Omega Owners Forum

Omega Help Area => Omega Electrical and Audio Help => Topic started by: samrey4u on 10 May 2009, 07:52:30

Title: new speakers
Post by: samrey4u on 10 May 2009, 07:52:30
am i better to use component or coaxial speakers as a replacement , i want to replace the door speakers front and rear, also what size are the original door speakers
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Dave DND on 10 May 2009, 14:35:33
If replacing the main driver, I would also replace the tweeter as well, so I guess Components would always be the way to go.

If you have seperate tweeters in the front (or back) then always replace as a Component set, so that you do not get any imbalance or phasing of frequencies.

If you do not have seperate tweeters, then coaxials are the usual choice, unless you can find somewhere to mount an extra set of tweeters.

 :y
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: samrey4u on 11 May 2009, 08:57:52
 :y cheers dave i have tweeters front and rear , so components it is :) . going for alpine i think to match my head unit . also have sub and amp to go in the boot  ;D
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Dave DND on 11 May 2009, 09:29:15
Good choice.

Whilst there are lots of makes of speakers and head units to consider, keeping everything to a single manufacturer can often give some amazing results.
 :y
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: mathewst on 12 May 2009, 13:52:52
Front speakers are 6.5 component speakers
Rear door are 5.25 component
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: samrey4u on 12 May 2009, 19:59:35
Quote
Front speakers are 6.5 component speakers
Rear door are 5.25 component
cheers for that many thanks  :y :y :y
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Joh on 13 May 2009, 09:15:46
Yea, I am going through that thing aswell. But, the front speakers didn't fit without the adapter. Gonna make new adapters out of wood (dunno how those plates are called in English, not my native language, sorry) today. Then, the tweeters were too big for the original tweeter holder. Had to crack all the walls inside it and just glue the tweeters in place. Hope their positions are okay, otherwise I'm f*cked. Don't know yet what surprises come to my way while installing the rear speakers. Oh, and I also have to run wires from all the doors to the rear of my car as I have one 4-channel amp for those interior speakers aswell as one for my woofer in the back. That wiring is gonna be a pain in the a*s.
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: mathewst on 13 May 2009, 09:39:33
Don't connect the rear door speakers to the amp.
The speakers are just to small and will likeliy burn out on the amp (unless you don't have the super expensive ones with high rated rms power).
Adapters for the speakers can be found on ebay and any well equiped car audio store (they are the same for omega and a number of vauxhall/opel models.  I paid for adapters around 15 pounds.
Most of the tweeters will fit normaly in omega cause they are standard size car audio tweeters BUT you'll probably have to take the new tweeters out of their plastic encasings (pry them out). I had to do this with my keenwod tweeters.
Also one thing worth considering is mounting the speakers on the rear shelf (in mig this is a pain in the a..) but you'll get much more than 5.25 speakers in the rear door can offer
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Joh on 14 May 2009, 17:38:13
Quote
Don't connect the rear door speakers to the amp.
The speakers are just to small and will likeliy burn out on the amp (unless you don't have the super expensive ones with high rated rms power).
What if my speakers are 60W RMS and one channel of my amp gives less (45W, 50W or 55W RMS, I'm not quite sure).

Speakers: http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/products_id/8399.html
Amp: AutoStudio CB-450i (a pretty rare Finnish amplifier)

Still think it's a bad idea?
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Dave DND on 14 May 2009, 17:53:16
Quote
Quote
Don't connect the rear door speakers to the amp.
The speakers are just to small and will likeliy burn out on the amp (unless you don't have the super expensive ones with high rated rms power).
What if my speakers are 60W RMS and one channel of my amp gives less (45W, 50W or 55W RMS, I'm not quite sure).

Speakers: http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/products_id/8399.html
Amp: AutoStudio CB-450i (a pretty rare Finnish amplifier)

Still think it's a bad idea?

Everybody is going to have a different opinion on this one, and I can only give the advice that we have chosen to give our customers choosing speakers (does not apply to subwoofers).

As a general rule of thumb, make sure the speakers are at least double the power of whatever is driving them. If your amp is 60W then you need at least 120W on the speakers. But do not go more than four times the power. ie, 240W speakers on a 60W amp is too much.

As I said, its not a definitative rule, but it seems to prevent voice coil burnouts and amplifier distortion with most people.

 ;)
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Dave DND on 14 May 2009, 17:55:09
Remeber also, the bigger the wattage, does not mean more sound, and speaker power ratings are what they will give at the point of destruction, not what you can expect to get out of them.

 :y
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Joh on 14 May 2009, 23:13:44
Hmm, I'll have to think then..
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: evvo1 on 15 May 2009, 00:37:14
I've just baught some 6.5 inch Infinity componenets (Kappa 60.7cs) for the front doors of my facelift mig. They should be here in the next couple of days. I'll let you know how I get on with them. ...Dave, will I need the Corsa adapters for these?
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: mathewst on 15 May 2009, 09:29:22
Yes you'll need the adapters for the speakers.
How much did you pay for the ones you got?
I was thinking about the same ones but never heard them in action.
And actually the speakers don't need to be at least double the power of the amp.
Minimum recomendation was actually 30% more than the amplifier, but of course little more than this is preffered. Don't be mistaken we are talking about RMS power not that marketing crap called maximum power which is in fact just usseles marketing trick.
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: doog on 16 May 2009, 01:57:19
Quote
Quote
Quote
Don't connect the rear door speakers to the amp.
The speakers are just to small and will likeliy burn out on the amp (unless you don't have the super expensive ones with high rated rms power).
What if my speakers are 60W RMS and one channel of my amp gives less (45W, 50W or 55W RMS, I'm not quite sure).

Speakers: http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/products_id/8399.html
Amp: AutoStudio CB-450i (a pretty rare Finnish amplifier)

Still think it's a bad idea?

Everybody is going to have a different opinion on this one, and I can only give the advice that we have chosen to give our customers choosing speakers (does not apply to subwoofers).

As a general rule of thumb, make sure the speakers are at least double the power of whatever is driving them. If your amp is 60W then you need at least 120W on the speakers. But do not go more than four times the power. ie, 240W speakers on a 60W amp is too much.

As I said, its not a definitative rule, but it seems to prevent voice coil burnouts and amplifier distortion with most people.

 ;)


sorry Dave i don't agree
lets say  we have a 50w amp and 100w speakers  running the amp hard its going to clip and  send square waves to the speakers

square waves = speaker death

my advice would be to buy a efficient speaker  and a good quality amp that  puts out clean power and not some  mitsuspratzan no name brand amp
I have always found the alpine v12 range to be great at the price

 Doug

Doug
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Dave DND on 16 May 2009, 08:03:48
sorry Dave i don't agree
lets say  we have a 50w amp and 100w speakers  running the amp hard its going to clip and  send square waves to the speakers

square waves = speaker death


Ah, but you are falling into the age old trap - you will NOT be running the amp flat out at 50W and you will NOT be running the speakers flat out at 100W.  Whilst I agree about clipping and square waves completely, you are believing that the figures are going to be achieved.

This is a real bugbear of my industry. Figures quoted for amplifiers are generally more realistic, so if your unit says 50W RMS then realistically you are goint to get no more than about 35W of decent sound from it (thats still incredibly loud and will rattle the car) but over that it will clip and distort and send some nasty signals to the seakers long before it goes bang at 50W.

Now lets look at the speakers. Again, Assuming that they are 100W RMS (forget the max power ratings - To actually achieve that would burn the speaker out within seconds. So as we are virtually always running the speaker in an environment that it was not intended for (Checked the volumetric litreage of the door have we?) its safe to assume that the speaker may burn out long before this.

As the amplifier is generally going to be cranked up beyond the levels it should (most will set the gain and levels incorrectly believing its a volume control) the chances of sending the square waves to the speakers has now increased. By going for a higher rated speaker, you have now introduced a "buffer" where the speaker can actually take the abuse of these square waves, not to say its not going to sound awful, but its not going to instantly destroy the speaker.

Quote
my advice would be to buy a efficient speaker  and a good quality amp that  puts out clean power and not some  mitsuspratzan no name brand amp

Agree entirely, but you are fogetting something here. If you are knowledgeable enough to understand power ratings etc, the gap between speaker and amp power ratings can be reduced, and if going for a ultra high quality system, with very expensive item, you could even achieve a near like for like ratio, but if you are answering a wider general question to somebody that does not know and understand, and will probably mix and match brands, then it is far safer to introduce a tolerance level. As far as efficiency ratings - we can`t get people to understand power ratings yet - most will know the wattage of their equipment, but I bet less than a handfull could quote the efficiency figures! - one step at a time.

Quote
I have always found the alpine v12 range to be great at the price

Agreed, I like Alpine, Seldom seen in our repair centre because it just doesn`t go wrong, but then good equipment always commands a higher price. You get what you pay for, and if someone sees a flashy amp with 1 million watt power rating on it for 50p and an Alpine amp with 200W for £300 you know which one is going to outsell the other. Most people will have wasted their money on several nasty amps before appreciating that they should have spent more on a good one in the first place.

Sticking to good quality and well known brands is important, sticking with the same brands can generally give better results (as the equipment was designed to work with each other) and above all else, make sure it is set up and calibrated correctly. Gain controls need to be set properly.

As I said on my original post, everyone is going to have a different opinion, which is good, and this is what we have come to believe after 17 years of retailing amps and speakers.
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: evvo1 on 17 May 2009, 06:12:19
Quote
Yes you'll need the adapters for the speakers.
How much did you pay for the ones you got?I was thinking about the same ones but never heard them in action.
And actually the speakers don't need to be at least double the power of the amp.
Minimum recomendation was actually 30% more than the amplifier, but of course little more than this is preffered. Don't be mistaken we are talking about RMS power not that marketing crap called maximum power which is in fact just usseles marketing trick.
89 quid BNIB Mat. ...How did I do?
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Goonybird on 17 May 2009, 08:11:03
Yep agree with that. A lower power amp is more likely to damage the speakers due to overdrive/clipping distortion.

The big problem here is ther is no standard way of stating specifications on amps and speakers.
This is an old Hi-fi problem that goes back for years.
Wattage is considered the benchmark. However there are too many variables. eg RMS, Peak power, then whether the watts are both channels driven, or one channel, Qualified by which resistance (ohms) and over what frequency range.

Then you have speaker sensitivity (mentioned from DaveDND)
So a 50W RMS speaker with 91dB will be about twice as loud as a 50W RMS speaker with 88dB (a 3dB increase - decibels- repesents a doubling of loudness)
Generally the lower the decibal the better quality sound.

So, you can have your "Thousand watt" Killer 4 channel amp. But if that is into 2 ohms, one channel driven, at 1 Khz then in reality you are looking at an Amplifier that is probably 20W RMS per channel.

Its all a scam.

Try to look at quality equipment that rates RMS etc.

Personally Thousand watts off a car supply doesn't add up. Thats equivalent to 1 bar on yer electric fire.

My Home amplifier is 170W RMS into 6 ohms across 7 channels and even that drops with all channels driven. But crucially the thing weighs in at 30Kg.
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: Dave DND on 17 May 2009, 08:28:18
Quote
Yep agree with that. A lower power amp is more likely to damage the speakers due to overdrive/clipping distortion.

The big problem here is ther is no standard way of stating specifications on amps and speakers.
This is an old Hi-fi problem that goes back for years.

Wattage is considered the benchmark. However there are too many variables. eg RMS, Peak power, then whether the watts are both channels driven, or one channel, Qualified by which resistance (ohms) and over what frequency range.

Then you have speaker sensitivity (mentioned from DaveDND)
So a 50W RMS speaker with 91dB will be about twice as loud as a 50W RMS speaker with 88dB (a 3dB increase - decibels- repesents a doubling of loudness)
Generally the lower the decibal the better quality sound.

So, you can have your "Thousand watt" Killer 4 channel amp. But if that is into 2 ohms, one channel driven, at 1 Khz then in reality you are looking at an Amplifier that is probably 20W RMS per channel.

Its all a scam.

Try to look at quality equipment that rates RMS etc.

Personally Thousand watts off a car supply doesn't add up. Thats equivalent to 1 bar on yer electric fire.

My Home amplifier is 170W RMS into 6 ohms across 7 channels and even that drops with all channels driven. But crucially the thing weighs in at 30Kg.

Couldn`t agree more - My work here is done   :y
Title: Re: new speakers
Post by: mathewst on 18 May 2009, 08:58:27
Well Evvo I think that was a bargain, because here in my country they're at least 30% more expensive than that.
Was looking on ebay for good speakers but the postage is killing every deacent price I find >:(