How is sound system quality in Leaf?

[tps]

Upgrading the sound system will likely be something I'd be interested in. I've had good luck with Focal car speakers in the past; the midrange and HF are outstanding for a car speaker, so that's likely where I'll start. And the deep well behind the charger hump looks to be a good place to put some kind of custom sub box. I've got a nice JBL sub amp laying around I can use for the project.

 

[GeekEV]

My brother's initial opinion is that much of the harshness and thinness I perceive is because of the super high positioning of the tweeters in the front window side moldings. He thinks replacing the main speakers with a full range speakers with built-in tweeters and disabling the ones by the windows should help a lot. A small sub would be good too. He's gonna try and see what would fit. Has anyone else measured the speaker enclosures? If not we'll have to pop mine open and see what's there. He thought they looked like standard 6.5", by the real question is what depth.

 

[evnow]

Once I get the car - I'll post the frequency response. Should be fun :lol:

 

[gascant]

Once I get the car - I'll post the frequency response. Should be fun :lol:

Looking forward to that - and to hearing about what speakers might work better. Hopefully an upgrade doesn't mean replacing the 12V battery with one that's more substantial

 

[evnow]

My brother's initial opinion is that much of the harshness and thinness I perceive is because of the super high positioning of the tweeters in the front window side moldings. He thinks replacing the main speakers with a full range speakers with built-in tweeters and disabling the ones by the windows should help a lot.

Surprised to hear that. What do you think is the angle between the tweeter axis & the driver ears ? Infact, I'd think they would have fixed the tweeter to point towards the driver. In anycase, off axis, I'd think will result in top end roll off.

BTW, wouldn't they have used a crossover for the woofer & the tweer ? If that is the case replacing the woofer with a woofer+tweeter wouldn't be ok - sinc the top end is going to the disabled tweeter.

ps : All my audio knowledge is home audio based. May be stuff works differently in car audio - like may be not having crossovers.

 

[leafme]

It's only vanilla. No where near enough bass at low volumes. Randy and I are eyeballing a Bazooka system add on and mount it in the "trunk." No firm selection yet.

How does that work ? Do you to install a new crossover as well ?

I think the crossover is built in as the 8" 50w Bazooka we were looking at included the amplifier as well. I'm hoping the input impedance is high enough and ya just make a parallel connection to the existing wires (rear wires?). Dunno. Haven't figured that part out yet. Might have to take it to an audio shop. Where to mount it may also be a challenge with our cargo inserts.

http://www.bazooka.com/products/mob...with-Factory-Interface-Harness-included--P490

Malcolm

 

[tps]

My brother's initial opinion is that much of the harshness and thinness I perceive is because of the super high positioning of the tweeters in the front window side moldings.

IMHO, it could be due to:
1. The tweeters themselves are harsh sounding. This might be fixed by replacing them with better units.
2. The tweeters might just be showing up the flaws in the source material. Most popular music these days is destroyed in the mastering room. Most music on the radio is destroyed at the station even if the CD is OK.

History is repeating itself! We're back to the late 1930's and early 1940's where they were proposing to limit music reproduction to 5KC. People were having a hard time listening to the harmonic distortion prevelant in audio electronics of the day. Now that we have accessible, wide-band, low distortion electronics, the new cause of excessive, unnecessary harmonic distortion is LOUDNESS. Thing is, harmonic distortion still doesn't sound any better today than it did back then...

 

[GeekEV]

Surprised to hear that. What do you think is the angle between the tweeter axis & the driver ears ? Infact, I'd think they would have fixed the tweeter to point towards the driver. In anycase, off axis, I'd think will result in top end roll off.

BTW, wouldn't they have used a crossover for the woofer & the tweer ? If that is the case replacing the woofer with a woofer+tweeter wouldn't be ok - sinc the top end is going to the disabled tweeter.

ps : All my audio knowledge is home audio based. May be stuff works differently in car audio - like may be not having crossovers.

They are off axis, though the one on the opposite side may be pointing at you. The assumption is that the tweeters are too close. As for the crossover, I dunno. Maybe they're built in to the speaker assemblies? In any case, I'll let you know what, if anything, I wind up doing.

 

[evnow]

2. The tweeters might just be showing up the flaws in the source material. Most popular music these days is destroyed in the mastering room. Most music on the radio is destroyed at the station even if the CD is OK.

Oh yes. Don't even get me started on this. Ofcourse, I don't listen to much popular music, so not it it matters much.

I believe the mass market music is actually tested on low-fi and tuned to make it sound good for that target audience. Overly bright, highly compressed (in terms of dynamic range) music is the result. But then, Nissan should shine if the music is meant for low-fi

 

[GeekEV]

Hmm. Could that be it? The stereo's fine, it's the source material that sucks? :lol:

 

[evnow]

Hmm. Could that be it? The stereo's fine, it's the source material that sucks? :lol:

If you have some nice recordings you can check it out. Esp. if you have some audiophile test cds ...

But, if you have listened to the same material in a decent system - you would already know how it sounds.

 

[GeekEV]

Yeah, that's probably not it. It sounds good on the JBL system in my Prius. But, on the other hand, it could be softening the sound while the LEAF isn't. But I suspect it's just cheap speakers.

BTW, I asked my brother for clarification about the crossovers, and he said that in car audio the door speakers are usually full range and the tweeters just use a simple capacitor filter as a crossover. So you could safely disable them and replace the main speakers.

 

[DeaneG]

BTW, in an LS400 with amazing Nakamichi audio, the speakers had medium-sized magnets and plain paper cones installed in plastic acoustic enclosures. One door speaker quit working, so I replaced left and right with very high quality aftermarket speakers. Could not tell any difference in audio quality between old and new speakers. I suspect the electronics and the acoustic enclosures were driving the transparency of sound, not the speakers themselves, past a certain point.

 

[prberg]

I'm not sure if this was posted yet, but here is a photo of the speaker in the door. I tried to take off the door panel and it was not easy. The plastic clips really wanted to stay in the door, and it was some work getting them out when I wanted to put the panel back on. Also I did not see any screws except for one under the door lock/handle. But for some reason, the panel did not want to come off. It seemed like there was another screw attached in the middle of the panel, but I did not see any easy way to get access to it.

So I just pulled it away as far as I could to take a look at the stock speaker. It's not the worst factory speaker I've seen.. but it seems to be pretty much all cardboard. Guess that's why the sound is not as clear as some after-market speakers. I figure I will upgrade them at some point.

Hope it helps.

-Peter

 

[GeekEV]

Thanks for doing that. Can you double check your picture? It's not showing up for me.

EDIT: Now I see it.

 

[evnow]

So I just pulled it away as far as I could to take a look at the stock speaker. It's not the worst factory speaker I've seen.. but it seems to be pretty much all cardboard. Guess that's why the sound is not as clear as some after-market speakers. I figure I will upgrade them at some point.

Nice. So, this full range can be easily replaced - just need to match the impedence.

What is all cardboard ? I thought MDF was actually a decent enclosure material that you find in almost all speakers (except for high end real wood ones). Is it different in auto ?

 

[Randy]

Info from the Service Manual (Starting at page AV-13)

Front speaker:
16cm, reproduces mid and low range sounds, maximum input 40w, rated input 20w, 2 ohms

Rear Door Speaker:
Same, except reproduces high, mid, and low range sounds

Tweeter:
3.5cm, reproduces high range sounds, Maximum input 40w, Rated input 1w, 4 ohms

 

[evnow]

Tweeter:
3.5cm, reproduces high range sounds, Maximum input 40w, Rated input 1w, 4 ohms

Where's the tweeter ? Isn't the one in the middle above the tweeter ...

I guess at the back they just have a woofer. This would also explain the 2/4 ohms.

So, I think no separate tweeters.

 

[Randy]

The dedicated tweeters are in the pillars by the front driver and passenger...The way I interpret the service manual is that the rear speakers reproduce all frequencies and the front door speakers do all but the high frequencies, and then the tweeters take care of the highs in front. The whole system is pretty bass-shy, so there are no woofers - yet

 

[evnow]

The dedicated tweeters are in the pillars by the front driver and passenger...

Hmmm ... So what is that at the center of that door speaker ?