more than likely lead to its early demise (hyper-extension leading to torn cones and surrounds) so they filter those frequencies out. And, once again, once it's gone, it's gone.

 

Don't know why I'm feeling so 'compelled' tonight... ;-)

Look at the bass and treble controls this way: the signal has already been adjusted to compensate for the speakers' weaknesses. Now you can subtract or add strength to the frequency(ies) of what signal is remaining. You still don't have 'full range' do you?

 

But how do you know how much the audio has been adjusted? I agree about the bass and treble control though, uuugh.

The good news is that I wouldn't need to replace the headunit, I could just hook up the amp to the Pure I20 line out (a kick *** DAC, probably better than what you'd get in basically any aftermarket headunit..) and the iphone would take care of everything - podcast, internet radio, spotify!!, youtube, i.e. access to basically all the music in the world. I'm currently feeding it a 4G connection through my htc inspire 4g

So, what amps to get?

Also, I see that Polk makes a 4" midrange w/tweeter that could be interesting to put in the dash

 

BTW: there's a iphone app that gives you a real EQ on it1 EQu i think it's called

 

So basically I should get a 4 channel amp to power the Polk DB6501 and Mids up front, 4x75W at 4 ohm should be plenty, and then two monoblocks, a 2 channel or bridged 4 channel amp to power the Kickers in the back at 150W RMS (300W peak).

Sooo, what to get? That's the question.
Two of these? Amazon.com: Pioneer GM-D9500F Class-FD 4-Channel Bridgeable Amplifier: Automotive

Review: PASMAG | PERFORMANCE AUTO AND SOUND - Pioneer GM-D9500F Amplifier

Or one and two of these: Rockford Fosgate Prime R500-1 500 Watt Mono Amplifier

Or to go cheap, two Kenwood 4 channels? Kenwood - KAC-8405

The polks are rated 60W RMS and the kickers are 150W RMS, 300W peak at 4 ohm.

Or the Kenwood XR-5S and wireing the subs in parallel (decreasing the impedance to 2 ohm), which would be a $350 dollar complete solution!

Or one alpine PDX F4 for the 4 channels?

 

Actually the Jaguar headunit isn't all that bad. The same unit is used in the premium sound system and also the basic version. There is a switch on the headunit that puts a full range line level output into the factory amp, which will easilly provide the frequencies for an aftermarket amp to work with.