# Difference between "Midbass" and "midrange" speakers



## Andys2000 (Apr 10, 2009)

I am a car audio neophyte, but I have established my goal: to reproduce music as faithfully as possible. 

To that end I have extensively deadened my scion xb and installed an alpine Pdx 4x100 amp. 2 channels to my alpine 6.5" components and 1 channel to each voice coil of my alpine 10" sub. 

I feel like the music coming from my components seems "muddy". I have been reading the educational threads in these forums and one limitation I'm learning of is what a broad range I'm forcing my 6.5s to play. I have them playing from 100hz and up (crossed the sub 100hz and below since it's only a 10"). 

I would like to run dedicated midbass speakers to allow me to narrow the range of my components. When I search for speakers, I don't know what distinguishes a midrange from midbass.


----------



## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

I'd get 8 inch midbass and run from 50Hz to lil over 200 Hz for midbass.

The midrange can be 5 1/4 inch drivers run from 225Hz til the tweeter takes over


----------



## SpeedEuphoria (Sep 15, 2010)

you sure you dont have a phase issue?


----------



## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

SpeedEuphoria said:


> you sure you dont have a phase issue?


My girl said it was out ... so, maybe


----------



## kvndoom (Nov 13, 2009)

Andys2000 said:


> I would like to run dedicated midbass speakers to allow me to narrow the range of my components. When I search for speakers, I don't know what distinguishes a midrange from midbass.


Few if any 2-way comp sets will have a dedicated midrange. A 3-way would. You can buy an arbitrary midrange in that size, but the crossover point will have to be higher than you want to run your sub.


----------



## azngotskills (Feb 24, 2006)

Andys2000 said:


> When I search for speakers, I don't know what distinguishes a midrange from midbass.


THey are determined by the frequency range they play buy looking at frequency response graphs, distortion plots, T/S parameters. If you dont understand what I mean, check out the tutorials section here


----------



## derickveliz (May 15, 2009)

What do you mean with "muddy"?

A 4 way system it's what I'm trying to accomplish! 10" or 12" Sub - 6.5" Midbass - 3" Mids - 1" Tweeters. 

Greetings!

Derick


----------



## Andys2000 (Apr 10, 2009)

I reversed the phase on my subwoofer (actually not sure what that means) through my headunit settings and the music immediately sounded better. Much much better. What did I do?


----------



## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

It now makes the speaker start moving differently.

choices:

1] speaker moves forward first.

2] speaker moves rearward first

Now depending on if it is moving out or moving in the speaker may sound better in concert with the rest of the speakers sounds!


----------



## sqshoestring (Jun 19, 2007)

If bass speakers play out of phase they cancel. So what happened is a crossover has a slope, meaning it attenuates the sound level progressively as frequency changes (X dB per octave). That means your sub at 100Hz will play progressively quieter to say 130Hz (or whatever depending on slope and driver characteristics and install) while the 6.5 plays down to ~70Hz. In this area you will cancel the sound if they are out of phase, typically mostly in the center of that range around 100Hz since both will play roughly the same level depending. Conversely, if you had too much midbass that most people would describe as muddy, you might be canceling some of it out now. If that is the case you could put the phase back and spread the crossover points apart to cut at 100Hz, maybe you try the sub at 80Hz and mids 100 for example. If not it will sound worse as you would both cancel and lower the response there.

A way to find phase is play a bass tone to both drivers, bass will increase when you fade in the second driver, and will not if one is out of phase. It is a little easier if you are centered between the drivers. When I do this for mids to sub I play around 50Hz and disable the mid crossover and cut the sub level to around equal, you don't have to play it that loud. You should check the phase between the mids and then mids to sub, of course this is a tuning tool sometimes you want things out of phase. Most cars you need the most midbass you can get and don't want mids and sub out of phase, but if you are running the sub up at 100 you may have plenty. I never run subs over about 70-80 at most in most cars I've had. I run my IB subs at 40-50. Bass sort of adds together when two drivers play it, and cancels if they play out of phase. Any drivers in your car playing maybe 200Hz or less will do this.


----------



## derickveliz (May 15, 2009)

* Wow! *

That is very helpful... I'm learning thank you so much *sqshoestring*

Derick


----------



## DanMan (Jul 18, 2008)

When running subs with the cones facing rearward, is reversing their phase ultimately putting them in phase at the listening position?


----------



## sqshoestring (Jun 19, 2007)

DanMan said:


> When running subs with the cones facing rearward, is reversing their phase ultimately putting them in phase at the listening position?


Yes because positive pushes the cone out, if you invert then you reversed it. Swap the wires and you are back to standard phase. Subs do tend to be a little out of phase due to distance if you are talking about time alignment, so they are not typically 'perfect' without DSP, but its not that big a deal. Some crossovers you have to reverse phase when you run high and low pass at 12dB, I forgot that, my 880PRS HU does that and says so in the manual. Once you know what is going on you can hear it change at the crossover frequencies and the midbass is weaker or stronger depending on phase. Now a tweeter can work better with one or both out of phase, or not, but does not have the same effect as with bass. You don't usually lose a band of canceled frequencies with tweeters out of phase, there are reflections and such going on with those too.

Glad I could help, once you dink with this stuff and recognize what is happening...then you can use it to tune your system better or sometimes troubleshoot. When I install I usually change phase just to make sure the subs/mids are wired right.


----------

