Recent content by Cliff459

It's a good amp, not super-powerful or anything, but the DSP works very well if you follow the instructions correctly in setting it up. I put one in a Toyota Tundra truck, it made a noticeable difference even with the basic factory speakers (non-JBL system). It's not going to win a dB drag race...

Hello all- I have a new truck and I am designing a new system for it. The stock head unit has a lot of nice features, touchscreen, HD FM tuner, steering wheel controls, etc. that my old truck didn't have. I had a Pioneer DEH-80PRS in that truck, loved the clean sound quality of that deck. I...

Thanks for all the replies! I didn't really push the replacement of the tweeters too far in my mind, looks like I'll explore my options there. Hey trumpet, from the looks of what it costs to buy the CDT ES-1200is tweeters and a CDT crossover to match, I could just get the full CDT ES-62AS.2...

So, I have a set of PHD FB 6.1 PRO in the front doors of a Toyota Tacoma (standard cab), driven by an older JL 300/2 amp. Head unit is a Pioneer DEH-PRS80. I LOVE the PHD fiberglass 6.5" mid-woofer, it performs excellent on hard rock drums and guitar (my main program material), but the tweeter...

I agree it's a lot of money to spend, but I would do it in a minute if the sound was what I was looking for. I just spent about $550 on a pair of PHD 6.5" comps (2-way), and I think it was very well spent for the SPL and clarity they produce. Nothing like Italian-made fiberglass cones for the...

As long as the output waveform from the amp is not clipped, you should be OK. I'm not sure how you would use a digital voltmeter to accurately do a setup, I have always used an oscilloscope to do mine. Although the output voltage rating is a good guideline, it doesn't really mean that the head...

The Kenwood KMR-D558BT has two pre-outs plus a sub output, does Bluetooth, and is $149.99 at Best Buy with free shipping. I have an older Kenwood head unit with the same features (minus Bluetooth audio), and it has been great. Lots of EQ and other things to tweak to your heart's content...

You gave some great examples here of why "more is better" just does not apply to car audio speakers. Putting large groups of speakers together with no regard to physics is a recipe for disaster. I did concert audio for quite a few years and trust me, even when speakers are purposely designed to...

+1 to this comment, oh so true! My friend just put some low cost JL components in the kick panel of his 2010 Ford Ranger and it was the best investment he made in his whole system yet. It really improved the imaging doing this, stuff just jumps out at you now when you're listening!

I think most factory speakers will sound like "crap" when paired to aftermarket ones. Factory systems have a complete system design paradigm to maximize the balance between cost vs sound quality and SPL. This is decided by a group of engineers at the auto factory, and many things swing the...

Have you checked the crossover output wiring? These speakers are VERY polarity sensitive on the output of the crossover, as a 2nd Order design is 180 degrees out of phase at the crossover point and these crossovers will have the polarity compensated because of this. So, double-check that the...

My two cents here as a guy who has messed with speaker design as "Professional" (ie - Paid Gig) and hobby for more than twenty years now: Given the Qts values for all three of your choices, I will guess that every one of them will disappoint you as midbass units without some kind of enclosure...

As a side note to a dampening/midbass discussion thread, I want to add that the real reason why the midbass improves is that door speakers are usually an "Infinite Baffle" type of enclosure loading for midbass woofers located in this location. Infinite Baffle is sometimes called "Free Air" as...

Just a thought here: Why not try to repair the broken crossover? Many times there is just a broken solder joint on the circuit board due to rough handling during shipping; inductors are heavy components and a hard hit that causes lateral motion of the board can shear something like this off...

I have the original documents for my XL10S woofers, so I thought I would share some scans of the spec pages that cover all the XL series woofers that Cerwin made back in the day. I bought mine from Crutchfield in the early 1990's, so that gives you an idea of how old these things are. Hope...