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Old     (mark197)      Join Date: Dec 2009       05-14-2012, 11:58 AM Reply   
Some video's of my Kicker 6500.2 with the extra mids (six pack) powered by a Kicker ZX650.4 I still have some final tuning to do but its pretty close. Excuse the crappy cell phone video.

FYI Eminem No Love Unedited.


[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af-5OmvLNQI[/video]
[videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=241R7JjraS8[/video]
Old     (mark197)      Join Date: Dec 2009       05-14-2012, 12:00 PM Reply   
Why won't it embed the videos?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af-5OmvLNQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=241R7JjraS8
Old     (wakeworld)      Join Date: Jan 1997       05-14-2012, 12:25 PM Reply   
You have to use the embed code provided by YouTube.
Old    sperbet            05-14-2012, 12:26 PM Reply   
Thanks for sharing. Had my eye on that setup for a while now. Nice to see someone share a nice stereo setup that's not completely over the top and ridiculously expensive. Enjoy!
Old     (mark197)      Join Date: Dec 2009       05-14-2012, 12:27 PM Reply   



Yeah Scott I couldn't justify a $5000 stereo in a $15000 beat.
Old     (williamburell)      Join Date: Sep 2011       05-15-2012, 8:13 AM Reply   
I have the standard 6500.2 setup. Very impressed this year with them. Picked them up for like 250 on a refurb deal. I think anyone with that setup is going to be happy with the sound and having the extra bills for beer/gas
Old     (RWBVride)      Join Date: Aug 2010       06-18-2012, 12:42 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by williamburell View Post
I have the standard 6500.2 setup. Very impressed this year with them. Picked them up for like 250 on a refurb deal. I think anyone with that setup is going to be happy with the sound and having the extra bills for beer/gas
Guys I've been having a hell of a time getting my 6500.2's to sound good without being distorted. I have them hooked up to a ix 500.4. Just running my factory deck and doing all the tuning through that if i get the volume up to high they just distort and sound like crap. I've blown several speakers this way as well. So I have yet to hear them while 80ft back. I ordered a KQ5 equalizer hoping this will help me fine tune them some more but if it doesn't I'm pitching them and ordering REV 10's. Any help would be much appreciated.
Old     (slidin_out)      Join Date: Apr 2010       06-18-2012, 2:23 PM Reply   
MS you need to tune your stuff so they speakers don't blow. Turn your gain on the amp all the way down. Then turn you radio up until you hear distortion. Back the radio down 2-3 levels on the volume control. Then slowly turn the gain up on your amp until you hear distortion then back it down a little. Never turn your head unit up past the level of distortion. This basically gives you the cleanest sound to your amp. Distorted signal to the amp coupled with the gain up too high equals lots of money in blown speakers. That is the way, right or wrong, that I have always setup my systems in trucks, cars, and boats. I don't do installs for a living or even a hobby so someone who does that full time may know a better way.

To the OP that is loud, need to raise that beer higher!
Old     (philwsailz)      Join Date: Feb 2009       06-19-2012, 7:27 AM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by RWBVride View Post
Guys I've been having a hell of a time getting my 6500.2's to sound good without being distorted. I have them hooked up to a ix 500.4. Just running my factory deck and doing all the tuning through that if i get the volume up to high they just distort and sound like crap. I've blown several speakers this way as well. So I have yet to hear them while 80ft back. I ordered a KQ5 equalizer hoping this will help me fine tune them some more but if it doesn't I'm pitching them and ordering REV 10's. Any help would be much appreciated.
While I really like the IX500.4 on the KM6500.2 it needs to be set up right:

Bridged wiring first off; don't wire the mids to half of the amp and the horns to the other half or you won't make power.
AMP SETTINGS:
* Both AMP1 and AMP2 crossover slide switches set to HI PASS
* Both AMP1 and AMP2 crossover frequency knob set to NO LOWER than 150 Hz
* Bass Boost totally off for both halves of the amp

HEAD UNIT SETTINGS, (where lots of people screw up)
LOUDNESS control if available turned off
BASS, MID and TREBLE set float or close to it


I may be sharing things redundantly but I would rather tell someone something twice than to think they know it and leave it out, so for some general gain setting points:
* Most, (not all) head units start distorting at about 75% of their max output. If the radio goes to a max of 50, 37 is about your max volume setting you can cleanly use.

* Make sure you use program material for tuning that takes the head unit to its max. Don't expect reliable results if you are using the headphone output from an MP3 player connected to the aux in of your head unit.... Too much junk to be introduced that way.

* The best program material for tuning will come off of a CD, and in particular a store-bought CD as opposed to a CD burned by your friend's cousin off of one of his old Napster downloads...

* Program material that is compresse and hard limited will be good as it takes the waveform very close to the max amplitude. Use something with full range program material, not some bass trax crap that is designed to only show off your woofer....

* I use NICKLEBACK, (giggle now guys) because the recording engineer compressed and hard-limited the crap out of all of their big commercial radio hits. I can count on the music to be as loud as it can be from pretty much the start of the song to the end and know that the CD player in my head unit is right at its max clean output. It does it for lows, mids, and highs as well, so it is not like that bass-trax crap. See the two pics below for a comparison between a NICKLEBACK track and a soft jazz track. No, I am not a NICKLEBACK fanboy for the record.... It is a tool I have found works good just for this purpose. If you don't like NICKLEBACK and won't consider using them to tune, just find some other material that is hard limited like wht you see in the first picture below.

*With your amp gains turned way down but not off, start that hard limited full range program material, (Nickleback) playing from a store-bought CD. Turn youre radio, (with flat tone controls) up to about 75% listening for audible signs of distortion. if you hear distortion, turn it down until it is clean and make a note of your max volume level on your radio knob.

* With your radio at its max clean output slowly turn up your amp gains until you similarly hear signs of distortion, and then back the gains down a little. If you hear the midrange drivers of the KM6500.2 popping, increase the crossover frequency a little or make sure you got the hi-pass switch turned on.

If you do this and follow all the notes I posted above, you should get clean sound from CD playback, and iPod playback if you have an ipod controlling head unit.


BUT After having written all of that your complaint is distortion through a simple 3.5mm aux input from the headphone out of your MP3 player note the following:

Lots of times the MP3 player's headphone output will clip the AUX IN of a radio ro EQ when the MP3 volume is turned all the way up. If you listen to your stereo with MP3s played through the AUX input, you may find you need to turn the MP3 player down and compensate with extra volume knob to get to your desired playback level. I have heard some very nasty sounds coming from an over-driven AUX IN... and overlooking this simple point has caused lots fo people more grief than they ever imagined.

Sorry for the long post. It is a lot to digest, but I hope it helps and makes sense. Holler at me or reply here if you have any questions for me!

Phil
Kicker
Attached Images
  

Last edited by philwsailz; 06-19-2012 at 7:36 AM.
Old     (brycejb328)      Join Date: Aug 2009       06-19-2012, 10:57 AM Reply   
In hopes of not de-railing this thread... I am now interested in doing this same set-up (minus the extra pair of mids)

The one thing that confuses me is how you set up the amps. So everything gets powered seperately, 2 mids, and 2 horns. Correct? So you need a 4 channel amp to power everything. My confusions is that it lists 200 RMS on the kicker website, so how does that break down as the rms watts needed for the mid driver and the horn??

Can you power the horns and mids with different amps to get a better outcome? (depending on what they require for power)

Or to make this easy...

PHIL - What is the BEST possible amp set up to power the KM6500.2??
Old     (philwsailz)      Join Date: Feb 2009       06-19-2012, 11:42 AM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by brycejb328 View Post
In hopes of not de-railing this thread... I am now interested in doing this same set-up (minus the extra pair of mids)

The one thing that confuses me is how you set up the amps. So everything gets powered seperately, 2 mids, and 2 horns. Correct? So you need a 4 channel amp to power everything. My confusions is that it lists 200 RMS on the kicker website, so how does that break down as the rms watts needed for the mid driver and the horn??

Can you power the horns and mids with different amps to get a better outcome? (depending on what they require for power)

Or to make this easy...

PHIL - What is the BEST possible amp set up to power the KM6500.2??
First off, incorrect. You do not want to wire the horn and the mid separately. WIre them together in parallel. You can use a 2-channel amp or a bridged 4-channel amp. You have 200 watts power handling for each side, (each mid-horn combo wired in parallel) so an amp that delivers 400 watts, (200 watts a side) into a 4-ohm load is an ideal amp power-wise. No, you really cannot use separate amps to power the mids and horns separately for a better outcome either...

The KM6500.2 seems weird, so people over-think it but it is really simple. A coaxial speaker has a mid and a tweeter right? They are wired in parallel just like the mid and horn on a KM6500.2. People don't make the leap in understanding that the KM6500.2 is electrically very similar to a coaxial speaker, with the difference being the tweeter is mounted separately instead of on a little pole in the middle of the midrange. Looking at the instructions makes it real clear, just wire + to + and - to - from the horn to the mid. The horn and mid with their respective crossovers show a 4-ohm load to the amp wired this way, basically just like a coaxial speaker.

SO... to answer the simple question, what is the best amp? There is no one answer. See below:

A 2-channel amp that will deliver 200 watts to each side, (like an old Kicker ZX550.2) will be a good choice as shared above.

A stereo amp like the ZXM450.2 will deliver right around 175 watts to each side, (left and right). This is slightly under-powered but works pretty good.

A bridged 4-channel amp like the IX500.4 is my preferred amp. In bridged mode, each side, (again left side and tight side) will get 250 watts, sightly over-powered, but not stupidly so.



Where people get to over-thinking it:
People see that the mid and a horn wired in parallel are 4-ohms so they assume each is 8-ohms which is NOT TRUE.
Or when I say the mid is 4-ohms and the horn is 4-ohms, they asume that the parallel wiring recommended supplies a 2-ohm load which is NOT TRUE.
The key to all of this is the crossover system, those electronic parts on the back of the horn and the mid. Simply put, (very simply) the crossover on the mid prevents it from playing above the crossover frequency. The crossover on the horn prevents the horn from playing below the crossover frequency. The mid is 4-ohms below crossover, but goes to infinity above. Similarly, the horn is 4-ohms above crossover but goes to infinity below. That is how you can wire two 4-ohm devices in parallel and still get 4-ohms. They each are 4-ohms only for the frequencies they play.......

Does that answer the question , while providing some easy-to understand reasoning why? If not fire back... This is why I am here!


Phil
Kicker

Last edited by philwsailz; 06-19-2012 at 11:48 AM.
Old     (brycejb328)      Join Date: Aug 2009       06-19-2012, 12:12 PM Reply   
I must say... kicker just got a sale. I am a major over analyzer and that cleared up all of my hesitation on understanding how it works. Which is quite simple :-)

My only real hold back was knowing how / what to power it with. Which is very clear now.

Hi5 on giving support where the customers are!
Old     (Truekaotik)      Join Date: Jun 2012       06-19-2012, 1:12 PM Reply   
Not bad.... It does sound like the system is being pushed to hard or your camera phones mic is crap....
Old     (RWBVride)      Join Date: Aug 2010       06-20-2012, 11:07 AM Reply   
Thank you very much for the reply Phil. I am going to work on this tuning very soon. I have also been talking to Mike at MLA as well and he has also been very helpful. Once I get this KQ5 installed and hopefully sounding good I am going to go all the way with the six pack. Thanks again everyone.

Michael

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