jmpickrell

So the initial changes picked up the mids/highs but removed a lot of the lows then? (I know the OEM pioneer system is favored more towards the lows than the mid/highs.)

I also noticed in your pic the sound deadening.....did you do the 25% method? (25% coverage removes 99% of the noise/vibration.) That's what I did. (By chance can you post what your trunk portion looks like? Did you mainly do in the area where the spare sits besides doing the rear deck? I've done the rear deck, small portion of where the spare sits and the trunk lid inner/outer skins.)

SonarBD

Yeah, I'd say mids and highs were improved with the speaker upgrade, but the low end suffered.

Absolutely correct on the sound deadening. I used 1 full box of 36 sq. ft. of deadener on the entire car. Likely 25-30% coverage. I'll dig and see if I have a picture of the trunk sound deadening - I'm not sure if I do...

jmpickrell

WOW! You used the whole box?!?! I still had half a box (maybe a little more left) after doing my car (minus the back quarter panels).

SonarBD

I can't find a picture of the trunk floor when the sound deadener is done - not sure why I didn't take pics of that...

I basically cut the deadener into 4-6" tall strips and run them the full length of panels wherever I can reach. That's probably why I used as much as I did.

jmpickrell

I did something similar. I also cut smaller strips/squares in places I couldn't put longer/larger pieces. You mentioned deadening the exhaust sound - do you have aftermarket exhaust or just stock exhaust?

SethP

Alright guys, I decided to swap the front corner speakers. Like others before me, I decided to gamble on the 4" speakers, specifically the Focal Performance 100AC. I had to trim off two of the mounts and they still didn't fit perfectly, but it worked. If I did it again, I might go with 3 1/2 to make it a bit of a cleaner fit.

I didn't want to splice my wires and wanted a harness. However, as noted, there are no Metra harnesses that work for these corner speakers. Instead, I went with Metra's harness for GM vehicles (72-4568) and did some dremel work, and with a little electrical tape, I was able to avoid cutting any wires and just harness it up. The dremel work took all of five minutes.

First of all, these speakers have a sensitivity of 83.5, which is significantly lower than what was there before (90s, I believe). As a result, there's less of a forward sound and it causes the door speakers and sub to work quite a bit more. I am actually quite pleased with that. To be clear, these are the only speakers I've changed thus far. My next step is an aftermarket sub 10" sub/amp in a custom fiberglass enclosure in the trunk, and eventually followed by a total speaker replacement and an amp. But time and money have me waiting on that.