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At some point in everyone's life they hear the terms "3 way speakers". What does it actually mean?
Multi-way speakers are I refer to them are essentially speakers which have more than 1 reproductive device. Essentially, multi-way speakers can be:
1. Component Speakers - Components for short use several separate components to reproduce sound. Usually, a 2 way component speaker set would consist of a mid-range woofer and a tweeter. A 3 way component speaker set would consist of a woofer, a mid range driver and a tweeter and so on. The numeral before the "way" indicates how many components are in the setup. Sometimes these are purchased as a set or they are a combination of several different speakers put together. The more components involved in the reproduction of the sound stage, the better the quality generally tends to be and so the wider the frequency response of the audio system.
2. Coaxial Speakers - These are very common. Every time I hear someone is running Pioneer speakers off their deck, it usually means they are using a multi-way coaxial speaker. Coaxial speakers are essentially a fusion of separate components. The end result is usually a compromise as sometimes a manufacturer may incorporate a woofer and a tweeter into 1 design. The same rule about the number of ways applies here as the more "ways" the greater the ability to reproduce sound, generally. Usually I have found that coaxial speakers do not sound as good as components.
However, taken into consideration the benefits of a component setup, a 2 way component set can actually sound much better than a 3 way coaxial set of speakers. In fact, I use a component setup, 2 way, called the DD CS6.5, the DD CXS6.5 is the coaxial version of my component. It does not deliver as quite a flat response but is much easier to install since it does not require a separate place to mount the tweeter and crossover.
Now that you understand what multi-way speakers are, the main reason you may opt to purchase aftermarket speakers is due to wanting better sound quality or loudness. However, one important factor that most people don't consider is the staging.
Basically, the sound stage refers to the reproduction of the musical event. Generally a good sound stage consists of multiple speakers which are strategically positioned to blend with each other and provide the listener with as close to reality as possible sound. I like to use the example of a concert. At a concert the musical instruments and vocalists are facing you. As they sing and play their instruments, you can usually tell which location on the stage their instrument sounds are coming from. This is exactly what front staging means. A front staged audio system consists of a musical experience whereby sound either comes from or seems to be coming from in front of you.
Typically in a car, this means using no rear speakers or using rear speakers with the fader biased toward the front. Generally these types of systems are designed to provide a more accurate, concert like sound. Front Staged audio systems typically won't use rear speakers at equal volume as the front speakers in a car as this causes cancellation. Cancellation in a front staged system with rear speakers usually means that midbass is greatly reduced to listeners in the front seats of the car. It also causes the entire "front stage" to disappear and the accuracy of the whole audio system disappears. The only frequencies that are usually played from the rear would be sub bass as it is difficult to "localize" low frequencies.
However, do not be too worried, if you just want to upgrade your speakers then by all means, buy as many sets of speakers that your car needs. More often than not, people just change all their speakers and they are not concerned with staging or getting the most accurate sound reproduction. In these cases the listener is quite happy with having both their front and rear speakers upgraded usually to a matching set. Sound Staging in this case would not be very present since there would be little to no separation between the left and right "channels" and there would be the confusion of having all speakers playing at the same exact time while the sound does not reach the listener's ears at the same time.
In a situation where we are using several components together, we use a crossover network. A crossover is a circuit which uses inductors, resistors and capacitors to filter out sound from the speakers. It is vital to achieving the most potential out of a set of new speakers. Component speaker sets generally use external crossovers which are either mounted within the "bowls" of the car's doors or anywhere within the interior.
The crossover usually takes the audio and through a series of inductors, resistors and capacitors, filters out unwanted frequencies from the speakers. Generally 2 way component speakers utilize a crossover which splits the frequencies at a certain point in the sound spectrum and send only the relevant frequencies to the woofer and tweeter. In doing so, there is the safety measure that a tweeter will never become destroyed from bass and that a woofer will never try to reproduce high frequencies which is the job of the tweeter.
Crossovers can be either passive or active.
Passive crossovers would be described as above, the use of a circuit to filter the frequencies.
Active crossovers are digital in nature and often are used in more advanced systems where an audio processor such as the Rockford Fosgate 360.3 allows the user to customize the crossover frequency of various speakers digitally. Active crossovers have the advantage as you can choose a frequency to cross your speakers at vs passive crossovers which are mainly fixed and can only be changed by modifying components along the circuit.
Another important factor when purchasing speakers is "Wattage" or W. It is essential that the W RMS power of speakers are considered when purchasing and not peak power. W RMS stands for Watts RMS where RMS or Root Mean Square is the continuous power that a speaker can handle. Generally manufacturers provide this information. Usually Peak power is double the RMS power but we do not consider peak power when purchasing speakers. When using an amplifier, we look at the RMS power output of the amplifier and purchase speakers with similar RMS ratings to ensure that we do not burn our speakers with too much power or that we do not work our amp too hard. By that I mean, we match the amps' RMS power to our speakers RMS power when choosing.
However, Watts RMS alone isn't the deciding factor. We must also consider sensitivity which is usually measured in dB. Speaker sensitivity gives you an idea as how efficient a speaker makes use of its power. A high sensitivity means that a speaker will be louder on a given amount of power. For instance, my DD components are rated at 89dbs of sensitivity and when compared with Elegance mid range speakers, they have a sensitivity of 92dbs. Every 3 decibels = twice as loud. Therefore, with the same amount of power and the same volume at the head unit and the same gain at the amp, my Elegance speakers are twice as loud as my components.
Finally, impedance is also a decisive factor for us. Impedance is measured in "ohms" and usually is represented by this symbol Ω
Many car speakers have an impedance of 4 ohms. The lower the number of ohms, the lower our impedance. If we have a 16 ohm speaker, that is considered to be a high impedance speaker. When buying speakers, in addition to matching the RMS of our choice to our amp's RMS power, we must also match impedance. The manufacturer of the amplifier or head unit usually provides the lowest rated impedance that the amp is rated at being stable. It looks something like this: "50w rms x 2 (2 Ω)". From that statement, we gather that the amp can supply 2 channels at 50w rms at a 2 ohm impedance. Therefore, if we are wiring 2 speakers, we need to make sure that they handle 50w rms and are rated at 2 ohms or else we will not get the maximum power from our amplifier. In the same way, we cannot use 2 ohm speakers if an amplifier can only support 4 ohm impedance. As a general rule, we can use higher impedance with no problems but do not go below the impedance stated by the amp manufacturer as this will either cause your amp to overheat, trip or go into protect or worse, become damaged.
Lastly, yes I know impedance was supposed to be last however, without knowing the size of speakers that our cars use, all of the above is useless. Modern cars generally tend to use the 6.5" speaker size. The size of the speaker is measured by the diameter of the speaker for round speakers. typical sizes include: 3", 4", 5.25", 6.5", 6.75", 8" for woofers and mid range speakers. Subwoofers can be even larger in size but we do not really need subwoofer size to choose our speakers for our car doors.
The best way to know your speaker size is to actually remove your door panel and measure the speaker itself. Or if you have speakers on the trunk partition, you can probably get away with trying to measure from the trunk area.
Multi-way speakers are I refer to them are essentially speakers which have more than 1 reproductive device. Essentially, multi-way speakers can be:
1. Component Speakers - Components for short use several separate components to reproduce sound. Usually, a 2 way component speaker set would consist of a mid-range woofer and a tweeter. A 3 way component speaker set would consist of a woofer, a mid range driver and a tweeter and so on. The numeral before the "way" indicates how many components are in the setup. Sometimes these are purchased as a set or they are a combination of several different speakers put together. The more components involved in the reproduction of the sound stage, the better the quality generally tends to be and so the wider the frequency response of the audio system.
2. Coaxial Speakers - These are very common. Every time I hear someone is running Pioneer speakers off their deck, it usually means they are using a multi-way coaxial speaker. Coaxial speakers are essentially a fusion of separate components. The end result is usually a compromise as sometimes a manufacturer may incorporate a woofer and a tweeter into 1 design. The same rule about the number of ways applies here as the more "ways" the greater the ability to reproduce sound, generally. Usually I have found that coaxial speakers do not sound as good as components.
However, taken into consideration the benefits of a component setup, a 2 way component set can actually sound much better than a 3 way coaxial set of speakers. In fact, I use a component setup, 2 way, called the DD CS6.5, the DD CXS6.5 is the coaxial version of my component. It does not deliver as quite a flat response but is much easier to install since it does not require a separate place to mount the tweeter and crossover.
Now that you understand what multi-way speakers are, the main reason you may opt to purchase aftermarket speakers is due to wanting better sound quality or loudness. However, one important factor that most people don't consider is the staging.
Basically, the sound stage refers to the reproduction of the musical event. Generally a good sound stage consists of multiple speakers which are strategically positioned to blend with each other and provide the listener with as close to reality as possible sound. I like to use the example of a concert. At a concert the musical instruments and vocalists are facing you. As they sing and play their instruments, you can usually tell which location on the stage their instrument sounds are coming from. This is exactly what front staging means. A front staged audio system consists of a musical experience whereby sound either comes from or seems to be coming from in front of you.
Typically in a car, this means using no rear speakers or using rear speakers with the fader biased toward the front. Generally these types of systems are designed to provide a more accurate, concert like sound. Front Staged audio systems typically won't use rear speakers at equal volume as the front speakers in a car as this causes cancellation. Cancellation in a front staged system with rear speakers usually means that midbass is greatly reduced to listeners in the front seats of the car. It also causes the entire "front stage" to disappear and the accuracy of the whole audio system disappears. The only frequencies that are usually played from the rear would be sub bass as it is difficult to "localize" low frequencies.
However, do not be too worried, if you just want to upgrade your speakers then by all means, buy as many sets of speakers that your car needs. More often than not, people just change all their speakers and they are not concerned with staging or getting the most accurate sound reproduction. In these cases the listener is quite happy with having both their front and rear speakers upgraded usually to a matching set. Sound Staging in this case would not be very present since there would be little to no separation between the left and right "channels" and there would be the confusion of having all speakers playing at the same exact time while the sound does not reach the listener's ears at the same time.
In a situation where we are using several components together, we use a crossover network. A crossover is a circuit which uses inductors, resistors and capacitors to filter out sound from the speakers. It is vital to achieving the most potential out of a set of new speakers. Component speaker sets generally use external crossovers which are either mounted within the "bowls" of the car's doors or anywhere within the interior.
The crossover usually takes the audio and through a series of inductors, resistors and capacitors, filters out unwanted frequencies from the speakers. Generally 2 way component speakers utilize a crossover which splits the frequencies at a certain point in the sound spectrum and send only the relevant frequencies to the woofer and tweeter. In doing so, there is the safety measure that a tweeter will never become destroyed from bass and that a woofer will never try to reproduce high frequencies which is the job of the tweeter.
Crossovers can be either passive or active.
Passive crossovers would be described as above, the use of a circuit to filter the frequencies.
Active crossovers are digital in nature and often are used in more advanced systems where an audio processor such as the Rockford Fosgate 360.3 allows the user to customize the crossover frequency of various speakers digitally. Active crossovers have the advantage as you can choose a frequency to cross your speakers at vs passive crossovers which are mainly fixed and can only be changed by modifying components along the circuit.
Another important factor when purchasing speakers is "Wattage" or W. It is essential that the W RMS power of speakers are considered when purchasing and not peak power. W RMS stands for Watts RMS where RMS or Root Mean Square is the continuous power that a speaker can handle. Generally manufacturers provide this information. Usually Peak power is double the RMS power but we do not consider peak power when purchasing speakers. When using an amplifier, we look at the RMS power output of the amplifier and purchase speakers with similar RMS ratings to ensure that we do not burn our speakers with too much power or that we do not work our amp too hard. By that I mean, we match the amps' RMS power to our speakers RMS power when choosing.
However, Watts RMS alone isn't the deciding factor. We must also consider sensitivity which is usually measured in dB. Speaker sensitivity gives you an idea as how efficient a speaker makes use of its power. A high sensitivity means that a speaker will be louder on a given amount of power. For instance, my DD components are rated at 89dbs of sensitivity and when compared with Elegance mid range speakers, they have a sensitivity of 92dbs. Every 3 decibels = twice as loud. Therefore, with the same amount of power and the same volume at the head unit and the same gain at the amp, my Elegance speakers are twice as loud as my components.
Finally, impedance is also a decisive factor for us. Impedance is measured in "ohms" and usually is represented by this symbol Ω
Many car speakers have an impedance of 4 ohms. The lower the number of ohms, the lower our impedance. If we have a 16 ohm speaker, that is considered to be a high impedance speaker. When buying speakers, in addition to matching the RMS of our choice to our amp's RMS power, we must also match impedance. The manufacturer of the amplifier or head unit usually provides the lowest rated impedance that the amp is rated at being stable. It looks something like this: "50w rms x 2 (2 Ω)". From that statement, we gather that the amp can supply 2 channels at 50w rms at a 2 ohm impedance. Therefore, if we are wiring 2 speakers, we need to make sure that they handle 50w rms and are rated at 2 ohms or else we will not get the maximum power from our amplifier. In the same way, we cannot use 2 ohm speakers if an amplifier can only support 4 ohm impedance. As a general rule, we can use higher impedance with no problems but do not go below the impedance stated by the amp manufacturer as this will either cause your amp to overheat, trip or go into protect or worse, become damaged.
Lastly, yes I know impedance was supposed to be last however, without knowing the size of speakers that our cars use, all of the above is useless. Modern cars generally tend to use the 6.5" speaker size. The size of the speaker is measured by the diameter of the speaker for round speakers. typical sizes include: 3", 4", 5.25", 6.5", 6.75", 8" for woofers and mid range speakers. Subwoofers can be even larger in size but we do not really need subwoofer size to choose our speakers for our car doors.
The best way to know your speaker size is to actually remove your door panel and measure the speaker itself. Or if you have speakers on the trunk partition, you can probably get away with trying to measure from the trunk area.