ok i bought a pair of tweeters for my F150, but i need to know how to wire them correctly. do i need a crossover? the tweeters are 4 ohm and have a range blocker in the wiring harness. should i just wire them in series with the front door speakers?

 

are they aftermarket speakers you have in the door??

 

i have aftermarket 3 way pioneers in the door and pioneer tweeters that im trying to add, to raise the sound level

 

Remember our last thread, and that most car speakers are 4 ohm. Adding a pair of tweeters to existing speaker wire, wiring in series, will give your amp/head unit an 8 ohm load. Basically half the power to twice as many speakers.

Range blockers are a passive crossover, or should just eliminate the frequencies in a certain range. They aren't black and white however, they will start at a certain frequency, and roll off a certain number of decibels per octave. Passive crossovers are usually 3 or 6 dB per octave. Electronic ones are typically 12 db/octave.

What's the power rating on your current speakers and what are you giving it now? Will the power source (head unit or amp) be happy at half the current ohm load? If so, and you won't be giving your tweeters TOO much power then I would recommend parallel wiring and a low gain setting. Tweeters don't need anything need the amout of power woofers and subwoofers do, so you might just look for a very cheap 2 channel amp to power them. I just don't think you tweeters would last long if the get the same power as your front speakers, but that really depends... so Many options for ya.

P.S. You won't get any extra SPL out of it, or "sound level", but you should get better definition from the highs obviously.

 

well right now the door speakers are rated for around 180 watts, the tweeters for 120, its running off the factory deck, putting out 50 per channel. im not going to amp the door speakers, only because im not THAT big into stereo stuff, but i got a good deal on these speakers and figured what the hell. should i go full component up front?

as per our last conversation im doing all of this on a budget

thanks in advance for your help

 

Yeah, those are peak ratings, which basically don't mean much.

These pioneers are 220 watt max, and 50 RMS. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-vspYFOq...0&I=130TSA6870

These pioneer tweetrs are 120 watt max, and 40 watt RMS.
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-vspYFOq...30&I=130TST110

Stock radio is about 20-22 watt RMS per channel. (stock 6 Discs).

So you are currently running 1 set of pioneer door speakers off 20 watts. Adding tweeters in series, will give 10 watts to the door speakers, and 10 watts to the tweeters. Wiring them in parallel will give you about 40 watts (20 per tweeter and 20 for the door), but I doubt the ford factory radio is "2 ohm stable". It gets hot enough running the usual 4 ohm.

So in short, a crossover would help you mix the frequencies (if that's what you mean by "going full component"). Otherwise any store bought component set will automically give a 4 ohm load and will be ready to split the power evenly. (I'm not sure if they could restrict the powerflow so that say 2/3rds of the power goes to the woofer and the rest to the tweeter. I doubt it, but that's the point of component sets, you don't have to worry about that, just the RMS requirements of the set).

So you see, with the current head unit supplying the power, you will either be dividing your current power between 2 sets of speakers, or you will be risking overloading/overheating your radio to power an additional set of speakers.

This would solve everything:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-vspYFOq...10&I=020APA250
or this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...754339942&rd=1
or maybe this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...754788346&rd=1

Just need speaker level input, and about 40 watts RMS x 2 channels. Then you can get a 4 channel for the future for the doors, or just have the radio power the door speakers.

 

so if i get one of those amps, i would use it to power the tweeters? or would i be better off powering the front door speakers with that and letting the head unit power the tweeters and rear speakers?

those amps are pretty cheap, and i guess speaker level input means i dont need another set of RCAs on the back of the head unit (pioneer) which i dont have anyway.

ill go bid on one of those amps, if those are the ones i should get.

once again thanks michael, you should hop on aim so we can have a real conversation about this!

 

Yep.

Either way really, Probably would be best to give the 40 watts to door speakers, and 20 watts from the head unit to the tweeters. Just depends on your priorities in music. Should be easy to switch if back and forth to test which sounds better.


I looked for ones that offered both speaker and RCA inputs. Do you already have an amplifier? Is it used solely for your subwoofer? Your subwoofer amp may have "pre-outs" rca output which would be perfect for a 2nd amp. Or you can look for a 2 channel amp with pre outs, that the sub amp would hook into.

This is why I type alot, to try and cover every possible case lol!

Sounds like they would get the job done, but let's just rethink it through to be sure. See my above info, but yeah, nothing really lost with 20 bucks. Of course you would need to wire up some power and ground, and remote turn on, which could add to the cost. Or you may be able to split off current wiring.

Yeah, I need to reinstall AIM sometime first... It's just I don't like anything that eats up resources, stays resident in memory, related to AOL and also serves up the occasional spam or commercial. I just need to find dead aim again...

I'm all for bulding system budgets, but it's always good to have a final goal in mind so we can plan towards that. That's how my ~1,400 dollar system beats out my boss's ~4,000+ system. His is all store bought and installed, mine is all pieced together (But still matched) and self installed.

 

cool, i think my amp now has some RCA outs on them, i should be able to use the same power cable, im running the 300 watt rockford on 4 gauge +/- and i could splice in the remote wire too. i still ahve to build my sub box between the seats. maybe this week!

 

just an update for everyone, i installed the tweeters, but have not wired it yet. ill admit this is not the BEST location but it is the cleanest, with NO cutting at all. i also got my box all done and installed but no pics yet. ill get some pics this weekend. thanks everyone for your help!