stevie

Try here:
http://www.speakercity.com/caraudio.shtml - or
http://www.madisound.com/vifa.html

Stevie

GS4Will

stevie,

thank you..what sizes/model would you suggest for front and rear doors?

TIA

RON430

Hey William, you finally going to tackle a sound upgrade? If you get THE BOOK it is pretty explicit on the numbers to watch out for on the speaker sizes. The front has a depth issue (from what I remember, is that right Percy?) but the dyn 240s have a mid/woofer that is 6.5 inch in diameter. For the rear doors there is really not much trouble with anything. I think Mean Gene may have stuck some 8 inchers in there but I am not sure (MG, you here?). In any event, if the depth doesn't get you, 6.5s are just fine in both areas. The ADS 226im I stuck in the rear doors are 6.5 in diameter. The tweeter for the front A pillar is another matter altogether. Making it fit in the stock location requires getting as small a tweeter as you can. The dyns will not fit as delivered and THE BOOK goes into detail on how to remove various bits of the housing to make it work. Not that bad, but not that straight forward either.

GS4Will

hey Ron-thanks for the info. as i have quite limited budget for gsaudio, i need the best bang for the $$$ on speaker/sub/amp upgrade. retro suggested some good choices for the sub/amp a while back(zapco+idq or icq subs), but i did not take the plunge, so i have to start all over again. i think i need to ask him again later.

did not mean to jump into your thread like this.
when it comes to car audio items, i am simply overwhelmed by the vast market selection. ads and dyn are both good stuff...

Percy

Stevie,

Didn't Vifa have a line dedicated to car audio? I thought they did at one time... Anyways, VERY good speakers and probably one of the best bang for the buck.

Percy

RON430

william - ADS and dyn are good stuff but the Vifa the guys are talking about are also supposed to be very good at very attractive prices. I went with the dyn sub (I think in the low two hundreds but not sure I remember, it has been on order for a while) because the construction of the dyn is first rate (Percy, how do you describe this? just the impression you get looking at the components) and they said they are OK with free air and I don't want the weight of a box (at least for now). There seem to be some really good spec amps coming in now at somewhat more reasonable prices but Percy keeps emphasizing Mac and I wonder if a few bucks saved is really a few bucks saved. So far from what I can see, the Mac has a very flexible arrangement on hookup and some of the investigation I have done shows that the Mac runs as cool as any of them and maybe the coolest (talking temperature). Still, if I could find something comparable for half the price it would make the decision easier...

All of this dollar stuff aside, if you have the stock premium system, I am not sure you can do much to make it worse. Not that it doesn't sound passible but the components are not Lexus level if you ask me. I think most anything you do within your budget will improve things. Still don't know about that crazy Deflex but something is sure making the 6.5s hit hard.

stevie

I'd suggest that you look at the P13WH-10-04. It's available for around 37 dollars, although I am sure you could get it for less if you look around. It has a cast chassis and a ruler-flat frequency response, plus good distortion and delayed resonance characteristics.

It's not state of the art, but you will get some of the performance of the best drivers from this unit at a very low cost. The 8-ohm version is very popular with amateur speaker builders and it has found its way into a lot of commercial speakers - one as expensive as 25,000 dollars a pair. Do a Google search with Vifa P13WH.

You can use the existing Lexus plastic cabinets. They require some increase in the soundhole, but not much. I added a plywood baffle that I covered thinly with silicone and screwed on from the back. Then two pieces of standard foam will seal it against the door panel at the front. It's not absolutely necessary to add a baffle, though; it is much less effort just to open up the hole and screw the driver in.

You will also require to do a bit of internal re-wiring (not much) if you are going to run it full range with the existing tweeter as a direct replacement for the stock 4". I would suggest dumping the existing 3.3 microFarad cap on the stock driver and replacing it with a polyprop.

If you want to replace the tweeter as well (good idea!) I can probably help you with the crossover.

For the rears, I can't help you much, unless you can find the equivalent coaxial (which Vifa does make). You could always fit a second pair of P13WH's. Their response goes up to around 8k but that probably isn't high enough for rear passenger listening.

Stevie

stevie

Percy,

Yes, they do a complete line of automotive speakers with plastic, steel and cast baskets. I have their catalog, which contains about 20 different units. They don't really market them to the general public, because their main market is OEM. They just get on with making them and leave the marketing to specialist companies. The other Scandinavian brands like Seas and Peerless are the same. Supplying drive units for home builders is just a sideline for them.
They certainly are good value, I agree.

Stevie

GS4Will

stevie,

thanks for the in-depth reply what do you think of the followings:

tweeters: d26nc or d25ac?

rear:m18wn-19-04
my gs rear door takes 6.5" i believe, so 7" will not fit correct?

thanks

Percy

Ron,

Usually the first thing people are exposed to are the advertisements. Having a silicone "bolt on" woman next to an amp doesn't really say anything about sound quality. Just meant for the "kids". Now if the ad is touting "SOUND QUALITY" or "REFERENCE", then I'd take it with a grain of salt. Most of the time they're only comparing to their own products. BUT, every once in a while you run into some good stuff, and you do pay for it. Best thing to do is research. Look at the item objectively and not for all the "flash and dash" or for the "most winning amp at IASCA". Having an electronics background really helps out to sort through all the market speak.

Amps are fairly easy to judge. Just look at the construction, and if possible, their internals. Is it a "typical" design with some fancy hyped up name? Or does it have a REAL patent (and a useful one) behind it? "Patent Pending" is marketing speak. In the case of McIntosh, there are numerous patents behind their designs, which is why amp manufacturers still can't duplicate their high end performance. Not even Brax. Brax is still an EXCELLENT amp, though their measured specs versus the specs in the advertisements are FAR off from each other.

Now for speakers, this gets much trickier. Upon first glance, your average MB Quart speaker (or even ADS, Diamond, etc) will look pretty much the same from any other speaker. The real proof is in the final listening tests and how easy it is to tune out for the automotive enviroment. Can't really rely on hype here since the ears are one of the finest tools for audio.

In most cases you really do get what you pay for. But then I always go by the philosophy of "if you're going to upgrade ONCE, then do it right." (and according to your goals)

Percy

RON430

Percy - I guess my problem is that right now in the higher end amps, with the stock HU I don't figure I need any more distortion introduced, like Brax, they are pricing under Mac but not by much. When I sit down and look at all the costs and effort involved in putting an outboard amp in (including extra sound deadening which I may have gone overboard with) a couple of hundred bucks no longer seems convincing to save. Heck, even ADS amps will get me to within a couple hundred of the Macs. Please guys, money saved is money saved to me and I can be as thrifty as the next guy but I am old enough to know that there a lot of false economies running around out there. Now if I can just figure out how to get two sets of speaker wires (to the amp and from the amp) out with the stock harness on the doors, I will be one step closer.

Then there is this whole reverse polarity on the rear door speakers issue...

stevie

>tweeters: d26nc or d25ac?

>rear:m18wn-19-04
>my gs rear door takes 6.5" i believe, so 7" will not fit correct?

The Vifa neodymium tweeter is average, nothing special. There are better for the money, including, the Audax 1 inch (fabric or titanium), the Seas KTN 25F, the Morel 103 and the Seas Lotus L00016. All of these are high quality HF units that allow a 2.5k crossover. The Audax and the first SEAS are quite low cost.

I have no experience of the M18 Vifa driver. I have worked with the Vifa 6.5 inch from the Premium line. That's a much more expensive speaker than the M18wn and it required a steep rolloff at 2k because that's were the resonances start. Great bass driver but no good in the midrange.

I don't suppose it matters that much if they're in the back, but you really need some advice there from the practical experts here about that.

If you're using the speaker pods at the back, you are not gaining much by going larger than 5", because bass extension is ultimately governed by the size of the box, not by the size of the driver. If you're using the whole of the door volume, that's different, of course, and a 6.5" would be a good choice. (I am not familiar with the Mk2 GS. Mine's a Mk1).

I don't know offhand of a low-cost 6.5" that offers the same high quality as that Vifa 5".

Stevie

Percy

Here's another alternative brand name you may want to try. Scan Speak. Good stuff and they should be reasonably priced.

Percy

GS4Will

percy/stevie,

thanks for the reply and advice...

can anyone suggest the correct model/good place of purchase for the

scan speak and or the SEAS?

this is for 99 GS400

Stevie,

what do you think of this combo:

Audax
AW025S1 tweeters(2)
HT130FO (2) 5.25"
HT170FO (2) 6.5"

btw, which crossover would you suggest?

thank you much

stevie

GS4,

On these Audax drivers. First, the tweet is a full size dome tweeter. Unless you are using it in a kickpanel install, it's just too big. You really need the neodymium type.

On the woofers. These are hifi drivers. I would be wary about using hifi drivers in the car unless you really know what you are doing. Their fs is normally too low, and most are designed for reflex loading nowadays.

Bear in mind also that if you want a more sophisticated crossover than the one that's already in your car you can't just use one off the shelf. It has to be designed for the specific drivers you are using. I can help with the 5 inch Vifa only because I have designed a crossover for it already. Even then, you will have to go out and buy the bits and solder them together on a board.

If you're not careful, you will end up with a disaster.

Stevie