Audio: Door Speaker (no hi-fi option) Conundrum

have read all the posts on the subject. here is the question: could i get away with 4" mids/1" tweets in the dash AND in the rear seat area? i've read many posts that say "don't bother with the rears, you won't be able to hear them (i find that a bit difficult to believe, i hear them now). anyhow, my car is a coupe if that helps. i don't have the hi-fi option, i have the storage bins in the doors, i don't want to spend $ to buy the door brackets and have some custom install done for the purpose of adding a 5+" speaker down there, not worth it to me. here is my thought: eclipse cd head unit jl 5 channel amp 4" mid-woofs/1" tweets (dash and rear), focal? 2 x 8" sub enclosure for rear package shelf, jl subs? i'm an avid reggae fan, so that's what will be playing most of the time. i've priced most of this stuff out, looks like i could get buy with spending $1500 or less. based on the above, does this system work? it's got to be better than the porsche CR 200 series system that's in the car now, no? i'm simply trying to upgrade what is in the car now without sacrificing the interior of the automobile do you guys/gals think this would suffice? cc: 6speed

The reason why its said not to bother with the rears is not because you wont be able to hear them, its because you shouldn't be able to hear them, they are just for fill. I.e. if you notice they are there, its a bad thing because its bringing your stage backwards and instead of in front of you were it should be. Only your bass can be behind since very low frequencies doesn't matters since the ear can't localise their position so doesn't seem like they are behind, but the frequencies produce by the woofers, and specially the tweeters and mids, need to be in front, hence the woofers in the doors or kickpanels and the tweeters in the dash. So if you want it to work you need to adderss the door woofers. I would even keep the stock headunit and change the door woofers than use an eclipse and change the rear speakers. Focals are excellent, but if you want to save, you can instead of getting Focal mids & tweets and then woofers, you can get Focal tweets and woofers for the doors (you can do without the mid perfectly well).

Thanks very much Carlos, your comments are much appreciated. As for the rears, i suppose 4" could suffice for "fill", perhaps none at all. MOST importantly is the DOOR situation, i don't want to spend the money to buy new mounting brackets then new door panels/speaker grille just to be able to accomodate another speaker down there, it's just not worth it to me. I've seen some customized versions of my door with a speaker built into the door pocket area then covered with speaker material, i think it looks just "ok." the question becomes, if i were to run just 4" mids and 1" tweets up in the dash, then the sub enclosure in the back, would that suffice? thanks again

I took my car to Paris audio to upgrade the speakers and amp. I have a cab and with the stock radio listening to anything on the freeway with the top down was useless. I don't listen to music like I used to, so I just wanted something I could hear. They upgraded all of the stock speakers with eclipse and upgraded to a stronger eclipse amp as well. The door speakers were replaced with 6.5" eclipse and they did a custom baffle thing. Overall I like the sound of the system now. I didn't want to upgrade the headunit and add a sub at this time, but I figure I could always do that later. Being in a coupe, you have the rear deck option for the sub which is nice, I'd have to put something either in the passenger footwell or rear seat. You should look at RobinC's pics from 6speedonline. She has the JL in the rear deck.

Reason you can hear the rears now is because the stock system is terrible. Just as Carlos said, the stage has to be in front of you. The stock system is an example of what a bad system is. Bobby

Glad to help if I can I don't think using 4" mid instead of woofers would work, you will have a noticeable gap in between the very low freqs of the subs and the mids of the 4". the stereo wil sound like its not balanced, like too much gain on the subs and the tweeters without the "main stuff" of the low-mids from the woofers, also the woofers help blend in the sub into the stereo and also make you feel the bass up front. I would even preffer using the rears (which is still bad), than no woofer at all. The tweeters and the woofers (5" or 6") are essential for a good frequency spectrum, then after that you can add subs, mids, etc. I sorry I can't give you a way around the skipping the woofers on the doors either. The woofers on the doors/kickpanel and the tweets in the dash are just too essential and important on a car stereo. Its even more important than the subs. So if the budget doesn't allow the door installation you are much better of getting a good pair of woofers in the doors with matching tweeters in the dash and sacrifice the subs. The stereo would not have the bass of a sub enclosure but will sound great and balanced and fair amount of bass. And you leave the door open for a sub enclosure later on. With tweets, 4" mids and subs OTOH, you would have a lot of bass but now way of making it sound good. Also what if you use the stock headunit and with the money saved vs the eclipse one, fit 6" Focals in the door pockects? that would sound great and you can always upgrade the headunit later. The headunit is the item with the least influence in overall sound here. I always recommend to build your stereo from the bottom up allowing for futher upgrading by just adding on and not having to substitute stuff if you want to upgrade. All of us have tons of stuff left over from upgrades because we didn't do thing the right way in the first place and end up spending more moeny in the long run. So for example if you don't go for the subs in the beginning, still buy an amp thats is powerfull enough to power the subs later ojn if you install them since adding another amps in the trunk may be difficult and more expensive. Or get less in the beginning but good quality components like the 6" focals in the doors with the installation than the subs if the budget is tight. Believe me, you will upgrade later on even if you think you wont, its unavoidable

Carlos, thanks again. Maybe it's just a matter of semantics: couldn't i use 4" woofers (as opposed to "mids") in the dash (I believe thats the size of the speaker up there) and 1" tweeters and again 4"in (unless i can go bigger) woofers in the backseat area, plus the sub enclosure? by the way, the HEAD UNIT is the most important part in this upgrade as it's a CASSETTE player (not CD, don't want to add a changer either). so, could the proposed system work with the 4" woofs/1"tweets (dash) plus 4" woofs (backseat) plus the sub? or is the ONLY way this thing works is by spending $$ to place speakers in the door pockets?? thanks again

or even 5-6" in the back seat if they fit? or does that ruin the whole "sound=stage"? just trying to leave the doors as they are and UPGRADE the stereo from it's pathetic present state.

I see, 4" in the dash AND in the rear (4" mids are the same as 4" woofers)? you have the same problem, you have no 5&1/4" or 6" woofers in the setup. Just 4" woofers an the subs is a problem. Nor do you have them in the front. You can even fit 5&1/4" woofers in the rears I belive but that brings us to problem number one, even with 4" in dash your stage will fall backwards which will sound very unatural. Your best bet is to skip the subs and fit 6"woofers in the doors if you don't want to sped $ for them both. Otherwise its like having 800HP in a Saturn vs having "only" 300HP in a 996, and you can always upgrade the HP on the 996 as opposed to the Saturn situation were you'd have to start over with a new car and spend more $ if you want to fix the situation. I also see the probelm with the headunit, I didn't now it had no CD, in that case changing the headunit is a must.

Upgrading the speakers without the doors and adding the subs and amp is not going to fix it, its only going to manifest its weaknesses and defects even more. The lack of door woofers is the main problem.

then based on our conversations, it sounds as though i will have to purchase the mounting brackets/baffles and have the installer do a 5-6" woofer install in the door (in place of the door pockets). do i still go with the 4" coax in the dash or just tweeters? i suppose some installer/stereo store will render their opinion as well. just trying to price this up before i go any further. has been a learning experience already. many thanks.

If you get a good 2 component system (woofer with tweeter) like Focal, you don't need the 4"mids on the dash. And the rears you can leave them stock and you can even power them with the headunit directly since they won't need much power anyway and save on a smaller amp.

Eric Holdaway at Speakerworks in Orange has a set of the new 6" Scan-Speak spilt paper drivers on the demo board which have the fullest range that I have ever heard in a speaker of this size. Apparently also much more efficient than Dynaudios which require quite a bit of high quality amplification. For less money, I also thought the braxial CDT Eurosports also had nice range for a small driver. Focals are bit too bright for my taste. 1998 C2 Cab: Nakamichi CD-700 Dynaudio System 360(mids/tweeter in custom kick panels, 8"woofer in doors) Brax 2000 Graphic amplifier Brax 1uf IPC Zapco SL30-EQ 1/3 octave dual chanel equalizers Cascade sound dampening in doors.

I have been acruing audio equip to upgrade my MY99 cab. I am a DIY'er, to a point,(I am an audio newbie - many late nights on message boards) looking for advise. Here is what I have: CDR220 and 6x40W (no DSP) and stock speakers (the amp and speakers are going bye bye). Here is what I bought: Soundstream Van Vogh amp 500x4 (4x125w @ 4ohm), focal 136K2's componenets (poly-kevlar) and 2 Focal 7" KX expert series poly-kevlars. I have extra stock door speaker enclosures on the way (used - cheap - ready for modification). These are all new - from eBay (trying to stay under $1K - so far... so good - have some room left). Now, what to do with them. I was thinking with the 136Ks - 5.25 mids in the doors and tweets in the dash. Find a way to mount the 7KXs in the rear as Subs (need to enclose them...). Drive them via the 4-channels. But several boards say keep them 2" apart (in the dash together - the 5.25s don't fit). I would like to attempt a ~3-way font system - for staging ;-). So either buy 4" components - 100V2 focal polyglass (and give up the 136K2s - which I think is going in the wrong direction) and fit the 7KXs in the extra door enclosures. Drive these with ch1&2 and go get subs for the rear and use ch3&4. This will req a 3-way Xover for the front (hate to break up teh focal system like that). I guess I could put the speakers back on ebay and buy a 3-way system - but the polykevlars are pricey (I still have budget to get subs - need advise for a 996cab enclosure there too).

What is the process of fitting 6" drivers in the doors? Can you use the stock location and just custom fit the mounting surface inside the door? I want to leave the stock bose speaker gills on there. Mine are silver with leather and they look pretty cool. Is this possible with just modding the insides to fit the six inch?