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PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:36 pm 
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T28

Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2004 10:57 pm
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Car: silvia s13 Q's
Im thinking of replacing the crappy stock speakers in my 1990 s13 silvia Q's, but im unsure weither to go with the round 6 inch speakers or the oval 6x9's in the back.

Is there much difference between the two in terms of sound quality???

Any suggestions would be helpfull as in hunting around for a good fairly cheap system. how would a pair of 400 watt 6x9's sony xplode speakers sound in the back????

thanks


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:23 pm 
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from my understanding (which could be wrong)

6x9 speakers represents a compromise in design, trying to provide bass, sound quality and stuff, for people who cannot or do not wish wish to install a subwoofer.

the elliptical shaped speakers when compared to circular ones, arent as good in terms of clarity when the music is turned up? Which is a factor of their shape and form.

If your not going for a big set up with subs and such, then 6x9's wouldnt be such a bad way to go. Im not a big fan of the sony xplod range, but thats just my personal prference.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2004 9:24 am 
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This is an article I wrote for INCAR magazine a little while back. Have a read;

It seems there are few debates in the known world larger than the one concerning the humble 6x9” speaker. Now depending on which side you’re on (as there seems to be no middle ground these days), 6x9’s are either a little nuisance that you’d rather have sitting far in the rear of the car or better still, on the road behind the car, or you cannot even contemplate a life without them.

Lets begin with some basics. 6x9s are oval shaped speakers aptly named because they measure 6 inches by 9 inches. There are slightly different versions measuring 7x10, 4x6 and 6x8 on the market but let us concentrate on the daddy of the group. 6x9’s are more often than not three or four way drivers (that is; three or four speakers in one unit) and comprise of a 6x9 woofer, smaller mid-bass (or two) woofer and a tweeter mounted on a bridge over the main woofer. They are commonplace in many different factory audio systems right over the world.

Now you might have heard hi-fi buffs recommending against using 6x9's in high end audio systems whilst recommending them for every other type of system. There are actually numerous pro’s and con’s of 6x9’s and there are reasons why they’re avoided for high budget systems and targeted for low budget systems and factory upgrades.

Lets look at the cons first.
The first issue is the actual cone size. The large woofer cone is a different width to length so it is obviously uneven. When viewed under a microscope the woofer cone can physically distort quite dramatically and hence, disastrously so far as sound quality is concerned. They tend to distort more than round or square speakers where kinetic forces are evenly exerted across the cone surface.

Another big problem faced by 6x9's is one similarly faced by co-axials. The woofer is seated directly underneath the midrange and tweeter. While this doesn't bother the average tweeter because they’re sealed in most cases, it can cause great stress and problems for the midrange which is trying to play a higher frequency than the pounding a woofer underneath. More often than not midrange clarity tends to suffer and can sound blurred as the woofer underneath wins every time.

Simply put, 6x9s are not dedicated drivers. They do not offer the same freedom for fine tuning nor do they faithfully reproduce sound like separate components do. They do their job competently but will never match a separate subwoofer for bass reproduction, or separate woofer for mid-bass reproduction or tweeter for high end reproduction because these drivers are dedicated to reproducing their own little part of the sound spectrum and they do it well. Components can also be mounted separately to help with staging and imaging.

But they must have some pro’s.
They do. As stated above the cone on a 6x9 is exactly that, which incidentally is nearly the same surface area as an 8” subwoofer. With their relatively high power handling, the 6x9 can punch out quite a bit of bass and they can even be run in enclosures to enhance this ability.

Another big bonus of the 6x9 is their power handling ability and efficiency. They can be run off the smallest internal (head unit) amplifier to the largest external units. Because of this ability they make terrific upgrades to factory systems where a little more bass is required. On that note, they will also fit into many factory locations without the need to cut anything up.

Expense. Time. Space. Money. Say it how you will, 6x9’s are a hell of a lot cheaper than lashing out on a large external amplifier, sub enclosure, subwoofer and splits. And they will take up a lot less room too incidentally.

At the end of the day 6x9’s make an excellent addition to budget systems and make terrific factory upgrades because they do a little of everything quite acceptably. They are very good drivers for beginners and people looking for a little more of everything but lets be realistic, they won’t keep the staunch audio buffs satisfied for long.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2004 10:12 am 
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yes, and i learned all this the hard way, i gave equal importance to front and rear speakers where as fronts should have gotten alot more attention

my 6" in the front cant keep up with the rear 6x9's without drastic fading for some proper imaging, which reduces its overall volume, which sux

if you just want something loud though, there good bang for buck


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2004 11:25 pm 
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I only read half that article but hopefully I will come back to it when I am not so... bah.

Kates car has 6x9's in the rear and 6's in the front. The 6x9's don't drown out the fronts but they definitely do make their presence more 'felt', I think the front speakers are very useful though - if you fade them out the sound is only half as good. The 6x9's do lose pretty much all quality when the volume reaches a certain level, I have always blamed this on the head unit and thought an amp was needed but Nismo has me thinking maybe it is just the speakers (might borrow an amp before forking out for one).

So yeah... great speakers to a certain point. If you want to park your car in the Macca's carpark and dance like a fairy to your homie G music then they are not for you. On the other hand if you want great bang for the buck in-car sound on a sensible budget which eliminates the need for subs, go for it.

Oh and, Kate's are Xplod's. Good base, shithouse clarity.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:02 am 
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As people have said, it depends on what you're after. The 6x9's are a compromise speaker - as well all know, very little integrated gear works as well as separate parts.

Me, in your situation, I'd get the 6x9's. I don't have aspirations of entering a car in the next sound off competition, and if I'm in the back seat of a car the beautiful music being heard won't be coming from the stereo ;)

I also don't crank my stereo particularly loudly (though the factory system in my car isn't too bad and can be turned up; for the record it doesn't have 6x9's) so that threshold of when the woofer starts destructively interfering with the other drivers hopefully won't affect me.

It'd "fill" the audio for the scrubs that get relegated to the back of a coupe, and I'd focus on getting nice splits for the front.

Assuming none of the speakers are broken or malfunctioning (I get the feeling from your post that your rears aren't broken), I'd even consider just leaving the stock ones in there and replace factory front speakers instead (as a first purchase). You're far more likely to "hear" an improvement.

In my last car, my original car stereo plan was to replace the good head unit, put in front splits and a (removable) subwoofer, get a nice 4 channel power amp where I could bridge two channels to power the sub and use the other 2 channels on the splits, and then lastly put in rear 6x9's and bridge the amp inside the head unit to power them.

A compromised amp for the compromised speakers. I don't sit back there, and their audio should be OK, so what do I care? :)

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:28 pm 
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if your getting a sub later then forget the 6 x 9's, what do you intend to do later and what type of sound are you looking for?

also remember you not meant to cut steel in the rear of a car.

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