Adding Subwoofer / Take Load Off Factory Speakers

[datamon]

I am adding two 12" NVX subwoofers to my base audio Ecoboost. I would like to take the low bass away from the existing factory speakers because they struggle with low bass and loud volume and I want to prevent them from distorting. With the bass roll off in the head unit, the 6.5" speakers do ok on most music, but they do distort at max volume with some bass-heavy songs.

Ideally a high-pass filter would be implemented digitally in the head unit and the full power could be devoted to just the frequency range being sent to the speakers, but since that is not an option I am thinking of installing passive crossovers on each of the four 6.5" speakers.

Any idea as to what frequency for the crossover? My subs list an upper response of 200Hz (I assume +- 3db), and I was thinking the factory speakers would be ok with 150Hz and above. Any thoughts?

Sponsored

 

[vnzbd]

The first thing to figure out is the freq. that you will cut your subs at. Most amps today have a crossover built in so that is easy to do. I would think you would cut them around 80 hz or so. There are some variables there so you will have to decide what sounds best to you. Once that is figured out then you can take a good stab at the high pass. Again I would start around 80 hz. I would think about a second smaller amp with a high pass crossover as it will be more flexible. I also think 2 - 12s with the factory system might not be much of a match, hoping others that have gone a similar route will chime in on that!

 

[datamon]

The first thing to figure out is the freq. that you will cut your subs at. Most amps today have a crossover built in so that is easy to do. I would think you would cut them around 80 hz or so. There are some variables there so you will have to decide what sounds best to you. Once that is figured out then you can take a good stab at the high pass. Again I would start around 80 hz. I would think about a second smaller amp with a high pass crossover as it will be more flexible. I also think 2 - 12s with the factory system might not be much of a match, hoping others that have gone a similar route will chime in on that!

Thanks for the input and I like your idea of a separate amp with a high pass for feeding the 6.5s...fully adjustable and probably not much extra cost.

I'll be using a sealed box for the subs and can control the amp gain for them if I need to dial things back. Will probably end up replacing the OEM speakers down the road anyway.

I have to get the subs installed and then play a bit with tuning to see where I go next.

Sponsored