How to Wire Tweeters in a Car?

If you want to venture into upgrading the audio system in your car, it is important to learn how to wire a tweeter, a type of speaker that is made to offer high frequencies that standard speakers cannot reach. Along with the woofers, which cover low frequencies or bass, they are able to make a well-balanced quality of sound. Installing tweeters is not a rocket surgery but, in fact, a simple process.

Standard speakers that often work with tweeters are known as components. These are often considered as the best kinds of speakers when it comes to quality of sound. A component system tends to cost a little bit more than its counterpart, the coaxial speaker. On the other hand, a coaxial combines all the drivers including tweeter and woofer in a single unit. This makes it simpler to install as well as less expensive.

To function correctly, you will need to set up a crossover which redirects signals of sound from an amplifier or head unit to the most suitable part. Lower frequencies to the external sub or the woofer and higher frequencies to the tweeter. This leads to a much wider stage of sound and more better stereo-imaging.

Tweeters could be mounted in various ways such as surface, angled, or flush mounting. Whichever way of mounting you wanted to choose, always make sure that you mount the tweeters above the woofers so that they could broadcast to your ears for a perfect stereo image and realistic sound-stage.

Standard Options of Mounting Tweeters

• Surface mounting: In this option, the tweeter is located on the top of the mounting area and held in a cup fixed to the surface with a screw keeping the tweeter in place. You would need to consider surface mounting the tweeters when you want to keep the interior of you vehicle unchanged or when your car does not have the depth to install flush mounting. The only problem with this method is that its installation would be noticeable.

 

• Flush mounting: This method includes making a hole on the door or on the dash to install the tweeters. The main benefit of flush mounting is its customized look and smooth as the tweeters sit flush with the inside panel. These days, a lot of speaker manufacturers often add angle-mounts to allow the car owners to adjust broadcasting angle of the tweeter slightly, even if your tweeters are located within the panel.

 

• Bottom mounting: This means the tweeters are basically mounted under an existing grille so that you do not have to make any new holes.

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Common Placement for the Tweeters

• Sail panel: This is an element located on the top corner of the door window. Some car models come with the factory tweeters right there and the bottom mount is often our best mounting option. Otherwise, you should consider choosing flush mounting.

 

• Dash edges: In case your car is already designed with factory tweeters in the dashboard, bottom mounting is definitely the best choice. You would not need to create any new holes. However, it is necessary to secure the new tweeter with a bracket.

 

• “A” pillar: It is the vertical support sitting between the front door and the front windshield. A pillar is probably best area for surface mounting your tweeters.

 

• Upper door: This includes drilling a big hole in the door panel to install a new tweeter.

Whichever location or method you choose, remember that manufacturers always suggest that the tweeters should be located within 12 inches of the speakers.

Otherwise, sound frequencies generated by both the tweeters and woofers might reach your ears at quite different times, leading to acoustic phase cancellation or waves interference.

6 Simple Steps to Install Tweeters

Step 1: Cut off the power at the source

It is highly recommended that you should disconnect the negative terminal (-) from the battery of your car. This is actually an important step to avoid a possible damage to the electrical components of your vehicle or electrical short circuiting.

Step 2: Access the tweeters and speakers

Each car model is different, but accessing your speakers is basically an easy process. First, you need to locate where the tweeters and speakers are mounted and then take them out. For example, if you are setting up component speakers on the doors of your car, you will likely need to remove the panel.

Step 3: Remove old stuff

Once you have started, remember to disconnect all of the electrical wires and take a screw driver. Tweeters and speakers are often located in the mounting location by screws, so you need to unscrew them by using a driver with Phillips head.

Step 4: Add crossovers

Now as you have get rid of your old tweeters and speakers, solder the external amp power output wires or head unit to the crossover. After that, connect the input of the crossover cable to the main source of power. Make sure that the positive (+) and negative (-) polarities are connected correctly.

Step 5: Low frequency to the woofer – high frequency to the tweeter

At this step, all that you have to do is connecting the low-frequency wire to the woofer and high-frequency wire to the tweeter.

Step 6: Re-mount

In the last step, you need to put both tweeters and speakers in their mounting area to ensure that each part would securely fit. Nevertheless, this is not always the case. Sometimes you will have to drill a couple of holes either on the door panel or on the dash edge to install a new tweeter.

Make sure that the place of mounting has access to the existing speaker wiring. As for the speaker, probably you will need to purchase several mounting brackets to fit them with the original enclosures.