How to get Tighter bass from 6x9 Speakers?

[navin]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

That is exactly what tempted me to use the term. Haven't seen it used on any of the threads here......

Meets with approval or dis-approval? Sorry, I am a man from the 'purane din'!

Anup, ICE seems to be where all the old men congregate!

Last time I heard that term it was 1975! Apparently it was not that often used in the US as when I moved there no one understood the term even then.

[navin]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

1) Try another good amp that is known to be capable of providing 'well controlled' bass, ie. one with a very good damping factor, say 1000 or so.
2) Ensure that the squawkers (mid-range units) are high quality because they certainly have a large influence on the perceived 'tightness' or 'punchiness' of the bass.

or, with a slight compromise on 'the brief':

3) Perhaps design a 'very shallow' (say 4 inches deep) box for the 6X9s and this box hangs in place of the parcel tray. This would still leave the major part of the boot space available. There would be scope to have a box volume of maybe 12 to 15 litres for the two 6X9 units.
4) Replace the two 6X9 units with stiffer suspension units if possible. This is an independent approach, not linked to proposal #3. (I'm not familiar at all with what is available in the market).

Gurus, your opinions please?

Who is the Guru here? :-)

Of the 4 options #3 seems the most economical/practical.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by navin

Anup, ICE seems to be where all the old men congregate!

Thanks Navin. However, even as a young man the passion was no less. It used to be us young men who used to congregate. Basically stemmed from an abiding love of music. Back in 1971, even helped 'rocket surd' at IITK to fashion clones of the then newly launched Bose 901s, using Philips 8065 full range drivers in 'proportionately' larger boxes! No active equalization though. The results were, well.... interesting. Absolutely prodigious output though. Driven by a home made monster (250 W average power/ch, which was a LOT those days) with banks of 3055s in class AB output stages.
The operative word is 'congregate' - it has a ring of the religious and that kind of sums up how an audiophile looks at his audio. It's always been a wonderful team activity and effort. Used to produce very satisfying results.
Tragically, the advent of the VCR kind of rang the death knell for the so called audio industry here, or what little of it ever existed. (Sonodynes, Cosmic Lab Series, Woodstock, Arphi Speakers et all..).
Hell it took me time to figure out (on this forum) what ICE stood for! It was always 'car stereos' to us.

[agentsmith]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Roll up the windows. Play some bass heavy music. Run the balance from center to full left, then to full right and back to center.

Repeat as often as you like.

Does it sound like that bass is least when the balance is in the centre? Does the bass rise a little when you go either full left or full right? You phase is out.

If you have max bass in the centre and it drops to 50% on full left or right, then your speakers are wired in phase.

Thanks Sam, for the tip. Seems like my speakers are in phase.

Regards,

[navin]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

..fashion clones of the then newly launched Bose 901s, using Philips 8065 full range drivers...

The 8065 were not fullrange drivers the AD7060 were. The 8065 was a woofer, just like the 8066, 10065/6, and 120065/6. Their midranges were the 5060, 0210 (dome), and their tweeters were the 0163 or 0140.

What PNP did you use with the 2N3055? was the 2N2955 around then?

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

...Back in 1971, even helped 'rocket surd' at IITK to fashion clones of ... with banks of 3055s in class AB output stages.

Who (or what, as the case may be) is "Rocket Surd"? If "who", was he the one who wanted to send a rocket to the sun at night?

Originally Posted by anupmathur

The operative word is 'congregate' - it has a ring of the religious ... Hell it took me time to figure out (on this forum) what ICE stood for! It was always 'car stereos' to us.

ICE for me was always In Circuit Emulator. I switched to saying "ICE" (and "infotainment") while doing controls work for the insides ~10-15 summers back. Colloquially it still is "car stereo" in the market - "ICE" is perhaps a social differentiator.

Originally Posted by navin

What PNP did you use with the 2N3055? was the 2N2955 around then?

Not sure - senility is the other common factor - but most of the 3055 (as also AD149 germanium TO3s) designs used in India in those days (courtesy Phillips, BEL, EFY and others) worked off unipolar supplies with BC107/108, 187/188 or 286/287/288 driving the upper and lower halves. There weren't any TIP41/42 or 3055/2955 pairs around, nor were bipolar supplies popular for practical (Indian) reasons.

[Pani]

Originally Posted by vid6639

Navinji, I have boxed my 6X9 but still don't find the bass to be really tight. Although my setup was boxed from teh beginning, so i dont know how it will sound with a parcel shelf on my Alto.

One of the ways to get tight clean bass without chopping off the mid bass is to use a sealed box instead of ported box (most common). It will definitely demand more power from your amp but if you are using a dedicated amp, it should do the job and you get much cleaner and tighter bass. You may feel the bass to be lacking initially but actually you have got ridden of all the nasty overhang getting created due to the port.
Even Sub woofers, I would prefer in a sealed box design.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by navin

The 8065 were not fullrange drivers the AD7060 were. The 8065 was a woofer, just like the 8066, 10065/6, and 120065/6.

Sorry, I should have mentioned the M suffix - 8065M.
These were full range drivers from Philips and were the ones with the least colouration back then.
You are right about the 8065W - that was the woofer. A pretty good one.

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Not sure - senility is the other common factor - but most of the 3055 (as also AD149 germanium TO3s) designs used in India in those days (courtesy Phillips, BEL, EFY and others) worked off unipolar supplies with BC107/108, 187/188 or 286/287/288 driving the upper and lower halves. There weren't any TIP41/42 or 3055/2955 pairs around, nor were bipolar supplies popular for practical (Indian) reasons.

You are quite right. One of our circuits of choice was from RCA.
The amp was with dual rail 45 Volts supply - not complimentary. We had a strong preference for dual rail supplies, to avoid the 'output' capacitor. Also to gain huge damping factors.
Centre used to be held at zero, plus minus 0.2VDC.
The package for the 3055s used to be TO3.

Originally Posted by Pani

One of the ways to get tight clean bass without chopping off the mid bass is to use a sealed box instead of ported box (most common). It will definitely demand more power from your amp but if you are using a dedicated amp, it should do the job and you get much cleaner and tighter bass. You may feel the bass to be lacking initially but actually you have got ridden of all the nasty overhang getting created due to the port.

I agree with this. And AR was one of the companies back then that endorsed this view. KLH was another. They gained fame for their ability to deliver deep and tight bass from small boxes (they always used sealed). Don't ask about their efficiencies though! Thing is they made their advent ONLY because amolifier power (the solid state route) had become quite cheap (from an audiophile point of view). Recall Crown and Phase Linear.

[IMP]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Roll up the windows. Play some bass heavy music. Run the balance from center to full left, then to full right and back to center.

Repeat as often as you like.

Does it sound like that bass is least when the balance is in the centre? Does the bass rise a little when you go either full left or full right? You phase is out.

If you have max bass in the centre and it drops to 50% on full left or right, then your speakers are wired in phase.

sheesh, why didn't somebody tell me about this before.

I experienced the same thing in my santro a long time ago, bass was least when balance was set to centre, but i shrugged it off thinking that the HU was unable to provide enough output when all 4 speakers were fired up. I had Kenwood 6x9s in the rear and pio 4" in the front and a kenwood HU.

It may sound silly, but what i did for three years, is to keep the balance slightly off centre to the right, which gave me some bass in an otherwise bass-less sounding setup.

Now i realise that, for three years i lived with an system which was not working optimally, i was not getting what i paid for.

It has been 2 years since i sold the car. Maybe i'll call the new owner, to tell him about this.

Well, i have learned something today. Thanks Sam.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by IMP

I experienced the same thing in my santro a long time ago, bass was least when balance was set to centre, but i shrugged it off thinking that the HU was unable to provide enough output when all 4 speakers were fired up. I had Kenwood 6x9s in the rear and pio 4" in the front and a kenwood HU.

It may sound silly, but what i did for three years, is to keep the balance slightly off centre to the right, which gave me some bass in an otherwise bass-less sounding setup.

Now i realise that, for three years i lived with an system which was not working optimally, i was not getting what i paid for.

When the only problem, I suspect, was that your rear speakers were connected out of phase by an ignorant installer.

[navin]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

I agree with this. And AR was one of the companies back then that endorsed this view. KLH was another. They gained fame for their ability to deliver deep and tight bass from small boxes (they always used sealed). Don't ask about their efficiencies though! Thing is they made their advent ONLY because amolifier power (the solid state route) had become quite cheap (from an audiophile point of view). Recall Crown and Phase Linear.

Anup, was that "Advent" pun intentional? :-).

Originally Posted by IMP

I experienced the same thing in my santro a long time ago, bass was least when balance was set to centre, but i shrugged it off thinking that the HU was unable to provide enough output when all 4 speakers were fired up..

You made me smile! that was funny!

I am sorry you were the victim of a dolt for an installer.

[IMP]

@sam - whats left to suspect? don't you think they must be out of phase for sure? or is there anything else that i do not know about, for now?

@navin - I also found it funny, IMO when you become wiser, you smile at your previous ignorance.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by IMP

@sam - whats left to suspect? don't you think they must be out of phase for sure? or is there anything else that i do not know about, for now?

No, it's an english phrase.

I suspect that you are a man. This doesn't mean that there is room for doubt - it's just a phrase.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by navin

Anup, was that "Advent" pun intentional? :-).

No Navin. Sorry. I wasn't thinking of those great speakers when I used the word. Bit slow, I guess! But as you already pointed out: 'old men'.?

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

No, it's an english phrase.

I suspect that you are a man. This doesn't mean that there is room for doubt - it's just a phrase.

From a different age, Wodehouse-ji! Today English "has became more of a means to can be able to express direct ideas only". Like "God only knows" (as in "only B&T knows anything about this").