Car speakers

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arcas

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2001
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My suggestion:

That's an odd setup. For best sound quality, you want your best speakers to be up front. The rears are for "fill" unless you're concerned about your passengers in the rear seat. Your factory setup is almost the reverse. 4x6s are usually used for fill these days since they peter out at around 100hz.

Is there -any- way you can enlarge the opening to hold some 5 1/4" round speakers? Perhaps you can buy some aftermarket kickpanel enclosures for your make/model (if you don't feel like building them yourself) that'll hold a 5.25" or 6.5" round speaker. A round speaker is going to sound better than an oval speaker and a hell of a lot better than a 4x6.

For your rears, get some 6.5" round speakers (since your rears are for fill only, you don't even have to worry about tweets here) and fashion an adapter to fit in the 6x9" opening. One way to do this is to take your factory 6x9s, cut the speaker out leaving just the frame. Go to Home Depot and buy some 1/4" hardboard and glue it to the 6x9 frame. Then cut out an opening for your 6.5" speakers to fit in. Edit: Now you're guaranteed to have something that'll fit in the factory openings. No worrying about screws that don't line up, etc.

For your amp...buy a 4-channel amp. Power your front kickpanels with 2 of the amp channels. Let your head unit (I assume you're going to upgrade your HU in the process, right?) power the rear speakers. Bridge the remaining 2 amp channels and power a small 8" or 10" sub that you can hide in the trunk. You don't need a huge sub enclosure. 0.6 cuft sealed enclosure will be enough for most 10" subs.

I assure you this will sound better overall than running 100W to a pair of 6x9s. It costs a little more and takes a little more time to install it but assuming you can find some kickpanel enclosures, you can do it for around $500 and a day or two in the garage.

Amp: 4ch x 75W... $150
Sub: 10"... anywhere from $75 to $150+. I like Image Dynamics subs but they're at the upper end of that price range.
Sub enclosure: $50
Fronts/Rears: Infinity Reference or Infinity Kappas...
Amp Kit: don't bother. go to a welding supply shop and buy 30 feet of 4 gauge welding cable for $25. buy a 60W fuse+holder at an auto supply shop for $5. home depot for speaker wire.

Edit: Or, hell, you could cheat and buy an Infinity BassLink all-in-one sub/amp combo. They don't sound too bad for the money. Then you only need a 2 channel amp for your fronts and continue to let the HU power your rears.


 

harobikes333

Platinum Member
Sep 18, 2005
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Wow thanks alot for the reply! I appreciate it alot![b/]

So you're saying get component speakers? where would a person put the tweeters? I'd have to cut out yet again more holes right...:\?
 

arcas

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2001
2,155
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Components are great but even coaxials will sound good, especially if you have kickpanel speakers because the speakers will be "aimed" at you and your front passenger.

If you go with components and don't want to do any cutting for the tweeters, you can mount them externally to the top of the dash. Many component sets come with spherical tweeter enclosures to do this. Do be aware that component speakers can get expensive in a hurry though Infinity components are still pretty reasonable. Since you're in high school, I assume your budget is pretty tight. Skip the components. Get a good pair of coaxials for your fronts. It'll still sound good.

 

harobikes333

Platinum Member
Sep 18, 2005
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Hey guys thanks alot for all this help!

My rims, tires, and now new paint job are adding up... I'm for now anyway going to just go with the stock speaker replacement deal.

I've figured out the speakers and so now I'm trying to find what the best amp would be to power my 6 by 9 speakers in the rear deck they're rated at 110RMS and 300 MAX They are 2Ohm speakers so I'll only need a 50W two channel amp right?

Does anyone have any advice as to what brand to go with?


Thanks again!

Pyro Haro
 

harobikes333

Platinum Member
Sep 18, 2005
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Bump

EDIT: I'm lost as to what I should get for an amp:(

I plan on getting mabe two 12 or two 10 inch subs to put in my trunk but I just don't know what I should do for now about the amp
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
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Originally posted by: Riverhound777
If you really want decent sound, you much better off using round speakers rather than oval. Something like this would be great.
http://www.woofersetc.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3059

Then just use a decent 100x2 watt amp and your golden. You dont really need speakers in the rear, but power them off the deck if you want some.

assuming you use a subwoofer and component speakers in the front. otherwise yes you do need 4 speakers and as much speaker area as possible..oval. we'lre talking 88 caprice here, road/wind noise is gonna take a hit on the audio system.

he is overspending on the rear speakers though. the big money should be spent up front on components for a good stereo image. you don't want all the sound coming from the back giving a weird stereo is mostly behind me type feel.
 

harobikes333

Platinum Member
Sep 18, 2005
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Too late guys for component speakers I already ordered some 4 by 6 speakers for the front I'm not really picky and since I don't want to be cutting holes etc right now I'm just sticking with replacing the front and back stock speakers

and nope I'm not using a subwoofer yet I may add one later but right now I'm just going to order those speakers I talked about.


But the thing is I'm still looking for an amp to use. I found this one: Rockford Fosgate Punch P2502 2 channel amp 125 RMS @ 2ohms

I think it will work I'll just have to turn down the gain a bit so I don't blow the speakers since they are rated at 110 RMS and the amp is at 125RMS

Should I go with that amp?
 

harobikes333

Platinum Member
Sep 18, 2005
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I'm not going to be amplifying the front speakers. They're rated at 20 RMS 100MAX so .... I'm not going to bother. My HU already puts about 20 some RMS to the front so I think they'll be fine for now until I get time to put component speakers added in later someday

So I'll only be amplifying the rear 6X9 speakers thus only 2 speakers and so I picked the 2 channel amp. That amp seemed pretty close to what I needed and I didn't know what else to really get that would fit my needs...?:

Help?