Help a noob with speaker upgrade?

[BeeGeeSHO]

Hey all, I'm starting to plan an all around speaker upgrade. Being my first time, I was curious if anyone had any tips that I should go by.

I'm most likely going with 6x8/5x7's Infinity Reference all around & Infinity Reference for the tweeters also. Also considering maybe stepping up to the Kappas if anyone can sway me to go that route.

I'm sure I'll be back with more Q's, but first thing what tools/steps should I go by for removing the door panels & installation?

 

[luigisho]

Sounds good so far. The only thing I remember from my infinity speakers was that the bass wasn't that good.

 

[lndshark]

Replaceing the stock speakers is really simple. My fiancee and I did all four in under an hour. Three screws and some retaining clips for each door. Two bolts for the seat back and a couple more clips and thats it. Dont cut the factory wiring harnesses of, circuity city has a nifty part that clips rignt on and goes right to the speakers. Not soldering, heat shrinking, or taping. Very nice. Do a search to find the right part number.

I used Momentum speakers, a UK subsidiary of Cadence Audio. Think they sound great and they were a sick deal on Ebay.

Good Luck

 

[BeeGeeSHO]

Nice, I guess I'm convinced then. I'll go ahead and order the parts thru Ebay and wait

Say what about anything for sound isolation to eliminate any rattles? I've see Dyanmat (sp?) around, do you recomend installing some while I have the door panels off or probably not necessary?

 

[Silvapain]

There are many brands of sound baffling other than Dynamat. They all work just as well and are generally cheaper than Dynamat. I would recommend it for the door definitely. I didn't do it on my car, and I get alot of rattles at certain frequencies from my Kenwood 6889ie speakers.

 

[Vroom]

I'm going to be replacing the speakers as well, and adding a sub while I'm at it. I've decided to wait on the sound deadening until I know what'll need to be deadened.

 

[BeeGeeSHO]

I almost feel dumb for asking this.....Where are the 3 screws located in the doors to remove the panels?

 

[xekrubx]

what ive wanted to do is install alpine Type-R SPR-57LS 5"x7" Component Speakers

on ebay they have a bin of $129 and $22 shipping for ONE pair
includes 2 5x7 midbass, 2 tweeters, and 2 crossovers
300 watts peak 60 rms
front and back that would be $302
put the (4) midbass in stock locations
2 tweeters in the stock space
and 2 in the rear plastic around the rear window right at ear level

i have a 4 channel audiobahn a4004t amp which would power all 4 very nicely with 100 x 4 peak @ 4 ohms

for a full set of interior components that would be some nice sound

as of right now that 4 channel is bridged to power 2 12" alpine type e's which is alright

im not too pleased with how the stock head unit controls the bass levels at different volumes
i find myself needing to adjust it all the time
i use the sactory sub wires as a high level input on the amp
ive thought about using input directly from the 5x7's thinking it might be a bit better
maybe ill try that out tomorrow
but as soon as theres a kit or i design one myself for the climate control im putting an alpine head unit in there

 

[xekrubx]

update on using the input from the 5x7s to the high level input on the amp
yeah
it sucks
i went back and used the factory sub wires
but i would much rather have a real deck with rca outputs
and i figured out why my subs wernt performing like they used to
yeah one of the wires to the back of the box came out
DUH
lol

 

[SHOZ123]

I have a 350W mono sub amp and a 12" sub in the trunk. This is ran off the rear speakers using the amps speaker level inputs. I like this as you can use the fader to control the sub balance.

In the rear deck I have some Infinity component 6x9s. These are not two way and provide even more bass. These came with some tweeters that fit in the front sail panels. Big improvement there on both counts. The front doors have Infinity 5x7 two ways.

A bit too much treble for me but otherwise much better than stock. Using the speaker wires as an input for the sub amp should have no degradation of sound quality assuming the converter you are using is of good quality.

 

[mcgilles]

I have MBQuart 6.5" components up front and in the sail tweeter, Boston Acoustics 5x7's in the rear and 2 RF 15" subwoofers it sounds awesome, even for a hodgepodge of different brands. The speakers really aren't that hard to change out at all, pay attention to the depth of installation for the front speakers though, you don't want to hit the window as it comes down, but the stock speaker is pretty deep (about 2 1/4" mounting depth from the mounting plane for Mach, JBL's are about 2 1/8, base system are even shallower) so you shouldn't have any problems there. one thing to think about though, the stock setup has the tweeters running parallel with the woofer in teh door, it does through a filter and then to the tweeter. so there is only a single 2 conductor speaker wire running into each of the front doors, if your speaker system has a crossover, you will either have to mount the crossover in the door somewhere (there really isn't much room unless its a really small unit) or run an extra speaker wire in there for the tweeters. either option is doable.

 

[SHOZ123]

The component speakers I got had a crossover for the tweeters. I had also bought a couple of capacitors to act as bass blockers. But I ended up using the OEM filter/capacitor.

 

[Vroom]

I ran new speaker wires for my 6.5" Infinity Kappas in the doors. For the new tweeters, I cut out the stock crossover, used the stock wiring, and spliced it in the trunk to my new crossovers.