# Ford Explorer HLCD SQ Setup



## ZapcoTravis (Feb 24, 2014)

Hi everyone.

Here is a SQ system diagram I drew up.
Please let me know what you think, opinions, questions are welcomed.


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## subwoofery (Nov 9, 2008)

KISS... Love it  

Which car? 

Kelvin


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## ZapcoTravis (Feb 24, 2014)

subwoofery said:


> KISS... Love it
> 
> Which car?
> 
> Kelvin


Thank you.
Yeah I love simplicity.
I'm installing this system in a restored 1991 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer.


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

I don't think you have enough power.


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## ZapcoTravis (Feb 24, 2014)

thehatedguy said:


> I don't think you have enough power.


Seriously ?


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## edzyy (Aug 18, 2011)

Opt for bridged 4 channels for headroom


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## ZapcoTravis (Feb 24, 2014)

edzyy said:


> Opt for bridged 4 channels for headroom


For the Beyma's ?


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

I was just messing...


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## Huckleberry Sound (Jan 17, 2009)

Looks pretty nice, that will be a nice one. Keeping it clean and straight to the point. No so many pieces to the puzzle so you will have time to experiment with different placements and turning.

Have fun with it!!!


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## Huckleberry Sound (Jan 17, 2009)

have you purchased your gear yet?


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## edzyy (Aug 18, 2011)

ZapcoTravis said:


> For the Beyma's ?


& the horns.


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## ZapcoTravis (Feb 24, 2014)

Huckleberry Sound said:


> have you purchased your gear yet?


No not yet.

I'm not set on the Zapco amps, I'm also looking at Arc Audio and TRU Technology amps also.


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## ZapcoTravis (Feb 24, 2014)

I have been told by one of the top rated installers in the U.S. that Zapco amps are not very stable any more.

Am I missing something ? 
I thought Zapco was one of the top rated amp manufactures around.


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## Patrick Bateman (Sep 11, 2006)

ZapcoTravis said:


> Hi everyone.
> 
> Here is a SQ system diagram I drew up.
> Please let me know what you think, opinions, questions are welcomed.


Distributing your midbasses has the potential to smooth out bumps in the frequency response. Basically a couple of sixes or three fives may work better than a single 8" or 10".


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

The small ones would blow up before getting anywhere near the output the system would be able to do.

Not to mention thermal compression


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## T3mpest (Dec 25, 2005)

thehatedguy said:


> The small ones would blow up before getting anywhere near the output the system would be able to do.
> 
> Not to mention thermal compression


Yeah arrays are tricky in a car. By the time you fit enough drivers to have the output of one "real speaker" you run out of places to fit them lol. Trying to fit 6 5.25s so I can have the output of one great set of 8's can turn into a nightmare, even if it does offer better response in the modal regions of the vehicle.


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## subwoofery (Nov 9, 2008)

T3mpest said:


> Yeah arrays are tricky in a car. By the time you fit enough drivers to have the output of one "real speaker" you run out of places to fit them lol. Trying to fit 6 5.25s so I can have the output of one great set of 8's can turn into a nightmare, even if it does offer better response in the modal regions of the vehicle.


Front door, rear door, rear deck... Done  

You'd need a lot of T/A for this to work though, I've managed to integrate my rear door speaker playing from 100Hz & up (bottom of the door panel+tweeter up high) with my front stage without any pulling to the rear while keeping the level almost as loud as the front (not 6dB-8dB lower like some rear stage steering algorithm). 
I'm right @ +17.4 ms VS the front stage for this to work - so you'll need more for the rear deck midbass. 

Kelvin


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## nineball76 (Mar 13, 2010)

This is along the same lines as what I've been wanting to do to my trailblazer. I'll be watching this.


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## Patrick Bateman (Sep 11, 2006)

subwoofery said:


> Front door, rear door, rear deck... Done
> 
> You'd need a lot of T/A for this to work though, I've managed to integrate my rear door speaker playing from 100Hz & up (bottom of the door panel+tweeter up high) with my front stage without any pulling to the rear while keeping the level almost as loud as the front (not 6dB-8dB lower like some rear stage steering algorithm).
> I'm right @ +17.4 ms VS the front stage for this to work - so you'll need more for the rear deck midbass.
> ...


Nope.

When two sources are within one quarter wavelength, they're virtually the same source. For instance, if you put two midranges within 3.5", *they're basically the same source at 1000hz.*

As frequencies get lower and lower, that 'window' gets bigger and bigger. By 250hz, you can have two drivers separated by 14", *and they'll basically radiate like one.*

Now if you really want to go crazy, you *could* use DSP to delay the drivers. But it's not required by any means. (It wouldn't hurt, if you have amp channels to burn, go for it.)









I know that most people picture something like this when they think "line array", but at low frequencies, an array can be placed with quite a bit of randomness, because the frequencies are just so long.

By far, the main reason to go to all of this trouble is because it smooths out the response. In a car we have two nasty room modes, due to the length and width of the car. Particularly because the length is a multiple of the width, you get some ugly dips and peaks between 100hz and 500hz that are 100% due to geometry.

So spacing out the drivers will still excite those resonances, but it randomizes all of that. Basically the randomness in the time and frequency domain means that the peaks and dips are reduced in severity.

It also improves imaging. Here's how this works:

_Picture yourself standing in a room, and one person is clapping. It will be really easy to localize where the clapping is coming from, even with your eyes closed. Now add seven people, and try to localize who is clapping and where they're standing. As you can imagine, it's a lot harder to localize eight sources rather than one. And that 'confusion' masks the cues that tell you where the speakers are.

Bottom line - eight midbasses in an array produce a sound that's smooth and diffuse, versus one driver in a box, which is easy to localize._

Taking this one step further, I personally believe that the reason a lot of people have said that putting a sub up front improves the imaging isn't because the sub is up front. *It's because they distributed the subs.* IE, they could put one sub in the middle of the car, or the roof, or the floor, or whatever. The trick is to distribute the subs.

This works wonderfully for subs at home, and I'm itching to see it work in the midbass of a car. I am currently building out my Mazda6, and it looks like I'll be using eight midbasses. They're very small, since the midbass duty is distributed over an array, and each enclosure is a little bigger than a can of soda.


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