# Review, HAT L3SE "Midrange" and Imagine I6 Midbass Drivers



## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

So far I am happy but the L3SEs are expensive for what they do and in my install I could not run without tweeters. 
The Imagine I6 midbass drivers are starting to break in after 2-1/2 weeks including a long driving trip. They sound warm and are doing what I hoped- although I do not care for the plastic flange- I need to investigate why one driver is leaking so much back-wave. 

Much more to come, more detailed review and pics as I tear into the doors next week-end. I'm a little flustered at my week-end project of re-adding my tweeters to the front stage in a quasi-active / passive setup.


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## win1 (Sep 27, 2008)

What are you running in your install that the L3SE would not work sir, cause they sound amazing in my setup, L3SE, L6V1, DLS Iridium 10's, DLS A4 and A3 in my Maxima, and in my Titan i'm running L1Pro, L3SE, L8SE, and IDQ 10's both sound amazing sir both with Audison Bit 1


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

Review, Hybrid Audio L3SE Midrange drivers + Imagine I6-2 Midbass Drivers.

Goals: 
1) To upgrade the sound quality of previous front stage install- Focal 165 V30 woofers and Scan Speak 1" dome tweeters. 
2) To raise the majority of the sound spectrum closer to ear level for improved midrange clarity and sound source localization
3) Significantly improved midbass below 100Hz.
4) To utilize the L3SE without tweeters. 
5) To Low Pass the midbass drivers as low as possible to avoid potential break up distortion at higher frequencies as perceived in the previous install. 
6) A general upgrade in overall sound clarity and reduction in speaker induced distortion.
7) Satisfactory return on investment. 

The great, the good, the bad. I'll get the "bad" out of the way first. 

The plastic flange on the I6 driver did not include any molded in sealing material, foam, rubber (or other) such that it the driver would seal against any minor irregularities in the MDF baffle. Bare plastic against MDF. My Focal driver included a nice inlay of foam for such purposes. Although I knew better I went ahead and installed them regardless. Sure enough a local RTA plot revealed a huge hole in the bass response of the driver's side speaker indicating a leaky seal and backwave cancellation. Not a huge deal and easily corrected but it would have been very nice for Hybrid to include a 10 cent foam gasket or such- considering that the unit seal loading capability for a plastic flange is a fraction of that of a similar metal flange with equal bolt spacing. 

The sound of the L3SE drivers (placed somewhat off axis, see pic) was at first glance nothing short of spectacular. I added a few db boost above 8K or so as per the RTA measurements. They sounded bright and clear enough. Mission accomplished or so it seemed. 
Then I reduced the levels of my rear door speakers and the nice high frequency sparkle and air content I had been experiencing all but vanished leaving me wanting for more. 
The Focal tweeters (at knee level in my rear doors) were over powering the L3SEs in the upper front doors in the high end. A little disappointing. I tried additional high end boosting, etc. but could not achieve a satisfactory high frequency presentation with the L3SEs. I thought that more on axis aiming would help- but even when I moved my ears on axis the drivers were still lacking high end- even compared to the relatively smooth Scan Speak domes that I was beginning to miss. 
This past week-end I installed my old Focal tweeters in the sail panels (see pic). And now the sound is doggone near perfect. 
So yes, the system now is definitely an SQ upgrade compared to the previous setup but it would not have been without the benefit of tweeters. 

The great. The HAT L3SEs look awesome on my upper door panels. They reek of quality. I loved the push terminals. They sound very very nice in the range I have them in- above 1.25K and natural roll off, tweeters kicking in above 5K 18db. Putting the tweeters relatively close in the sail panels achieved a near perfect blend. And now the majority of the sound spectrum comes from (2) locations with relatively unobstructed path to the ear. No wonder the champion cars have the mids and tweets next to each other at ear level. The stage and music content localization is absolutely sharp and nearly perfect. It is literally marvelous and what I had been missing all these years. 
The I6 drivers do offer a better bass response than my previous install as well. The kick drum has all the imapact I could Imagine. The Imagines do have a rep for midbass, even rivaling upgrades within their own Hybrid family- which seem to offer improved higher frequencies and power handling more so than better bass then the Imagines- except for the 8" and 6" sub drivers which I did not consider. So yes, goal no. 3 accomplished. 
I played around with crossover points between the Imagines and L3SEs and settled in on 1.25K 12 / 18 db. This seemed to sound the best. I see no reason to go lower because the Imagines do just fine below 1.25 K.
Although disappointed in the Imagine's lack of a flange seal and the fact that the L3SEs could not satisfy without tweeters, the majority of my upgrade goals were accomplished and my car sounds absolutely outstanding, and I could not have done it without some very nice midrange drivers like the L3SEs. It's better to pay a price and be satisfied than to pay a lesser price and not be. 

Goal achievement ratings (1-5 scale)
1) 4
2) 5
3) 4
4) 1
5) 5
6) 4
7) 4


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## jstoner22 (Jun 30, 2009)

glad to hear you are enjoying your sound!

i agree with the need for tweeters still with the L3SE's. although you can get by without them, personally it just didn't sound the same without dedicated tweeters.

however, it really seems like you are under-utilizing an amazing driver. despite the need for tweeters, they are still a fantastic widebander.
1.25-5khz? sounds like a waste

i run mine 400-6500hz. the difference is huge allowing the midbass to concentrate 400 and below and allow the midrange to cover the majority of the vocal range with no crossover serparation.

give it a try for a while. i think you will be surprised.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

you weren't happy with the l3se with out tweeters? i have a hard time with any tweeterless system but these are the drivers that ive always felt did it well with out you being able to notice :\


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## james2266 (Sep 24, 2009)

Changed up a few things I see. I have been thinking about upgrading my midbasses too. I was considering dropping a 3 inch midrange into the stock tweeter location too but decided I did not want to have to chop up those nice new doors. Also, after constructing my dash pods, I really can't see how things could sound better with my midrange that close on the driver's side. I'm glad that it worked for you however and I must agree that it does look sharp. 

Are the L3se in enclosures at all? How/what did you mount the drivers too anyway? If you did an enclosure, I want to see some pics as it might give me some ideas if I decide to build enclosures for midbasses in my doors too - no idea as to how to do that however.

I do concur with the posted above tho, you really should try a much lower crossover point. I noticed a huge difference just going from around 500 Hz to 300 Hz when it comes to voices diving down into the driver's door on certain tracks.


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## jtaudioacc (Apr 6, 2010)

I'd definitely drop the crossover on the L3SE's to at least 4-500, then, tune, tune, tune. 

so did the foam make the imagines come alive with midbass?!?


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

Thanks for the review. I 100% agree with the above posters. I would never cross those L3's over in that 1.2K range. Get as much of the vocal spectrum out of them as you can especially seeing as how the I6 and the L3SE are seperated. You should try 300-350hz and see the difference. This will not only make vocals more consistent, but it will let your I6's focus on playing what they are there for- midbass! They are wasting power playing frequencies that the L3 will play better.

Anyway, congrats and enjoy the new setup !


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

You'd be surprised how well those l6's plated to the 2.5 range or even full range they sound good nothing compared to a comloenate setup but for a single driver the l6 has more range than any driver I've ever handled. I ran a set full range for 2 months last fall while I worked out tweeter pods

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2


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## jtaudioacc (Apr 6, 2010)

captainobvious said:


> Thanks for the review. I 100% agree with the above posters. I would never cross those L3's over in that 1.2K range. Get as much of the vocal spectrum out of them as you can especially seeing as how the I6 and the L3SE are seperated. You should try 300-350hz and see the difference. This will not only make vocals more consistent, but it will let your I6's focus on playing what they are there for- midbass! They are wasting power playing frequencies that the L3 will play better.
> 
> Anyway, congrats and enjoy the new setup !





eviling said:


> You'd be surprised how well those l6's plated to the 2.5 range or even full range they sound good nothing compared to a comloenate setup but for a single driver the l6 has more range than any driver I've ever handled. I ran a set full range for 2 months last fall while I worked out tweeter pods
> 
> Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2


are you guys talking about the Legatia L6V1 or V2 or the Imagine series, which is what he's using?


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

JT-

Im referring to the i6 (Imagine 6) that the OP is using.


thanks


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

thanks for the comments and suggestions gentlemen- for some reason no e-mail updates about this thread, weird. 

jstoner (and others) I tried setting the c/o lower for low pass and high pass on the mids but for some reason the 1.25K or so with a relatively gradual 12/18db slope sounds the best to my ears- also they are rolled off naturally at the high end. 

eviling-
I was happy with the sound "tweeterless" and was blown away after very little tuning- BUT I discovered that the high end was coming from my rear door focal tweeters! when I cut the level on the rear speakers the sound up front was not nearly as nice- even with lots of high frequency tuning and boosting. adding the tweeters put it over the top. 

james- yeah really, I was cringing just a bit when I took the 3" hole saw to my upper door panels during the install- but i did it anyway! I read that these need lots of venting and an IB setup so I did not build an enclosure- I covered them with dense polyfill and surrounded them with dynamat but left openings for venting. 

jt audio-

I'm making new baffles and the foam rings for the imagines this week-end. I may try to drop the c/o as suggested and do additional tuning and see what happens- but really the imagines sound great up to the 1.25 K range and I don't hear anything in that range that needs spot-on imaging or direct ear line of sight. coming from a 2-way I am already way ahead of the previous setup.


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## porscheman (Jan 1, 2012)

i didn't see anyone point this out, but to run the l3se's without a tweet they need to be on axis. ive got a set in the a-pillars on my cube and they are amazing without a tweet, but they are at about 25 deg from pointing right at you. massive differences from your total off axis mount in the upper door.

and the more air behind them you can get the happier they will be


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

Almost every speaker will create a bad seal if it is placed on a hard surface such as a plastic speaker adapter. I bought a roll of acoustic foam tape from parts express to deal with this. It also works great as a subwoofer box gasket.


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

ZAKOH said:


> Almost every speaker will create a bad seal if it is placed on a hard surface such as a plastic speaker adapter. I bought a roll of acoustic foam tape from parts express to deal with this. It also works great as a subwoofer box gasket.


agreed. 

i stumbled on these foam sheets when i bought my polyfill batts at the fabric store-
Foam Sheet 2mm 9''X12'' - 10PK/MANY COLORS : foam & foamies : kids & teachers :  Shop | Joann.com

i form them just like a gasket for the baffle to door and speaker. the material is firm yet flexible, dense and strong / tear resistant. it comes in 2mm to 4mm thicknesses . i used the 4mm sheet (black) as the seal of the HAT L3SE to the door panel because of the surface contours and irregularities. it works great and avoids the seam you are left with using foam tape or weather stripping.


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

Update 8/6/2012

I spent the week-end making new baffles for the Imagine midbass as well as foam gaskets. I doubled up on the dynamat in all (4) doors as well as adding some plastic support panels to the larger door openings that were previously only covered in dynamat. 

I also installed a Boston Acoustics image system crossover that allows me to cross over the front focal tweeters at 8K as well as control the level -3 to -9db independantly of the HAT L3SE. I reduced the HP crossover of the L3's to 800K and this so far seems better than the 1.25K. 
The 8K and up dedicated tweeter fill provides just the right high end sparkle and dispersion where the L3's started to beam. The 8K also avoids the tweeter output stepping on the L3's output- the system output was sounding tinney without significant EQ. The 8K tweeter avoids the need for significant EQ and lets the L3SE's to really shine.

BTW, they are still breaking in, and contunue to sound better as time goes on. 

The bass output now sounds much different after doing the sealing work. It's wierd, it sounds like an anechoic chamber in my car now- bass becomes very apparent easily, even at very low volume levels. I need to get used to it but so far the path to mobile audio perfection just became a lot shorter!


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

BTW one lesson learned-

The Imagine manual recommends using oak baffles for superior stiffness (as a possibility). 
I tried this and holy cow what a mistake. The 1" oak boards have significant amount of grain- My baffle spilt in two as I was cutting them. They would have split when I went to install them regardless- my sheetmetal door panel is slightly curved and the tightening down would have split them. 
I wound up buying a scrap portion of laminated countertop. both sides were laminated (no painting required except for the inner and outer edges). The particle board used in counter tops is also a very good, particularly dense grade. Worked like a charm.


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

update 8/18/12.

Since adding the foam sheet gaskets between doors, baffles and drivers as well as additional dynamat, stiffening/ reinforcement sealing and deadening of the doors, it sounded like schite- and i could not tune it out. I was "baffled" there for a while. Then I got out the RTA- 
My midbass response had jumped up so high that it was now completely dominating the sound. Too much bass! 
I zeroed all of the EQ bands and began to level match system and tried to achieve a nice RTA curve through driver level settings only and avoid EQ. 
I had to reduce the midbass drivers levels by -3db for the front and rear doors and increase the front mid/tweeter levels by +3db. A 6-db swing just from additional deadening, stiffening, sealing and gasketing!

The HAT I6 drivers sound great- awesome impact. A little warm but I like it that way. In addition, the foam gaskets eliminated the near field back wave leak- each driver is measuring nearly flat from 40K to 2000K on the RTA where previously I had a huge hole between 100 and 300 Hz on the driver's side. Be forewarned and do use gaskets on the HAT midbass drivers. 
However, since I level matched the drivers the HAT L3SEs and the Focal tweeters (above 8K) now really shine. My stage is absolutely detailed, high, 3-dimensional yet pinpoint and floats right there on my windshield. The vocals, whether Mark Lanagan deep or Kate Bush high, sound so life like and "there" it is phenomenal.


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## Scott Buwalda (Apr 7, 2006)

Nice work. Every car and every install is different. Glad this has worked out for you!


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

update 11/25/12.
some updates and learning experiences for the L3SE widerange drivers and the I6-2 midbass drivers-

the imagine 6 midbass drivers continued to break in and offer even more midbass output. however it was literally too much output and created peaky, boomy and muddy sound that had to be reckoned with by physical and EQ counter measures. 

despite lots of EQ cuts in the 80 to 400 Hz range the sound ran a fine line between an obnoxious humming like bass peak and muddy overly warm coloration at one end- and if i got rid of those issues the output was too weak and thin. 

after modeling the imagines in onlne software it was clear that they are best suited to a ported enclosure and that a sealed door would be too small of an enclosure. thanks to HAT for providing all of the TS parameters in their documentation. 

since i did not want to vent the speaker either internally or to the outside world with respect to the front doors of my car, i decided to loosen up on the rigidity of my door "enclosure" but still provide a solid infinite baffle. i did this by removing one of the rigid plastic reinforcing panels i had used to seal off the large opening in my door sheet-metal. i then replaced the sound deadener over the opening and added more on top to create a solid IB that would also flex a little and not overly constrain the enclosure. 
this worked like a charm and cancelled out all of the annoying peak resonance issues i was experiencing. I still needed EQ cuts as well, but not nearly as much and not at the sacrifice of impact or output. I also wound up changing the HP frequency from 80 Hz down to 63 Hz. This smoothed things out as well. 

I'm guessing that the "overbass" i experienced when sealing / deadening my doors is caused by the classic too small enclosure syndrome- that the imagines are designed to provide great bass for people who just plug and play these into their doors without doing any sealing / deadening work to the door panels. this makes sense- the market demands great sounding plug and play drivers that are upgrades to the stock system without the cost and labor associated with door treatments. 
--
another note with respect to the I6 drivers is that they play cleanly in the upper midrange- very clean!
I had crossed them at 800 Hz because of the capabilities of the L3SE which lots of people cross even lower. However I decided to try and cross the imagines higher and the L3SEs lower just to see what it would sound like. 
To my surprise the system sounds the best with a 5000 Hz crossover, each with 12 db slopes. The I6 drivers play very clean up to this frequecny. The L3SE drivers shine even brighter whan crossed above 5K (perhaps less strained by lower frequencies in my install?) and overall the stage is higher, brighter and more open and realistic because of it and the stage center has also improved. 
I know it may sound like a waste having the L3SE playing from 5Khz to 8Khz but not really because they sound phenomenal in this range- the best I have ever heard. I tried goin back to the previous lower crossover point- even did it in increments- but the 5K / 12 db seems to be a magic sweet spot in my install.


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

I am curious if it was worth replacing the Focal Polyglass V30 with a HAT Imagine woofer at all. If you look at the specs, both look kind of similar to each other. Both use some kind of paper material for cone. Resonance frequency about the same. One way xmax is about the same (5mm vs 6mm). Considering all the work you have done with Imagine woofers, I think the same could be accomplished with a Focal V30 woofer. If you needed an upgrade over the V30 woofer, the HAT Clarus seems like a more solid improvement upon it, with much lower FS and also higher xmax.

Every car is different. In my car, the midsection of the door is fully sealed, although the door may have leaks on its sides as usual. The bass sensitivity of the HAT Imagine woofer seems "average". In any case, I can't describe bass as bloated. More like, dry and gutless. When I switched from my Alpine SPR-17S speakers to HAT Imagine, I felt that bass sensitivity was weaker on Imagine. This was obvious specially when letting the speakers play without a subwoofer. Alpines did get sloppy when driven hard. HAT woofers may have 6mm of xmax excursion (probably measured as (VC size-gap)/2, but I guess the suspension is probably too stiff, and so bass rolls off pretty fast. For example, there is no way you could get satisfactory sound with these if the subwoofer is low passed at 50Hz with a sharper slope. In any case, these woofers do have enough mid bass to smoothly blend with a good sub stage. I use Imagine woofers and Infinity Kappa 120.9w subwoofer, with 63Hz crossover frequency (24dB slope on woofer and 18db on sub), and the blend is very good.

However, what's cool about the Imagine woofers is that is you can high pass them at 63Hz, boost midbass output, and they seem take it and sound very articulate in the bass region without being sloppy at all, while a typical car-fi budget speaker will sound sloppy under these conditions. These are my kind of speakers, because I don't like having to low pass the subwoofer at 80Hz or higher.

The imagine woofers do play cleanly into upper mid-range. However, the sound of upper mid-range is kind of gut-less in a typical car-fi install with the woofers installed off axis in doors. With the tweeters using a sharp crossover at 5-6KHz, the mid-range is way too laid back. I prefer more neutral or may be a little up front sound. I guess, this is expected of speakers where the 6.5 inch woofer has to fill frequencies up to 5KHz, since the sound dispersion from a 6.5 inch woofer is expected to suffer off axis above 2KHz. Perhaps your L3 drivers are still helping to fill the 2.5-5KHz region. It's strange you liked the I6 speaker more. I would have expected the L3 to have a more even frequency response throughout the mid-range region compared to I6 in a car.


In any case, I let my head unit run its auto tune, and they really cleared up everything above 100Hz, great sound. In bass region, I had to bring up bass considerably after the auto-eq run. The Imagine tweeters are also pretty good if they are high passed with a sharp slope at 5KHz or higher. They sound kind of crisp, but not fatiguing at all. They did seem to make the upper mid-range fatiguing at higher volume level when running with their stock crossover, which uses shallow high pass filter.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

avanti1960 said:


> update 11/25/12.
> some updates and learning experiences for the L3SE widerange drivers and the I6-2 midbass drivers-
> 
> the imagine 6 midbass drivers continued to break in and offer even more midbass output. however it was literally too much output and created peaky, boomy and muddy sound that had to be reckoned with by physical and EQ counter measures.
> ...


You do strange things... but hey, if they work? 5K/12 dB seems like tweeter territory.
The only thing I'm wondering is do you have the I6 in the same door as the L3 SE air space wise?


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

ZAKOH said:


> I am curious if it was worth replacing the Focal Polyglass V30 with a HAT Imagine woofer at all. If you look at the specs, both look kind of similar to each other.
> 
> 
> The imagine woofers do play cleanly into upper mid-range. However, the sound of upper mid-range is kind of gut-less in a typical car-fi install with the woofers installed off axis in doors. With the tweeters using a sharp crossover at 5-6KHz, the mid-range is way too laid back.


interesting you mention this. i bought the imagines as a means to add warmth and midbass vs. the Focal V30s- which I were not happy with. my ears told me it was a successful effort yet with additional mechanical work required to manage the overabundance of bass at certain frequencies, i.e. the small enclosure effect. i really believe this set was designed for a plug and play upgrade to add decent bass to stock, untreated, unsealed doors.

just yesterday i ran individual RTA sweeps of evey driver in my car to try and optimize the crossover settings. thanks to hanatsu and wesayso for this suggestion.
the attached pic shows the imagines (front door, blue curve) and the focal V30 (rear door, green curve). each are HP crossed at 80 Hz 24db, no EQ. 

you can see that the HATs are +3db @ 100 Hz and +5db @ 80 Hz vs. the V30s. that is a significant measured improvement. also note the huge peak of the HATs from 200 Hz to 350 Hz. This is the bloated bass issue i have to contend with and my tune EQ settings bear this out. this was worse when the doors were rigidly sealed. If i had time i would love to open one of the sealed holes in the door and see what that does to the F/R. bottom line, the HATs were worth it but not without some added difficulty in my install.

with respect to the midrange output, i believe the pioneer autoEQ had the effect of boosting the output of the imagines at frequencies from 1 to 5 Khz. they are absolutely clean and up front within this range. 

however, after measuring the output of each driver, the ultimate crossover point in my install (i.e. the point where the F/R starts falling off naturally) is right on the money between 1Khz and 1.5Khz. I will run my new tune crossed at 1.2Khz between the midwoofer and midrange. 
the reason my previous tune had laid back vocals was because the L3SE starts falling off below 1.2 Khz and they were crossed at 800 Hz, thus the hole in the sound. See second pic for the L3SE curve (magenta) overlaid with the imagine's. 
This is fun stuff and I am anxious to apply the new settings today.


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

Wesayso said:


> You do strange things... but hey, if they work? 5K/12 dB seems like tweeter territory.
> The only thing I'm wondering is do you have the I6 in the same door as the L3 SE air space wise?


yeah, i do. but i'm learning, see previous post. 
the I6 is in the metal part of the door and the L3SE is mounted to the door card and does not see the back wave of the I6. i have a layer of sound deadener and polyfill "sealing" the L3SE backwave with a small vent.


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## Wesayso (Jul 20, 2010)

avanti1960 said:


> yeah, i do. but i'm learning, see previous post.
> the I6 is in the metal part of the door and the L3SE is mounted to the door card and does not see the back wave of the I6. i have a layer of sound deadener and polyfill "sealing" the L3SE backwave with a small vent.


That's what I figured, just wanted to make sure.


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## james2266 (Sep 24, 2009)

avanti1960 said:


> interesting you mention this. i bought the imagines as a means to add warmth and midbass vs. the Focal V30s- which I were not happy with. my ears told me it was a successful effort yet with additional mechanical work required to manage the overabundance of bass at certain frequencies, i.e. the small enclosure effect. i really believe this set was designed for a plug and play upgrade to add decent bass to stock, untreated, unsealed doors.
> 
> just yesterday i ran individual RTA sweeps of evey driver in my car to try and optimize the crossover settings. thanks to hanatsu and wesayso for this suggestion.
> the attached pic shows the imagines (front door, blue curve) and the focal V30 (rear door, green curve). each are HP crossed at 80 Hz 24db, no EQ.
> ...


I have done this as well even if I don't have the graphs handy. It was a bit of an eye opener for sure. I actually need to re-do this as I have vented my midrange/tweet pods into the apillars now which should of affected the low range extension some. I am a little concerned about your plots for your midbass comparisons however. Why did you leave an 80 Hz crossover on them when doing the readings? I think I set mine for somewhere in the 30 Hz range and let them run with no low pass. For my midranges I think I settled on 100 Hz/24 db and let them run too. Of course, keep the volume low but it did really tell me a few stories. Also, did you do each separate driver or in pairs? I was told to do each separate driver and it was quite enlightening. Also, for your midbass comparo's you are using different mount locations; did you take readings in different areas because that would seriously affect all of the readings (especially that mountain we both have around 250-400 Hz). I killed that mountain with 2 crossovers (250 Hz 12 db and a 350 Hz 24 db). That did really flatten that out for me (another suggestion from a knowledgeable forum member). I do still have to drop a little there with the eq but not nearly as much.

Another experiment that I did, I thought up due to a comment I heard from a member on one of these forums. He said that all rta programs essentially suck on pc's because windows screws with the responses. I don't know how much truth is behind this but I wanted to kind of test that theory. I decided to grab my pink noise cd (exact same one I use in car) and threw it in my blue ray player and took a reading on my home stereo. I did this because it is the best sounding setup I have access to and I am always impressed by the response of it. It is a fairly hi line Denon and has had Audessey set on it to give it that nice sound. Low and behold, the stupid rta was showing the exact same peak at 2 kHz and 5 kHz and the dip at 63 Hz was even larger than in the bloody car! Anyways, I saved the response and used it as kind of a template (target curve) for the car. I did add in a fair amount more from about 300 Hz down as the small space I think requires that. End result: Best it had ever sounded! I sat with it for about 30 mins the next day, doing small tweaks mostly in the 1 kHz and midbass areas and it truly sounds quite nice to me. Just thought I would share this as it might help out some other guys or provide some feedback from some guys more knowledgeable than I.


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

james2266 said:


> I have done this as well even if I don't have the graphs handy. It was a bit of an eye opener for sure. I actually need to re-do this as I have vented my midrange/tweet pods into the apillars now which should of affected the low range extension some. I am a little concerned about your plots for your midbass comparisons however. Why did you leave an 80 Hz crossover on them when doing the readings? I think I set mine for somewhere in the 30 Hz range and let them run with no low pass. For my midranges I think I settled on 100 Hz/24 db and let them run too. Of course, keep the volume low but it did really tell me a few stories. Also, did you do each separate driver or in pairs? I was told to do each separate driver and it was quite enlightening. Also, for your midbass comparo's you are using different mount locations; did you take readings in different areas because that would seriously affect all of the readings (especially that mountain we both have around 250-400 Hz). I killed that mountain with 2 crossovers (250 Hz 12 db and a 350 Hz 24 db). That did really flatten that out for me (another suggestion from a knowledgeable forum member). I do still have to drop a little there with the eq but not nearly as much.
> 
> Another experiment that I did, I thought up due to a comment I heard from a member on one of these forums. He said that all rta programs essentially suck on pc's because windows screws with the responses. I don't know how much truth is behind this but I wanted to kind of test that theory. I decided to grab my pink noise cd (exact same one I use in car) and threw it in my blue ray player and took a reading on my home stereo. I did this because it is the best sounding setup I have access to and I am always impressed by the response of it. It is a fairly hi line Denon and has had Audessey set on it to give it that nice sound. Low and behold, the stupid rta was showing the exact same peak at 2 kHz and 5 kHz and the dip at 63 Hz was even larger than in the bloody car! Anyways, I saved the response and used it as kind of a template (target curve) for the car. I did add in a fair amount more from about 300 Hz down as the small space I think requires that. End result: Best it had ever sounded! I sat with it for about 30 mins the next day, doing small tweaks mostly in the 1 kHz and midbass areas and it truly sounds quite nice to me. Just thought I would share this as it might help out some other guys or provide some feedback from some guys more knowledgeable than I.


james,

i left the 80Hz crossovers on because that is where they sound the best. i tried running them at 63Hz and the sound got sloppy. 

yes, i did each driver by itself. and with respect to the midbass comparison it was measured from the same liocation- but the distance from driver to ear is nearly identical in the RAV for the front and rear speakers (at least with the seat all the way back).

it must be nice to crossover that low- my EQ did handle the "mountain" well however I will post some final curves soon. 

very interesting about the problems with the RTA, yeah it is an imperfect tool but seems to go hand in hand with what you actually hear. 

sounds like a nice target curve! Do post when you have a minute!


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## subwoofery (Nov 9, 2008)

avanti1960 said:


> james,
> 
> i left the 80Hz crossovers on because that is where they sound the best. i tried running them at 63Hz and the sound got sloppy.
> 
> ...


Kelvin


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

subwoofery said:


> Kelvin


agreed to a certain extent- the front door / rear door midbass comparison is not completely scientific because of reflections and door volume- however the RTA plot from the rear V30's is nearly identical to the plot that was taken when the V30s were in my front doors- and this correlates to the subjective improvement in midbass when i replaced them with the imagines. IIRC the curve looks alot like Focal's published specs as well.


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## BKLYNG (Aug 6, 2014)

can you use 4k @ 24db slope on the hat imagines


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

BKLYNG said:


> can you use 4k @ 24db slope on the hat imagines


should sound OK but they sound best crossed 800Hz or lower in my car. their tonality suffers above 1Khz or so and the passenger door speaker sound dominates in those frequencies because of a better line of site to the right ear.


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## BKLYNG (Aug 6, 2014)

wsup i have mu hat imagines tweets at 4k 24db slope they are in my sail panel my midbass is in bottom of door midlpf 3.15 at 24db slope midhpf 50hz 12db slope sub lpf 80hz 24db slope


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## ImLoudEK (Dec 2, 2014)

I have just recently installed the l3se in a 3 way set up with a pair of beyma mid bass and tweeters...

My two cents are the l3se are very clean and articulate...I'm surprised at the amount of mid bass the l3se gives off...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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