Try to mount your midrange speakers on a wooden panel if possible, or at least on a solid surface. A lot of good installers cut out MDF panels for every speaker. This ensures a few things: a good air seal for the speaker, it avoids buckled frames, and it addresses the issue of spill. Don't raise the speaker above the surrounding panel with those little speaker spacer rings if you have the option to make a small MDF mounting panel. This need only be a couple of inches bigger than the speaker.

Don't use tweeter 'surface mount pods' if you can devise a way to recess mount the tweeters into the doors or into a fibreglass or body putty custom mount. I have heard some good results from mounting tweeters at the base of the A pillars. This will involve making up a fibreglass or body-putty moulding on the A pillar. The mirror pods are probably second-best position. The mirror pod is the easier position to mount tweeters on, the A pillar gives better sound quality but will cost more labour.

If you are shaping up a tweeter mount using fibreglass or bog, try to create a flat area extending a centimetre or two around the tweeter. This reflects the 'spill' from the tweeter out toward the listener.

The aiming of the tweeters is also important. They should aim across the car at the opposite front seat headrest. In other words the passengers side tweeter should be aimed at the drivers head and vice versa. If you pay attention to these details you will get 100% better sound quality.

When people complain that their tweeters sound bright and intrusive, you can bet they have broken one or all of these installation rules.

Adjust the crossovers at installation, then again two months later. If you have installed tweeters at or above dash level, turn the level down a little with the adjustment switch inside the crossover. The KP and K2P range have eight tweeter level settings inside their crossovers, the other Focal ranges have three, so you should be able to find a setting that suits you.

There is a principle that tweeters and mids should be in the kick panels to get them equidistant from the listener. It sounds great in principle, I can never deny the theory is absolutely correct. The problem in practice is that your legs obstruct the sound. Kick panel mounts sound best if you sit with your feet tucked under you. Another important principle is that woofer and tweeter should be within fifteen inches of each other. Technically correct again, but it's not always possible without rebuilding the whole door panel, an expensive operation.

Don't expect to get a carefully planned tweeter and speaker installation for $100, it will take someone half a day to build-out A-pillars or mirror mounts, fit the tweeters and then re-skin the panels in new vinyl. Unless you are a whiz at motor trimming, be prepared to pay for an expert to do this.

Most car radio shops won't volunteer to do A-pillar installation of tweeters when they sell you the speaker kit because the cost would scare most customers away. If you're after hi-fi sound, you'll have to ask for specialist installation, be prepared to pay the money.

Factory tweeter mounting position in many new cars direct the tweeter against the windscreen glass. It's an absolute no-no in home hi-fi to point your tweeters anywhere near glass and the same applies in your car. Reflected sound off a windscreen is not going to be good.

Focal put a lot of research into designing tweeters with a linear sound output. If you install them right, you'll reap the benefits.

 

All speakers have a spill area just outside the basket. Sound originates at the cone and most of it is projected forward. However a small portion of the sound travels out and around the edge of the basket and folds back behind the speaker. It is reflected forward by whatever surface the speaker is mounted on. If the speaker is in a flat panel, the sound will be reflected forward and will be 'in time' or 'in phase' with the original sound waves. If it travels backward a few centimeters, then is reflected forward, it will arrive at the listeners ears a fraction of a second later than the original sound wave and the combination of the two sound is a little distorted. This gives the speaker a bright or harsh sound.

165A1 is made in China as are all speakers in the Access range. Focal have a small manufacturing plant in China which also makes their in-wall home speakers and the entry-level Sib and Co range of home speakers.

The products we get from that plant are extremely reliable and are head and shoulders above the competition in sound quality, at that price level. I fitted a set of 165A1 to a new Mazda 3 recently, just running off the factory head unit, and the change was startling, everything in the music came to life.

We used to be derogatory about things made in China but with proper supervision of the manufacturing process and design by professional engineers in France, Focal have managed to produce excellent products to compete in a part of the market which was previously out of their reach. 165A1 have been in production for two years, we have sold many thousands of sets and I could count on one hand the number of warranty claims I have seen in that time.

All slimline speakers lose out on the bottom end. It's a function of the cone shape, a wide angle cone doesn't play bass as well as a conventional shaped cone. That's why flat panel speakers never caught on, they play beautiful midrange but little bass.

Limited bass is the price you pay for having to use slimline speakers and it applies to all brands, it's not peculiar to Focal.
Don't despair. 5" speakers play beautiful midrange such as guitars, vocals, saxophone etc. Few people realise that 5's are vastly superior when reproducing that part of the sound spectrum, compared to the more popular 6" and 6.5" speakers.. Everyone is looking for the speaker that does everything, and they overlook the 5's. In simple terms, the cone of a 5" is much lighter than that of a 6", therefore it can change direction easier and it can follow the music more accurately.

There are some cars which just don't have space in the doors for anything other than a slimline speaker. You might be able to get a good car radio shop to build you custom door pods to hold the full-size speakers 130V2. Many things are possible when the customer is prepared to pay for the time and materials to modify door panels to accommodate better speakers. However some cars are just impossible to fit anything other than a slimline speaker.

Some car manufacturers have strange ideas about speaker locations. Some speakers face forward and down, toward the drivers and passengers ankles. Others face into the laps of the driver and front seat passenger. Other cars have only a fifty millimetre speaker mounting depth. Until car manufacturers wake up and start to think about speaker placement, there will be plenty of work for good car radio shops.

If you have to use slimline speakers it's a good idea to use a subwoofer.

You might consider an 8" subwoofer such as 21V2, which will take up minimal boot space and needs only a small amplifier. This will give you excellent sound quality and good bass extension.

Another possibility is 11" version, the 27V2. This compact sub sounds tight and fast. It's not a subwoofer to show off with, it's a subwoofer that you don't know you have until the music hits a low note and it just takes over the show for a second or two, and people say 'what the hell was that? I never heard that part of this track before.'

A simple system with 5" front speakers and a good little subwoofer can be a lot of fun, and it's a perfect for a small car.

 

Yes the ..... amplifier has plenty of power for the job. Focal speakers have very high sensitivity ratings, in other words they don't need a lot of power to work; they are very efficient.

I have reservations about the sound quality of all automotive digital amplifiers. They are fine for subwoofers because they produce vast amounts of power, but to my ears they create a harshness in the music in the mid and upper frequencies. Many installers and professionals in this industry have mentioned the same thing to me, so I'm not the only one to notice this.

The choice is yours, speak to your local expert dealers and canvass their opinion. ...... amplifiers are well-made, reliable, compact and great value for money. I have a lot of respect for ...... as a company, they are one of the few real innovators in this industry. I'm reluctant to criticise their products but I really think they jumped ahead of technology with digital amps for midrange and upper frequencies. My ears tell me that traditional analogue amplifiers sound much smoother. With lesser speakers, you'll never notice anything amiss when you use digital amplifiers. When you move into real hi-fi speakers, you start to hear imperfections in other components.

There are many good analogue amplifiers out there. Pick one and be happy that you are buying the best in terms of sound quality that current technology can deliver.

Please also select your RCA cables carefully. The RCAs packaged with power cable kits are notorious for making speakers sound harsh. Don't spare the cash when buying RCA cables, maybe a pair of Stinger Expert series would be a good investment. You will have them for years, so don't cut corners there.

 

We have devised a value-for-money system which is loaded with useful features, is easy to use, and sounds good. I have used this same speaker/sub setup in my own mazda 3, powered only from the head unit, and the results startled me. The volume of the system doubled in comparison to the factory system. Some of this was due to the efficiencies create by soundproofing the doors thoroughly, and the other improvements were achieved by the high efficiency of Focals KR and KRC speakers.

Head unit Alpine CDE-104BTi $499
Front speakers Focal 165KR $729
Rear speakers Focal 165KRC $599
Plain Chant sound-absorbing mats x 2 packs $99 each
Focal BUS25 10" under-seat subwoofer $599
Dynamat or Stinger soundproofing material for doors (varies with vehicle)

I chose the CDE104 because it has a built-in bluetooth kit by Parrot, which works well with the popular iPhones and Blackberries. Alpine's usual sound quality and build quality were other considerations, as well as the front-panel 3.5mm audio input and memory-stick connector.

Thorough soundproofing of the doors is essential in any good stereo installation. This serves two purposes: to minimise rattles and resonances within the doors and to stop acoustic cancellation. Acoustic cancellation is what happens when the sound from the rear of a speaker cone finds a path to meet the sound radiating from the front of the speaker..Because the sounds from front and rear of a speaker cone are complete opposites, cancellation occurs. The lower frequencies are the most vulnerable to this, so what the user hears is lack of bass and subsequent distortion when the speaker is overdriven in an attempt to achieve the bass which the listener expects.

The Focal speakers use yellow aramid fibre as a cone material, and have a smooth sound, not at all agressive. The cones of the midrange drivers are made from Focals' patented Kevlar-foam-fibreglass sandwich material, which achieves maximum rigidity and minimum mass. The result is a cone which can be driven hard, yet still reproduces rich detail in the music. The other important design aspect of these speakers is the high standard magnets used. The magnet material has been chosen to provide a very high magnetic flux density. A speaker is driven by an electromagnet (a voicecoil) suspended within a fixed magnetic field. It stands to reason that the stronger the magnetic field, the more accurate will be the movement of the voicecoil within this field, therefore the music will be more accurately reproduced.

Plain Chant are sound-absorbing mats which adheres to the outer door skin, directly behind each midrange driver. They absorb the sound radiated from the rear of the speakers, creating a 'black hole', destroying sound waves which would otherwise be reflected against the back of the speaker cone. Use Plain Chant as well as sound-deadening material for optimum sound quality.

At first glance, the lack of an amplifier would seem a glaring inadequacy, especially in view of Focals range of quality amplifiers. However, these particular speakers produce more than adequate volume for all but the most demanding listeners when driven by factory OEM head units or the recommended Alpine deck. Yes an amplifier would improve the sound to another level again, but you will certainly be surprised by what can be achieved by a good set of speakers, properly installed.. The sensitivity of these Focal speakers means that they don't need a lot of power to drive them adequately.

The 10" underseat subwoofer will fit most cars, and has a little brother called BUS20 which has an 8" driver. The BUS25 provides bass extension to complement the other speakers. The bass will be in time with the other speakers because the sub is positioned right in the front of the car. Booming subwoofers are a thing of the past, they are becoming socially unacceptable and car owners are developing a taste for bass which is in proportion to the rest of the music and not overwhelming.

 

The 33KX will be much more impressive than27KX, they have a much bigger cone area, therefore they play louder than 27KX. Also, they play lowe rby around 5 Hz, which is quite a big measure in subwoofers.

If you face them forward, they will be tighter-sounding and less 'boomy'
than rear-facing subwoofers. An ideal solution would be to manufacture
fiberglass boxes for each back corner of the boot. The extra distance
from the listener gives a longer path-length for the bass to develop so
it will be deeper and louder. The sound will achieve a boost as it is
fired from the back of the vehicle along a 'passageway', it's as if the
sound was being fired from a cannon, it's concentrated toward the front
of the vehicle. This installation method will leave you with less
vibrations in the boot area, less number-plate rattle, and
harder-hitting bass.

The fiberglass boxes should be constructed so that each driver faces
forward diagonally, aimed approximately at the opposite passengers door.
The boxes themselves should be lined with sound-deadening material such
as Dynamat or Road Kill. This makes them more rigid. An extra
enhancement to the bass would be to line each sub box with as much Focal
Plain Chant as you can afford. It's expensive but it makes a huge
difference inside a sub box. Its purpose is sound absorption. It creates
a 'black hole' for the sound created by the rear of the subwoofer cone,
thereby cancelling reflected sound and standing waves within the sub
box.

This is the most expensive installation option but it will give the best
bass and leave you with plenty of boot space. If you've bought
top-quality equipment, don't cut corners on the installation.