Originally posted by lalonde441
"ok im not much of a car audio guy so bear with me. What is the purpose of tweeters and where would one typically mount them for best sound?"
I prefer to mount them as far forward of the driver/passenger which would typically be the kick panel area (the best place in my opinion) The tweeter needs to be close to the mid-woofer (no more than 6" apart from mid) and angled with its axis that is aimed at the drivers head (or rear view mirror) from passenger side and vice versa with for the passenger from driver side. Proper aiming will provide a good front stage and killer imaging. You can also achieve this with door pods with good results but better results if drivers are in the kick panel area. The tweeters will play the higher frequencies such as the higher frequencies in vocals, cymbals, etc........Depending on what brand of tweeters that you use they can be crossed over from as low as 800 htz on up and 1000 and 5000 htz on up.
" I was thinking of mounting some speakers right beside the rear seats on either side or the tweeters if thats a good spot??"
Thats up to you if thats where you want to put them but it will really only benifit the passengers that are sitting in the back seat. I personally wouldnt recomend doing that especially if you have a good front stage.
"What about a subwoofer? I know thats for base but how much base does one need?!?!"
As much as you want depending on price, size, brand, style enclosure, power feeding it, woofer aiming. I currently run 2 a/d/s 10" subs that are ported through the rear deck and I am very happy with this set-up but since I am an old bass head, I will be adding more subs in the future
"If you buy a subwoofer does it need a seperate AMP?"
Yes it does! Now if you want to run one 2- channel amp for everything then you will need to run the amp full range and install caps and coils on everything which will work but you will not have any true control over your mids, highs, and subs. If you try to sdjust the bass on your deck for your subs, it will muddy up the rest of the sound of your music.
If you want to run 1 amp, you can run a 4 or 6 channel amp with built in electronic cross-overs and you can run the front channels to the front, the middle channels to the rear 4 x 10s and the rear channels to the sub or subs and have better control over your drivers with fade cabability if your deck is a 4 channel pre-out with sub pre-out. You can still make it work with just 4 channel pre-outs also.
"Just bought an alpine system and changed the front dash speakers! What a joke those were! Also new rear 4x10's and the cd player is an alpine model 7892....not sure if that helps or not?"
You have a good start with what you have but you can improve it with a subwoofer system, amplifier and a good set of components in the front if you desire.
