I have been looking at speakers and am pretty confused. I need a pair of 5.25" up front and a pair of 6.5" in the rear, I want a two way coaxial for each location(no 3 or 4 ways.) I don’t like metal dome tweeter and would strongly prefer silk, I do not want external crossovers but if I had to I would. They will be powered by a JL audio e4300 4 channel amplifier, the source will be an iPod direct to the amp. It will be going in a Lotus Elise and I know due to speaker location it will never sound “great” I just want something that will play loud enough to hear and not sound like crap. I am leaning towards Alpine Type S speakers at all 4 corners but one of my friends who has worked at a car stereo shop for many years doesn’t recommend them and is urging me to get JL audio VR coaxials, which cost more and have poor freq. response. What do you guys think?
Well since your office in 30 sec of walking to where I work you should stop by and we can talk. I’ll be at work on Thursday 1:30 til 8pm
- If you want good sound straight from Ipod good luck :0 tried that before and it just doesn’t sound anywhere as good as the same thing played through car HU. I would recommend at least getting some kind of SoundProcessor like RF360.1 or .2.
- MbQuart is good I am not sure why your friend is telling you that its bad. I had Discus and Premiums from MbQuart and can’t say anything bad about them. But I like Alipine too. The thing with speakers is its all about enclosure and location. A $50 speaker can sound better then $1200 if location and enclosure is ideal. But in the same exact location higher end speakers will sound better.
- Do get external X-overs, it will make a big difference in sound.
Where do you work? My friend said nothing about MB Quart, he just recommended JL VRs over Alpine type S, I’m still not sure I agree.
I am not anticipating good sound, the car has horrible acoustics and the factory location for speakers is not great, I am just looking for something that will sound OK, be able to take a little abuse and play loud(so I can hear them with the top off). My last aftermarket car stereo was Focal Utiopia(audiom TLR tweeter and 6w mids) with utiopia subs and zapco amplification, this car will not be like that.
Well I know only of one person with Elise, and if I am right, I bought a Celica from you. So now you know where I work :). JL is pretty good to0, I’ve never had their speakers but I did have one of their Subs which was really good.
I’ve never owned a Celica so you didn’t buy it from me 
There are about a half a dozen elise owners in the greater capital region. My neighbor 4adam12 did just buy a monitor or something from you.
I had a set of JL XR coaxials(with the external crossover) in a car a number of years ago and the metal dome tweeter just killed me, the VRs don’t have metal dome tweeters and I think would be a better fit, from JL anyways. Right now I am leaning towards Alpine type S because they seem to fit the bill and other Elise people use them with good results or stepping up a bit and getting the Rainbow SL coaxs.
Damn, I didn’t know there was so many of you. Well its good for me than cuz I would want to pick one up in a couple of years for a used cheaper price :).
Yep I sold him a monitor, after driving around for 30min trying to find where you guys live Didn’t know that there such a huge apt complex in that region.
<>Well yes, you are right metal tweets are really harsh but if you play with adjustanle X-overs (like Premium and Q-series MbQuart) you can tune them down (all you do is u open up the x-over and bring the Db’s for tweeters down to -2 or -3, or you can always get a sound processor and that will fix a lot of things and make your ipod sound better.
<>What music do you listen to, cuz MbQuart really excel at Rock, Classic and older stuff, but it doesn’t do Rap (that type) unless you have a HU with good eq in it.
<>Ditch the rear speakers, and just get very good front speakers.
Do the following, if it fits your budget.
>>>4ch AMP something with more then 50Watt RMS per channel
>>>Get component speakers 51/4" or if you can fit 6.5" (it would be better)
>>>Rockford Fosgate ThreeSixty.2 and get it tuned by someone who has good ears
>>>RUN an RCA wire from RF360.2 to the front (for your ipod)
Run your speakers in bi-amped mode (4 channel amp, use 2 ch for your mids and 2ch for your tweeters), RF360.2 will get rid of your speaker x-over because it has one built-in. Mount your mids in doors and tweets either in the top part of the door on somewhere on the dash. I’d say this would sound really good, and you can actually get some mid-bass out of em (even if your enclosure isn’t good) because of 360.2 amazing Equalizer.
Speakers (if only using fronts) $200 to $300
RF360.2 Precision Mobile Audio $600 or $375 on ebay
AMP a good 4ch $200 to $450
RCA’s $30
Power $40
Total about $800 but you will actually like the sound and if you get a sub you could probably compete in SQ :), but it seems you are looking for a light setup + good sound which is somewhat possible to achieve
i prefer titanium tweeters. i love bright ones, its not for everyone though. in general, how much are you willing to spend on your setup?
another one here for the quarts. i had the 6.5" q components and loved them. they really sound clean.