Can someone tell me how kickpanels will help on imaging? I don't see how this is possible, because I can't even SEE my driver's side kickpanel... its COMPLETELY blocked by my leg, and the steering wheel...

seems like you'd get a better quality by placing the tweeter on the door.

 

Do you always drive with both feet over to the left of your brake pedal and your upper body over the center console? Seems kinda hard to reach the gas pedal from that angle. I can't remember the last time I looked over and saw that the air vent on the far left was even close to being blocked by any part of the wheel, unless you have moved the entire column over...... From the photo, it also appears that you're right handed - seems to me like your left ear would care more about what's coming out of that speaker than your right eye. Those 4-5 additional inches would change the perspective a bit, huh? Nice try though!

I will take a picture of what mine looks like when I get my digital camera back in a couple days (unless somebody with kick panels beats me to it).

 

hrm, no matter what I did, the path from the kickpanel to my left ear was blocked by either my leg, or the steering wheel.

maybe there is something I'm not thinking of.

 

I think they help compared to the stock setup. The stock stuff mounted in the dash bounces off the windshielf before getting to your ears. Having the speaker in the kickpanel aims it right at you so there is no bouncing around before reaching your ears. Now as far as your legs blocking it, I understand what you are saying. If you are really into the imaging, then you'll probably want to come up with your own solution. I've seen tweets mounted by the side mirriors, where some cars have the **** to adjust the side mirrors. I've seen other setups with the tweets mounted externally on the dash facing forward (aiming at your ears).

 

I wish we could mount the woofers in the doors with not a lot of trouble... because I like the fact you can have the tweets facing you... then when you open the doors, you can project the sound, like at a tailgate party.

 

my buddy's car is set up that way. he can open up the doors and the trunk and it's like a huge soundstage. it's pretty nice if you care a whole lot about broadcasting your sound down the street or you just like the attention (anyone who drives around in 10 degree weather with the windows down so pedestrians hear your system likes attention).

 

If you sit with your leg like that in the picture then no kicks wont hlp. I dont sit like that myself so its not a problem.

The reason why kicks do sound better is that you want to try your best to set your speakers eqadistant to you. Now this is not completley attainable. But what you do is take a take measure and measure from the center of your forehead to the speaker each speaker if the differance is less than 6 inches you will gernerally get a good sound stage. "excluding some really crappy speakers" no the smaller the differance the better it will sound. but with my car compeating in sound quality kicks allways sound better.

You can put speakers in the doors but that cause extream time delay problems between the left and right speakers because of the proximity to the drivers speaker "assuming one is sitting in the driver seat".

But yes if that is the way you sit i would sugest modding the dash and fiberglassing some 5.25" speakers up thier.

also make sure the tweeter is as close to the mid range as possible so that you dont have any timealignment issues.

 

I was thinking of creating a custom fiberglass dashboard...

it would be sweet to mount some 6.5" components up there.... but maybe I'll just figure something out for the doors or something.

I wonder... where do you guys put your left leg when you're driving?

 

I curl mine under my right.

sound is the most important thing in my automobile.

besides everyone knows cars were invented just so they could put the mobile in mobile sound systems!!!!

 

okay... say I didn't have a left leg... the steering wheel still blocks the line-of-sound!

does that not matter so much?

does the sound reflecting off the dashboard really sound worse than the kicks being partially blocked?

 

sometimes i wonder if it's true.
i switch my left leg from being almost completely straight out (the bottom of my leg travels along the inferior border of the woofer and my foot curves along the border closest to the engine bay), to bent, to curled under my right leg - i really can't sit still. anyways, i usually dont have a problem with mine, either. even if your dash is in the way of your tweets mounted in the kick panels (as mine is now for the driver's side - i might be moving them later since i just put them in where the guy who made the kicks put them originally), it will probably sound better than the factory dash locations. i might also have the seat back a little farther than yours, and the steering wheel at a slightly lower angle since i can see the entire speedometer (i don't want to take an airbag directly to the face if it has to deploy).
i would be interested to see a totally custom fiberglass dash - that would be pretty unique.

 

my seat is all the way back, and my steering wheel is at the 2nd lowest setting...

I rotate my left leg between 3 locations...

1. straight out, left of the brake pedal
2. curled up under my right leg, pressed up against the front of my seat
3. along the door, with my heel up against the seat.

in the picture I'm half-way between #1 and #3

 

all i know is i went from dash speakers to kicks, and i will be disappointed in anything else from here on out. granted, i have not had the benefit of hearing anything that is near perfect at the competitions, but i have better imaging and clearer, more precise sound than my friend who put his mb quart comps in his doors (both tweets and woofers - and he did this out of conveniece of pre-cut holes). it's better than the mach 480 sound system in my buddy's mustang (which isn't all that bad for stock, but the imaging is clearly one-sided towards the side on which the listener is sitting with random cymbals crashing on the opposite side of the car - there isn't a fluid soundstage). its better than the Bose system in my mom's Cadillac STS (and they do pretty much work to get those right - it even has a center channel speaker). now, im not saying these are good relative to upper-end aftermarket products, but they sure beat anything you can put in our factory dash locations.
if none of that means anything, all the SQ guys that i've ever talked to swear by kick panels (usually with a secondary woofer in the door and maybe supertweets up top).....

 

1,2, and 3 typically work, but the half-way position usually doesn't.

 

even if it blocks it.. from what you guys are saying it will be okay..

what I wonder, is what if I used the dash speakers with the kicks? I guess at a lower volume....

 

Quite often when I'm driving, my leg is blocking my kicks just like in the picture. Even then, my kicks STILL image far better than dash speakers.

Nobody is trying to say that kick panel locations are perfect. They are far from it. But they have less drawbacks than other positions in a car.

With your leg blocking the kick panel, the biggest difference will be a high frequency attenuation. Any sound with a wavelength that's smaller in length than the diameter of your leg. Let's assume that you work out and you have a calf diameter of 5". At that size, the sound will be unaffected at frequencies below 2,700hz, which is where all of the vocal information and the majority of the musical content is. In fact, you're missing out on less than one of the 10 audible octaves of audible sound. Even above 2.7khz, although you certainly hear some noticable attenuation, it's really not that extreme. I would say that you're giving up no more than 5-8 of attenuation at any frequency. Even at higher frequencies there's still enough reflection from all of the surrounding surfaces that you don't miss much. My guess is that this reflection, because it's still contained to a relatively small area, still provides good imaging because from the distance your ears are at, the sound is still basically coming from 1 location. In contrast, with your speakers in the dash firing straight up at the dash, being combined with the direct radiating sound, creates a combing filter effect where some frequencies are cancelled, and some are reinforced. The result is a lousy, unfocused image. Combine this with the fact that virtually all 4x6s are very cheap and have very simple 1st order filters that smear the phase of the two drivers, and you wind up with something that has lousy imaging capabilities, that's being put into a terrible imaging environment. The result is far worse than having kick panels along with their drawbacks.

So what about tweeters in the doors instead of the dash? Well, now you have less equalized path lengths, so the high frequency image is going to pull toward the closer driver. You also have them farther back, so you're going to create more of a headphone effect instead of a realistic soundstage out in front of you. They're also going to be farther off axis, so your high frequency attenuation is going to be as bad or worse than having them in the kicks with your leg blocking them.

 

you make some good points

 

Then i like attention, i love to do that!! But then again here in texas it is never really that cold, but yeah windows are always down.

 

yeah I'd love to have the speakers on the doors, for that exact reason... maybe if I mount JUST the tweeters low in the doors, then I can achieve that result

 

we get slapped with a $100 fine here in Cleveland Heights if your music can be heard 20 feet from the car, although mostly they just care about the bass being too loud (gee, this doesn't target a certain population).
the cops here also have the ***** to stand on the sidewalk and radar people coming up a hill with a stop sign at the top. if you're speeding, they step out in front of your car and ask you to pull around the corner so they can write you a ticket.

 

just so you know for future reference. You don't have to stop for a "Police Officer" unless he is in a clearly-marked vehicle, that shows what precint/department they work for.

I would just keep driving if I were you... to make things really interesting, call 911 and say some lunatic is pretending to be a cop and chasing you...

I would never stop for a lazy sob like that... they've got to CATCH me!

on another note... if you ever feel that the person pulling you over isn't a cop, or you aren't gonna stop right away... dial *677 from ANY cell phone, and it connects you directly to the police dispatcher... no 911 or other crap to deal with... just tell them you aren't gonna stop for whatever reason, that way the cops dont shoot out your tires... (say you were on the way to the hospital....)

 

which reminds me...



I also have a video of me arguing with the cop... and telling him that, "I'm gonna need to see the display of the radar gun, and the date it was last calibrated."

the look on that guys face was one-of-a-kind... I actually made him stutter when he responded to me...

 

i can avoid these particular fools because i live across the street from where they do this, so i know not to speed up that particular hill. what is funny is that they almost always have someone pulled over when they're out there, and it is probably the same people getting pulled because of the location. they have their cars parked withing 15 feet around the corner and running, so i'm not sure if driving off would be a good idea. i don't think they can shoot your tires for speeding....

 

I just pull over and act polite. Being a ***** to the cop might make you feel like a tough guy for a little while, but when you find yourself being followed by them 24-7, and being pulled over constantly over nothing, you'll wish you just sucked it up and behaved nicer the first time. You're a young guy in a Camaro with a loud stereo. You're already drawing enough negative attention... don't go looking for more.

 

You're much more likely to get away without a ticket by:
1. Not breaking the speed limit by more than 10 mph in the first place.
2. Not blasting your speaker in a heavily populated area (you're just advertising for thieves anyway).
3. Being polite - I have only been pulled over once and that is what worked. Even though you're mad you can't drive the way you want and think the police should have something more important to do, showing a little respect goes a long way. If you work WITH them instead of AGAINST them, both parties are much happier.

 

truth be known, they DO have better things to do... like fighting CRIME! --- but with batman, superman and daredevil on the beat, I guess we can spare a few officers...

standing on the sidewalk using a radar gun to pull you over is a money-making scheme... plain and simple.

if our forefathers were around still, they'd probably be the first to support an uprising for the people against our government.

three words. taxation without representation.

all that aside, I've tried EVERYTHING to get out of tickets... my first 9-10 tickets, I was the nicest guy you ever saw, no excuses, I apologized to the officer, noted I was simply not paying as much attention as I should have... -- note- obviously I was paying VERY close attention, I never speed by accident, that would be careless.

I got a $200 ticket the FIRST day I owned my firebird... because the tail light fuse was out, and I had no idea... and in all reality, I could not be expected to know this.... I even told him the place I bought the car from and told him I could get him proof that this was the first day I had the car... none of that mattered.

99% of cops are ******, and deserved to be treated as such. I will only respond politely if they are polite first, which is hardly ever the situation.

----------
on a side note... one my my favorite pass-times is when I'm at a light and I see a cop ahead of me a few cars, or in the general area, and I KNOW he can't tell where it's coming from... I turn up the subs... it's friggin hilarious you can see them looking around..

I guess I feel robbed, because the police have taken several thousand dollars in fines alone from me... during my lifetime, I've probably spent about 75% of all the money I've ever made on taxes, or fines of some kind... and think that we can all agree, the government doesn't deserve any money because someone was speeding... no matter how fast.

if it wasn't an obvious money-making ploy, they'd ARREST you for speeding, put you in JAIL... if they were serious... but I have cousins that are cops, and it makes common sense, they don't give a rat's *** how much you speed, or that you're speeding... its all about the money...

if you ever catch a cop off-duty, they'll tell you some interesting stuff...

---

also, that cop in the picture... he was at a loss for words when I told him, "Have a nice day Officer, see you in court!" -- all of this, of course, because he was an *******... this was the ONE time I got pulled over when I WASN'T speeding!!! just my luck... I knew the area of i-35 and it was notorious for piggies... so I was going maybe 2-3 over the limit... this silverado comes barreling down the highway, at the EXACT MOMENT we pass this on-ramp where a cop was waiting...

he said that that there was no truck and I was lying... -- good thing I had taken some pictures of the truck with my camera cell... then after I got my ticket I caught up with the truck and took a bunch of pictures and videos... the guy looked really nervous because he knew why I was doing it.

It's okay, the officer never showed up to the trial... Justice was served.

 

Getting out of tickets starts with avoiding them in the first place.

I've been driving sports cars for.... let's count here... fingers & toes... 11 years, starting when I was 17. During that time, at least one of my sports cars has always been "Arrest Me Red". I've never had a single speeding ticket, and the only ticket I've ever had of any kind was a bullsh*t "Failure To Keep Right" in a speed trap town that couldn't get me for speeding. I never do less than 5-10 over the speed limit unless I'm in the process of passing an idiot who's going too slow. I'm an agressive driver and I road rage worse than anybody you're likely to meet. But... I'm also smart enough to know where to put on my panty hose and drive like Grandma, wave at the cop, then step back on it around the corner. I'm smart enough not to be a dope in the middle of town where the cops always are, and I don't draw attention to myself by doing dumb sh*t like peeling out or blasting my tunes through town.

If you've had 9 or 10 tickets, and you've been driving for less than 100 years, that tells me that you're drawing WAY too much attention to yourself.

99% of cops are only ****** to people who deserve it, and I somehow doubt that you keep finding that other 1%.

 

Being smart is the best thing you can do. I only do more than 10 over when I know I can get away with it. I'm almost always speeding - I only slow down for cops, potholes, and 3 feet of snow. I've been driving my shiny red firebird since I was 17, so 7 years now.
Speed traps are a money-making ploy, but if you have more than 3 or 4 tickets over 10 years, you're doing something wrong. Just like the lottery, speeding tickets are generally a tax on the stupid (although everybody who speeds will get caught a couple of times). You can avoid most of this if you use your head.

 

It's okay, I solved all this early December...

statistically I should have at least gotten two tickets since then..

BUT I HAVEN'T!!! ahahah

*** bless the RX65... I literally know about cops 6 miles before I see them....

zero tickets... and I can speed to my heart's content...

my next purchase will be the laser blocker that goes along with it....

 

ive been pulled over three times ( one was because my buddy was doin a ride along and thought itd be a funny practical joke if the cop "pulled me over for narcotics trafficking")

so outa 2 real pulls over, ive had no tickets.
mind you i have a white camaro with a cowl hood and an exhaust system that has my friends coming out of their house b4 i pull up.

plus my windows are too dark to see into during the day..

just be polite, and acting like this is your first time works pretty well.

 

I must look like a punk or something... no matter how nice/polite... they see my car and its like they are infected with RAGE...

they usually give me a ticket for more than just speeding...

 

well.... the first time i got pulled it was 2am and i had been drivin for while... falling asleep. im glad he got me cuz it woke me right up. He gave me bs excuses to wh he pulled me the....

im pretty sure i was swervin alil...never mentioned that.

asked me if i had anyhting to drink.

told me that my blink came on and stayed on( my flasher module went dead) when i press the brakes. BS i didnt put either on until he flashed his lights.

my Brights were on becuz A) it was 2am and noone else was on the road and B) my regular headlights were messed up( the shiny backing was gone and the were barly visable) BS: he hadnt been in front of me at all....

and that i was speedin( dunno bout this one but if i was doin what he said, i was like 10 mph over the limit)

the second time i got pulled i was unlucky enuff to have a bald right tire and the need for a large amount of gas pedal while makin a right turn... a blind spot left me in the road as a car was comin so i decide to go instead of stay.

the cops had been pulling another dude over about 100ft from the corner i was truning at and heard me.. i watched him run to his car... pull me over for "driving like a maniac". he said next time ill get you for everything i can: running a red light, speeding, reckless driving, racing, etc.. i was like uhh ok

 

so you squealed your tire around a turn, and that's considered driving like a maniac?

 

Yup. I got a "wreckless acceleration" ticket for having bald tires. They chirped a little when i was going from a red... this was a base model cavalier with 200lbs of stereo equipment in the back mind you (being 2am, I had them off).

 

wow... a cavalier? getting a ticket in a cavalier is like winning the lottery... nearly impossible

I drove 2 years in a 1984 buick park avenue with a faded paintjob, torn up roof and horrible brown color scheme...

I always went about 20-30 over the limit, and peeled out at every light

I never even got a warning or anything..

its like a stealth fighter, I was invisible to cops.

 

if you've seen my car you'd know that cops have a radar for it. plus the noise of true dual 40' series with hooker headers..... kinda loud.... must sounded like i was doin 50 outa the turn

 

a V6 cavalier?

those things run a cool 17.5 quarter mile!

 

yea, some cars are invisible to cops... I had a silver Delta 88, nice shape... I sped like a typical 18yr old... Only pulled over once for speeding/dangerously passing a car... the cop... well, a Dodge intrepid ghost car, never seen one of those before. however my buddy with his V6 '85 Camaro was pulled over every weekend. Got a ticket for peeling out. (just happened that a teenage girl was screaming at her friend and running across the street at the exact same time) Keep in mind his 2.8L camaro wouldn't chirp the tires. He even brought it to a mechanic to prove that it wouldn't chirp 'em, got a note to bring to court. Cop never showed, they told him he's lucky, he told them he can reshedule if they desire, he'd love to take that SOB cop down....

Here's a tip, never tell a cop your speedo doesn't work. For me this was dead true, 160kms on the odometer and holding! and that's the reason I didn't know I was speeding. Well heck, that means I have "an inoperable" vehicle. and he can impound it. So he told me not to lie with crappy stories like that. I told him " oh yea? so why is my trip odometer stuck at 0, and the check engine light is on?" it was true, and my mechanic couldn't figure it out...
anyway, gave me a ticket for not having my new driver sign up, and none of the other stuff...
anyway, that's my rant.

 

yup, never tell them anything is wrong... they just add it onto the ticket

the best way to deal with cops is with anarchy

 

or you could try pulling them over...

 

citizens' arrest is a myth.

 

i meant just pull em over... as soon as they hit the lights and when they come to the window ask them if they know why you pulled them over...lol id be funny

 

Yeah, until they smell the alcohol on your breath, because you'd have to be wasted to say that to a cop.

 

id say it if i had a bad unuff day. or if i was really gunna be sh**ty and the cop pulledme for runnig a red light and i thought it was green i could pull a green card crack

 

I want a phone with unlimited (space-wise) video recording capabilities... because when I get pulled over I wanna push record on my phone, and sit it on my dash, and get the whole conversation... like get them to admit to stuff, or use it as evidence later

anything that happens in PUBLIC can be recorded without anyone's consent.

I told an officer once that I have an on-board video recording system that records me driving via two cameras with an overlayed speedometer on the footage... -- he didn't even flinch.

that would rock though, and is my ultimate goal... now that I got the OBD1 Cable to work on my 1990 bird, I can EASILY do this.... I want to make a digital dash-like device to replace all that crap I have right now...

 

but to get them to accept that would be an even greater feat

 

actually it's easy as hell...

I had a trial once where I got 'stopped' in a "school zone" whilst 'speeding'... whatever all that means!

but the situation was that the bike cop was in the middle of the median (very obvius you shouldn't speed,) so I was going 5 under the limit, JUST to make sure... I passed the school and hit the 30mph speed sign, and sped back up the limit... BAM he pulls me over... (he must have been leaning backwards on his bike to have been following me!)

anyways, I took a camcorder to the area to PROVE there was NO school END-ZONE sign... (even though the cop SWORE there was one at the time.)

It's all good, because the courts in Austin took about 2 years to bring it to trial, and the cop was either dead/missing/fired/moved or LAZY and didn't show... so the judge let everyone off stevenSCOTT FREE!!!! hell yeah

but the judge said I just needed a VHS tape, or anything that can feed RCA video audio into a court television... nothing too hard... I'd just convert the mp4 and put it on a DVD disc.

<--- Steven Scott

 

Not always the case. In MD it is not legal to record a police officer with out written consent, EVEN IN PLAIN VIEW. Had to call the states attorney's office on that one...

 

what about when a cop walks in front of a security camera, or people are videotaping a robbery or something?

 

This USED to be a free country....