I am about ready to install some infinity kappa tweeters in my camaro. Would it work to just wire the tweeters to the front speakers? If not, or something else is better, where do I wire them to?

 

are your speakers amped right now? hooking up the tweeters would drop the ohms, and a head unit cant handle anything under 4 ohms. if you are amping them, give it a shot. most amps are around 2 ohm stereo stable, so you shouldnt have a problem

 

And mount them in the window sills(that runs from the dash to the roof) to where the tweeters are facing each other across the dash.

 

No, I don't have an amp pushing the 4x6's. Would wiring them directly to the head unit work?
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If did get a small amp to push them, where would I put the amp?

 

Save the money on the tweeters and put an amp on the 4x6's and 6x9's and then you won't need tweeters.

 

Whatever you do, use a crossover for the tweets, or you'll blow them up sending bass to them.

 

the only reason why i say not to run everything off the headunit (not that i recommend having basically two sets of different tweeters) is the fact that you would be overworking and probably killing your head unit's internal amp because they cannot handle under 4 ohms per channel. i suggest instead, like the others, save your money for an amp or get some components in the kickpanels and get rid of the dash mounted speakers. it will sound much better.

 

If your looking for better imaging you have to get kicks or door panals. Dash speakers just don't work . By using kicks you move the speakers farther from your ear which allows you to hear more of each side, not to mention speaker positioning. As far as hooking up the tweeter...most tweets come with built in x-overs mounted somewhere in the wire, so don't worry about bass. If you split the load of the speaker at the HU your ohms will split into 2. Most HU's cannot withstand this load, most amps can.

I say invest in kicks before an amp. Imaging is much more important than power at this point.

-Matt

 

not to step on anyones feet here, but hes just talking about a pair of tweets and you guys are talking about a amp lol...ive been installing for about 4 years and i most always just tap the front pair of speakers when adding a pair of tweets to a factory system and ive not once had one come back, but make your own choice

 

By "tap" do you mean series or parallel wiring them? Because other than reduced output, series should not present a problem.

- Mike

 

You're right, kid. Adding a pair of tweets in parallel with a set of speakers doesn't create impedance probs because they work at different freqencies, not to mention tweets don't consume much power.

 

Ok here's the deal. The guy has Orion 4x6's and 6x9's in his siganature. I checked the Orion website so I'm assuming they are the Cobalt 43CX 4x6's and here's the specs:
NOMINAL IMPEDANCE 3 Ohm
FREQUENCY RESPONSE 85Hz - 20kHz
SENSITIVITY 91 dB
and the 6x9's are the Cobalt 93CX and here's the specs:
NOMINAL IMPEDANCE 3 Ohm
FREQUENCY RESPONSE 55Hz - 20kHz
SENSITIVITY 92 dB
Now according to his post he wants to add tweeters to his system. As I stated in my post is why? The whole front soundstage has a frequency response of 85Hz - 20kHz. Knowing that the higher freqencies are covered by the 4x6's. Now they are powered off the deck which is about 20-22watts RMS which more than likely is close to the RMS of the 4x6 because very few 4x6's can take very much power. Now inorder to get very much volume out of the 4x6's without possibly damaging the speaker or just killing the sound it would need to be crossed over around 120-150hz. If it's not crossed over then the bass on the headunit would be reduced inorder to play the 4x6's louder. So by either using a crossover or turning down the bass on the headunit midrange will be lost. Therefore upfront there will still be alot high end left. Everyone understand? So IMO tweeters would serve very little purpose in his setup. Another thing I forgot to add is if I got the model numbers right they both have 360 degree rotatable tweeters. So As far as the Impendance of adding tweeters in parallel to the headunit "Yes the Impendace will drop!" The only reason those that have done this and had no problems is because of the tweeters higher frequencies. Higher frequncies are much louder than lower frequencies so therefore not as much power is required to reproduce them. But there is the possibility that it could harm the headunit so I do not advise doing so.

 

John (aka jobryan26) and I were talking about this last night.

I took a few electronics courses at the local community college a few years ago, so I know a little about this stuff.

A true piezo tweeter has no impedance. It is meaured as a capacitor because it is built like one. It has two pieces of metal seperated by a dielectric material (usually ceramic).

I tested a 1.5" piezo tweeter I have, and when I put my digital multimeter on it to measure the imp., it wouldn't show a reading at all.

So then I put it on the cap. tester part of the multimeter and got 120n, or 120 nanofarads. That converts to .12 microfarads, which is what the "bass blocker" caps are rated at (just trying to use a familiar term for you).

So then I tested a 4" coax, by itself, to verify the rating of 4 ohms imp. and the accuracy of my multimeter, and got 4ohms. Next, I hooked the tweeter in parallel with that speaker and still got 4 ohms.

I don't know know where Infinity got the measurement of 4 ohms imp. IIRC, they test tweeters imp. when they are hooked to a 4 ohm resistor so they can verify that it won't cause any resistance, (ie. a big drop) That way they can give it a certified imp. that speakers are measured by.

For example; Some of you have component speakers right? I'm sure most of them are rated at 4 ohms. But if you look on the back of the midrange, it'll have a 4 ohm rating on it. Then if you look at the tweeter, it won't have one. But when they are hooked in parallel, with or without the crossover, they still have a total impedance of 4 ohms.

So if you can test them first with a multimeter, I'm sure that you'll see that you will get no reading from the tweeter by itself.

Test the tweeter first just to make sure that the they are piezo tweeters and that they will do that. Then measure both of them while they are hooked in parallel with each other.

I'm sure it'll be fine. That's how I have mine now just cause the dash pad interferes with the tweeters on my Alpine 4x6 coaxials. With the dash off, they sound great. Dash on, and they're barely audible.

AJ

 

jobryan26 and I were just talking about it again.

He says that the Infinity's that you are wanting ARE NOT piezo tweeters, so DO NOT do what I said.

If you don't have the tweeters yet, look into some piezo tweeters. Then you won't have a thing to worry about.

AJ

 

Yea as we talked about his for a while. And the real question was the type of tweeter. It seems the Piezos aren't impendence sensitive. AJ correct me if I'm wrong but they do not have an impendence rating. But the Infinity Kappa C.M.M.D tweeter(Ceramic Metal Matrix Diaphragms) due to material it seemed as if they would have fallen into the piezo catigory. I started questioning it myself but after a few hours talking about this with AJ we found out that it wasn't. So anyway the tweeter is 4ohm and the 4x6's are 3ohm so in parallel that would make a 1.71 load on the receiver so as I said before "Do it at your own risk". I hope this helps. John

 

So basicly what everyone is saying is that if I want to run these tweeters, which I allready own, I will need to buy an amp and run the tweeters and 4x6's off of it. Or I can just scrap the 4x6's and tweets and just buy some kicks.
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Also, I have absolutly no clue to what ohms, parallel, series, or any other thing about car audio besides the basics.
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Thanks for the help.