2way Active Speaker System Suggestions

[itsZiz]

I think I'm mostly settled on most of the set up, but still not sure on which speakers.

I don't have any of these parts yet, but after a few hundred hours researching this is what I've come up with. Let me know if you have any other suggestions, or ideas.

$785 Helix M Four DSP (4x100 for wideband and woofer)
$210 SFB-1000D (sub amp)
$320 SD-4 10" (probably going 2ohm, to get better efficiency from amp and 1ohm future dual option)
$180 Wiring (Knukoncepts amp, speaker, rca, metra harness)
$180 Sound Treatment (NVX silicone Baffle, NVX 90mil Butyl, Noice Red 150mil)
$100 Sub Box & Speaker Adapters (DIY, ply, glue, terminal etc. Will coat with Duratex)

Speaker options

CDT Unity 8 & CL-69
AudioFrog GS25/690
HAT U2/U69
Audible Physics Aries SK3/SK8 (8" woofers up front!)
Audible Physics Ram 2 & ?

I like the idea of Widebands in the Tacoma OEM location to keep more of the sound above the dash, and they would be easy to upgrade to a 3 way setup if I wanted in the future. CDT is the lowest price option at only $225 for refurb widebands (supposedly only scratch/dent), but I'd hate to spend all this time and money to handicap myself with bad speakers.

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

[89grand]

In my opinion, the tuning of the system is the majority of what makes or breaks it, along with a solid install. Amp choice is pretty low on the totem pole, so I look for what fits, has the power I believe I'll need, and preferably from a company that makes reliable equipment. Speaker choice matters, but again the tuning matters a lot more. Good speakers on a great tune will out perform great speakers with a non-existent, or even average tune every time.

With that said, I use the CDT Unity 8's in the dash, and the CDT CL-69S 6x9 woofers in the door and I have zero complaints. The Unity 8's are awesome, and I feel no need to run a tweeter with them. I run the 6x9's from 80hz-375hz @24db, and the Unity 8's from 375hz on up @24db.

On paper, my system doesn't seem all that impressive, but as whole, it's pretty good. I have a 2019 Ram 1500 single cab. I run the stock 8.4" to an AudioControl lc2i pro, then to a miniDSP 8x12 Dirac Live, then to a Kicker Key 200.4 used strictly as a 4 channel, and that runs the Unity 8's and 6x9's in the doors. I have more CDT 6x9's behind the seats running off the headunit, but they are faded off until I figure out how best to use them. The sub is a JL Audio sealed Power Wedge+ 12TW1 with a built in 400 watt amp. All I really need now, is to deaden the doors and work on door panel vibrations. Overall, it sounds good, and get louder than one would expect consider only about 600 watts total.

I've spent quite a bit of time tuning it, and that's where it all comes together.

[itsZiz]

Thanks for the input! Why do you use the lc2I, doesn't the minidsp have high level inputs?

I was originally looking at the minidsp c-dsp. Using the input EQ for the wideband freq. range (plus its outputs) would be 12 total for that range which may or may not be enough, which is why I was strongly considering the Helix. That (peq bands) and the input voltage. The C-dsp has a 4v maximum, where as the Helix is much higher (5-20v) so I should be able to skip a LOC altogether I think. Although, if the stereo is on low volume, under 5v, would that cause an issue with the Helix?

Plus I need to research what biquads are, and how they work since minidsp and rew play so well together that may give me even more options.

ps. 89grand, how do you supply 12v to your minidsp? Its kinda in a werid position of not needing a dedicated power line an amp, but stills needs power. Crutchfield has a 12guage "amp" wiring kit I had though of using, or could I just jump power from the amp to the dsp?

[89grand]

Originally, I didn't have the miniDSP. I was going for something more simple and used the Kicker Key and it's autotune processing. It works ok, tonal balance was decent, the center image was ok, but it often sounded too narrow over all. Some songs truly sounded like mono recordings. In addition to that, the sub sounded awful and I had no eq for it, so the front stage sounded ok, minus the negatives I mentioned, but the sub sounded like absolute shit, very peaky in the upper bass, and many frequency dips that I measured with REW. I tried an AC Epicenter, but that didn't really improve anything. That's when I knew I needed a DSP for the whole system, so out came the Epicenter, and in went the miniDSP.

I probably could have gotten away with all high level inputs, but the lc2i is pretty cheap, and has accubass if you need it. I didn't. When I ran the power wires from the battery located fuse holder for the Kicker amp and JL sub, I just went ahead and added something like a 16 gauge (processors don't draw much current) for the Epicenter because I had 4 fuseable slots, and when I pulled it out I used the same power and ground wires for the miniDSP. If I hadn't done that, getting power from somewhere else would be pretty easy as you don't need big wire and current draw is next to nothing. No need for 12 gauge for it, and it wouldn't even fit into the connector. Also the lc2i pro provides remote turn on output, so I used that for the amps and DSP.

Before you decide on a DSP, the miniDSP 8x12 with Dirac Live is the shit. All you have to do before running the DL measurements, is make sure all your speakers are in phase, you can verify that by measuring around the crossover point, select the correct crossover frequencies and it will auto tune beyond most peoples capabilities. It's much more sophisticated than just eq. It deals with phase and impulse response. If you want a great tune in under 30 minutes (after the learning curve of how to use it, and some initial setup I didn't mention), this is it (you will need the miniDSP Umik microphone). If you want to manual tune for hours, days, months maybe, and maybe still not be as good, then look for a different DSP.

I'm not kidding, the minDSP Dirac Live is totally worth the money (under $1k). I can manually tune ok with REW, but the miniDSP smokes what I can do on my own or what the Kicker Key can do. My system sounds great, including the sub. Not to promote another forum, but there are many pages of discussions on the miniDSP 8X12 DL on DIYMA. Another cool thing, is you can try different target curves without remeasuring again. Just draw in more bass, less midrange, etc, and it will recalculate the tune in about 1 minute without screwing up the original tune.

[itsZiz]

Sorry but im still unclear. To run power to a minidsp, can I just run a small (16guage) speaker wire from my battery, or do I use a fuse tap, or jump a wire from my amp 12v (4gauge) over to the mini?

I don't know why, but this little power requirement is more confusing to me than running a big power wire like an amp has.

Also, do you think 12 bands would be enough to eq a wideband (400-20k)?

DIRAC seems really awesome, but that pushes my budget out another $500 when I had already pushed it further than originally intended.

[89grand]

The current required to run a DSP is very low. You probably could just run a small 16 gauge wire from an amps power input, but I'd fuse the wire between the amp and DSP, or tap into some other source. I run a t-harness between the factory radio and factory harness because I didn't want to cut any factory wires. That harness came with power, ground and remote turn on wires. I used that power and ground to turn on the lc2i pro, but I could have used it to turn on the DSP too. I ran a separate wire from the battery because it was easy, as the miniDSP is under the drivers seat, and I had to run a power past that point for my sub behind the seat, so I just ran them together. Powering the DSP is no different than powering a LOC, or headunit or any other low current item. You'll need a remote turn on wire too, but that's easy as most audio equipment does too.

You could save some money on some of your gear choices to offset the cost of the miniDSP with Dirac Live. Honestly, the Dirac Live is well worth the money, and then some. It tunes fantastically, and you wouldn't need to worry about how many bands of eq you had, because it does it for you, and does it better than most people can. I have zero eq applied on the miniDSP, because I didn't need to correct anything after Dirac Live. I had fiddled with the eq in the past trying to make changes I thought it needed, only to find out after switching presets, that I actually made the sound worse. You simply make changes in Dirac to the house curve, and let it do it if you want more or less bass, or highs or whatever and it will do it in about 1 minute, then you just save it as some name, in case you want to back to something else. You can save many different tunes.

If you still choose not to use Dirac Live, although I can't over emphasize how great it is, 12 bands of parametric eq is more than enough. The miniDSP 8X12 has 10 bands per output, and it would be plenty. When tuning a car, you don't have to deal with every single peak and dip, attack the big issues first, and as long as the frequency response is balanced well, you shouldn't need to address everything. The 8x12 has separate left and right eq per output. That's a lot. If it was a shitty graphic eq, than I'd say no, but parametric is much more powerful of a tool.

[Jdunk54nl]

If I were to buy a new dsp today, it would be the helix m4. If I couldn't get that it would be the minidsp 8x12 with dirac. If you don't know or are unwilling to learn to tune, then get dirac. If you want to learn how to tune and have more options, get the helix.

[89grand]

From what I've seen, the Helix DSP's are great. Someone like Peter from PS Sound, along with some other great tuners could probably manually tune it better than Dirac Live does, but then again, Peters installs are WAY above what most of us have. Not insulting the OP at all, as we all started some where, and we're all still learning something about audio, but if he is having a hard time with understanding a small power wire for a processor, Dirac Live will give him very good sound (if the install is at least decent) much easier than any other DSP. Even if one does know the basics of tuning, it wouldn't be that easy to top it. There is a learning curve to setting it up properly, and using it, so it's not a just push a button, and it's done thing. You still need to learn the basics of tuning to use it correctly.

The cool thing about the miniDSP 8x12 is that someone can still use it to manually tune, it has what you need, then they can run Dirac on another preset to see if they can out tune it. So one can learn to tune, but can use Dirac if/when they get frustrated with their own tunes.

[Jdunk54nl]

The helix auto tune works pretty well too. Not Dirac good, but pretty good. Similar to Dirac though, you still have to do some initial things.

[89grand]

I didn't know the Helix units had an auto tune. That's pretty cool.