| lombarmj |
I know, lots of people love the sound system. But the speakers sound like mush to me and I'd like to replace them. Crutchfield and others have apparently not figured out the sizes yet. Does anyone know what size speakers will fit? Will standard 4ohm speakers work in all locations (i.e. unlike the previous Bose issues)? My priority is the subwoofer, and getting a pair of dome tweaters up front.
Also ... any comments on adding Dynamat? |
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| shootist |
I'm looking into this now. The 07 was designed to be very difficult to swap the speakers:
-Center channel: must remove the upper dash shield over the Navi display. Looks easy to damage dash while doing so.
-2 dash corner tweeters: Easy. Pry from back of grille.
-4 door speakers: must remove the entire door panel for each.
-2 rear fill speakers: must remove the quarter panel trim. Involves hitting it repeatedly with a rubber mallet to break the trim attachment pins. Directly involves side curtain airbags.
-subwoofer: speaker and amplifier are one unit.
All will need custom adapter rings.
Nominal Impedence (per Service Manual)
Doors: 2 ohms
Center: 4 ohms
Tweeters: 6 ohms (I noted a single capacitor, first order high pass)
Satellites: 4 ohms
Sizes (Per On Line Parts List)
Center and Satellites: 8 cm (about 3 1/8 inches)
Doors: 17 cm (about 6.7 inches)
Subwoofer: integrated into amp.
Tweeters- snap into grilles. guestimate 1.5 inch outside.
Because the doors are 2 ohms, and most aftermarkets will be 4 ohms, the doors would need to be about 3 db more efficient than OEM to generate the same SPL from half the power passed by the amp. How efficient is the OEM?
Lots or trial and error. I'm going to start with CDT Audio 3 inch driver for the center, and CDT audio 25 mm soft dome tweeters, with a simple third order bass blocker as the high pass.
If I get really bored one day, maybe I'll do the doors.
I already bought the recommended KTC trim tool kit SOJATP2014 to pull the trim, if I ever get ambitious. ($26 + $15 shipping for four pieces of plastic) |
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| lombarmj |
Excellent info ... thanks!
"designed to be very difficult to swap the speakers" ... I believe it ... I can't figure out WHY car manufacturers get pleasure from making us pay for cheap speakers and then insist on making it hard for us to pay even more money for good ones ... but they obviously do ...
But we will not be thwarted!
Man this looks hard ... I'll be happy with dome tweeters, front doors and the sub. I love the description of how to get to the rear fills!
One question ... the sub situation seems to have a silver lining ... sounds like a line level signal that could be used with a new separate sub and amp? |
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| srtbeem |
| Let's start with the tweeters,shall we. They are soft dome tweeters and they are, in a word, superb. The whole speaker array is as good as it's ever going to sound and no amount of money spent on any after market speakers is going to make it sound better, period. I own a recording studio (surround equipped) and have been in the business for 30 years and the signal proccessing and frequency response of the ELS system is as good or better than any studio I have ever been in. It's your money, but spending it on the speakers du jour will not translate into a better sounding system. I am sure you may want to debate this, but I respectfully, have expressed my humble opinion. |
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| lombarmj |
At the risk if instigating reciprocal competetive urination ... :-)
I will say it's probably the best factory system I've ever owned. Certainly better than the Bose system in my '01. But in my '01 I simply replaced the front speakers with a pair of $150 Polks with separate dome tweeters .. and the openness and crisp transients of the highs (percussion, etc.) were profoundly improved. Some Dynamat in the doors, polyfill behind the pittifull woofer, and a parametric EQ between my Siruis radio and iPod and the system ... dramatic difference ... especially smoothing out the measured peaks and dips in the midrange and tightening the lows.
So we'll see ... |
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| shootist |
quote:
Originally posted by srtbeem
The whole speaker array is as good as it's ever going to sound and no amount of money spent on any after market speakers is going to make it sound better, period.
The electronics are superb, and the resulting sound stage is spectacular. It is incredibly transparent on certain well recorded music.
However, my opinion differs from yours: vocals in the front sound stage (resulting from the center channel) are colored, and the front tweeters 'hurt'.
I want goose bumps when the horn section lets go with a crescendo. I want to listen to female singers sing acapella. I want to hear the sizzle of the cymbals when a nearby drum gets whacked.
As I've said before, the individual drivers cost $18.50. You can not convince me that the overal sound cannot be improved dramatically.
And, as Billy Joel emphasizes, I already have a new pair of sneakers. |
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| lombarmj |
Exactly, shootist ... you describe my main complaints ...
And I'm a drummer and listen to a lot of acoustic music. Colorations like you describe and the lack of impact with percussion instruments at the high end are the main thing's I'll look to improve.
I agree that on certain really well recorded music (or maybe misic that just happens to counterbalance the system's deficiencies) it sounds great.
BTW ... this doesn't help the whole system, but since I mostly listen to the iPod and Sirius, adding the parametric EQ with those components as inputs worked well in the '01. Not sure yet how I'll implement this in the '07. I got a 7 band EQ with three center frequency choices per band. I bought a test tone CD with tones calibrated to the Radio Shack SPL meter and copied them to the iPod. Then I sat in the seat and leveled the response by the numbers the best I could.
The result was that leveling some amazing peaks and dips in the midrange brought the vocals and horns back where they needed to be.
Now if I can only figure out where to mount this stuff in the '07! |
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| skipdup |
quote:
Originally posted by lombarmj
...
I got a 7 band EQ with three center frequency choices per band. I bought a test tone CD with tones calibrated to the Radio Shack SPL meter and copied them to the iPod. Then I sat in the seat and leveled the response by the numbers the best I could.
...
OK, this sounds fascinating - and something I think I would enjoy learning about/tinkering with. But, I have no idea what your talking about. I know nothing about HiFi.
Do you feel like explaining this for dummies? :)
Is the radio shack SPL good enough? Or, should I spend more money on one? Could you recommend a specific model?
Do the test tone CD's come in different calibrations? And, you just picked one that suited your SPL?
Which EQ are you using?
Thanks!! |
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| lombarmj |
Had to dig a little for specifics, but here you go:
Rives Audio Test CD2
Pyle PLE520P Equalizer (~$50 online)
The Rives CD has both flat tones and a set calibrated for the Radio Shack meter. They say it's calibrated for the analog meter and all you can get is the digital now, but I used them anyway.
I mis-spoke in the earlier post ... the EQ is 5 bands but each has a choice of several center frequencies. The key in a car is you don't necessarily need lots of bands, you just want to control a couple frequency ranges with really extreme peaks or dips.
I think the Radio Shack meter is fine ... this isn't a quiet listening room and we're just trying to correct gross problems.
So ... in the '01 the EQ fit easily in the space under the NotAnAshtray. It has two inputs to which I connected the iPod and Sirius radio. The line output of the EQ connected to a Blitzsafe adapter connected to the remote CD plug on the radio (thus giving an Aux input). On the '07 it would connect to the Aux input in the console box.
I placed the meter near ear level, played the tones (convered to MP3 and loaded on the iPod) and selected the best combination of EQ frequencies and adjustments so that the sound level for all tones was within the narrowest possible range. I also tweaked the bass and trebble controls slightly to cover the ends of the range.
I should note that some of the equalization required was probably compensating for the EQ built into the Bose amps that are matched with their speakers ... I had replaced the front speakers with Polk separates.
Bottom line ... a dramatic improvement for not much investment. |
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| choiski |
The 07 MDX sound system is great. Although I miss the subwoofer under the driver seat of my old Mercedes ML320. I could feel the bass without hearing it.
Even if you do manage to swap speakers, aren't you afraid of introducing new rattles and vibrations when swapping out the OEM speakers? |
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| dj-mdx2 |
quote:
Originally posted by choiski
The 07 MDX sound system is great. Although I miss the subwoofer under the driver seat of my old Mercedes ML320. I could feel the bass without hearing it.
Even if you do manage to swap speakers, aren't you afraid of introducing new rattles and vibrations when swapping out the OEM speakers?
You can probably lay down some Dynamat to lessen the rattling. |
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| brucehallberg |
To those of you with experience with sound quality and such, I'm curious what you find are the best/flattest overall settings for the MDX's entertainment ELS system?
Many thanks,
Bruce |
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| shootist |
OK- I did it. Installed the just-released CDT Audio HD-3 as the center channel, and two CDT Audio TW 25 tweeters with the CDT fourth-order crossover in place of the stock tweeters. (These were part of the astonishing improvement in my '05)
Was it worth it? No. At least not yet.
The vocals are clearer, and the front stage is better defined. Some of the very discrete instruments (like a triangle and cymbals) are very much cleaner.
A pair of HD-3's was $108 (I have one left over) the TW25 tweeters would have been about $125 the pair, if they were purchased separately. The SatNav crossovers are about $150. Took about two hours.
I will listen critically in the next few years, adn comment on things like listener fatigue and surround issues.
But for now, I suggest that you follow Billy Joel, when he says you'll get more mileage from a new pair of sneakers. |
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