eknine9

iTrader: (8)

The CVR isn't a free air sub, so I don't know who recommended that to you, but the more air from the trunk that can leak out into the cabin the more interference there will be, which is why you'd want to seal off the trunk completely from the cabin to isolate the sound waves coming from the forward sub movements from those coming from the sub moving backwards, as they'll cancel each other out because they aren't in phase. It's why you want to isolate the front wave as much as you can from the rear wave. Traditionally this is done with a sealed enclosure, or a ported box with a port that's a specific length and volume to force the rear wave to travel long enough to be in phase at a specific frequency to get around a 3 dB boost at the frequency the port is tuned to. There are more exotic box designs to use the rear wave but they aren't really important right now.

To be specific, there's really no such thing as a free air setup. It's either an Infinite Baffle, or it's a leaky sealed enclosure if the rear wave isn't separated from the front wave. IF it's properly seperated you can get a flat response from 20hz on up and even get good response below 20hz, which might sound like picking hairs but just because it's below audible doesn't mean you can't feel it. Usually lower than 20hz is only good for movies unless you listen to some very specific music, but this car has a decent setup for IB, so I'd be remiss if I did anything else. Toughest part to figure out would be how to reinforce the rear deck to eliminate any movements, Matting might not be enough... but anyways, that's still a problem for months in the future, so I'm not thinking about it too much right now.

Studiogeek

iTrader: (6)

Please continue to think out loud!

Thanks!

SC400Zulu

First off, thanks for all you guys input. This car is very, very special to me. I don't want to rush anything without first getting expert opinions. You guys rock!

StudioGeek, my man! Genius! Taking the rear deck Sub out as a port from the trunk to the cabin is ideal! And forget trunk space. If space is what I cared about, I would have gotten a G35 or a sedan. As long as I can put some bags in the back seat, I'm good.

And someone mentioned sealing the trunk. Won't that prevent me from opening it? It it can be sealed without losing access to the trunk, the port that the 10" sub was in will work better.

So 4" in the front, tweeters that I have to have custom, 6.5" GOOD speakers out on the deck.

starting to come together fellas.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

"Sealed" refers to sealing off passages for air to escape between the trunk and cabin. Usually, that means laying down a wad of Dynamat or similar product to plug the various holes and add substance to the thin sheet metal or aluminum separator.

Make sure you get 6.5" speakers that fit the opening, otherwise my "no fabrication" promise won't hold true... I can vouch for the quality of the Pioneers I went with -- I had settled on them based on reviews, then lucked out and found a barely used pair for sale locally, in the original box; that they fit perfectly was a pleasant surprise -- but they'll be overlooked by a lot of people because of brand.

SC400Zulu

What are the specs dimensions wise for your 6.5's?

I plan to get the best, as long as they fit. And fully insulating the trunk is a must.

I will get a vented box with a 10" @ 650rms.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

All the info I've got is provided in the link. I dropped them in and they fit; didn't see the need to measure a known commodity. You can try finding measurements listed for that model and compare them to others... The point wasn't to figure out what will fit, rather to show a specific model that disproves the notion that nothing will fit.

I knew that was coming. Read the reviews on the Pioneers before discounting them... Why not stick with what's known to work and will most likely provide very satisfying sound quality, rather than spend twice as much on something that probably won't fit?

GTX580

iTrader: (3)

I recently installed a similar setup and regret it.

Two Alpine Type S 4inch in the front

Two Alpine Type S 6.5inch in the back

with a

270rms 10"Polk Sub.

The highs are excellent on those alpine but 4inch and 6.5.inch dont really give you the midbass 6x9 has.

Nevertheless, I am upgrading the back to 6x9 type s and moving the 6.5 to the front this weekend.

Like previous posters had mention, u can do it yourself putting 6.5 in the back, i even reuse the stock plastic bracket.

SC400Zulu

I've definitely seen a lot of info on 6.5's, but 6x9's?? I'd love to have em, but how in the heck could they work, without cutting/custom tab work?

My goals are simple. Great highs, crisp and clean sound, bass primarily coming from the Sub.

And nobody has entertained my idea of a 10" speaker to replace the stock sub. If 6x9's provide the sound you prefer and recommend, what about a good 10" speaker? Should have plenty of mid bass & what not, seal the trunk + sub. Sorry if my ideas are weird or non ideal, but this is the learning curve for me guys.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

How do you envision a single 10" mid driver handling L/R stereo output? Subs can be mono because they're primarily producing non-directional frequencies.

SC400Zulu

As I said, I'm an audio newb. People always say to go as big as possible. The 6x9s because of there size, are the reasons you want them. So basically a 10" plus the two 6.5's wouldn't work right? Guess it have to be two 10" drivers, for the L/R input.

Thanks for taking the time to school me. I also found your 6.5's on amazon, but they have an upgraded version that looks exactly the same. It is the ones under yours in this pic.

eknine9

iTrader: (8)

The rear deck is just there to provide filler sound for the front. The only reason people get 6x9's over 6.5's is cone area. Cone area is the amount of moving surface on the face of the speaker.

a 6x9 has 42 square inches of cone area
a 6.5 has 33 square inches of cone area

Basically the more cone area, the more air the speaker can move (to a point, other factors affect this as well), so all things being equal a 6x9 can get louder than a 6.5, but this doesn't mean that a 6x9 is preferable for the rear deck. Many people have moved away from the 6x9's as the uneven shape means the force is distributed unequally and the surrounds begin to tear faster than on 6.5's, however, whatever you put in will probably outlast you and the manufacturer warranty and any extended warranty you might get, so it's a non issue except in OEM situations. More surface area also means more response at lower frequencies but less control (or more slop) at higher frequencies. So really you're just trading out precision at the higher end of the midrange for more bass, but if the 6x9 has a tweeter capable of going a touch lower than normal it can compensate for this anyways.

All that being said, I would never use a 6x9 as anything more than rear fill and thats only in a car that had stock 6x9's. The Sc doesnt, so you're doing extra fab work just to fit it in. I wouldn't bother, it's not going to affect your listening experience in the front driver seat enough to justify the work as compared to just replacing the rears with a 4 inch driver, or a 6.5 mounted directly to the deck. No matter what the rear is only going to be fill, it won't provide precise imaging, and any higher frequency drivers most likely won't be hear up front due to the directionality of higher pitched frequencies and how many surfaces it will have to bounce off the reach the front. So just a slap two 6.5 drivers in the rear deck and use them for mid-frequency fill and call it a day.

Personally I'd aim for a stand alone midrange with no tweeter and run it off the amp you run the front speakers off of, something like this to offer good mid-range and bass fill. I know which drivers I'd use actually but I don't know if I'm allowed to post off-site links to specific products. But it's:
>SUNDOWN AUDIO NEO-PRO 6.5 V2

As long as you use a cross-over of some sort to filer it's output to be outside of the range of the subwoofers output you should be able to avoid any interference issues.

The front speakers are a little weird though, they seem to be 4.5 inches or so and it's hard to find that size aftermarket, so best bet there is probably a 5.25 with a custom baffle. I wonder if the door panels will fit above a 5.25 ring baffle with a speaker mounted to it, because if not then the best bet would be a custom door panel, possibly fiber glassed and custom tweeter mounts, but I can't imagine a 5.25 with a ring baffle not fitting under the stock door panels, but I guess that's something I still need to find out.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

^ That's a really good price on the 1675's. I think they were $50 when I was planning on buying them new. The 1685 isn't really an upgraded version. It's the exact same speaker but 4-way instead of 3-way. In a speaker of that size, it isn't going to really help anything, and a number of reviews say it actually hurts. All you need from separate drivers in a car environment is highs, mids, and lows. There's nothing for the 4th driver to do of any use.

I'm not a huge fan of Pioneer's home audio offerings, although they're capable of very good products as evidenced by their Elite line, but they make darn good car audio at a price that makes them easy to not take seriously.

DrBrown54

I'll warn you, the 3-way and 4-way door speakers from almost all manufacturers are poor and an amp will emphasize it even worse. I've been there, done that and replace that. Here's my point... if you go into an IMAX or HD movie theater, you won't find a single tweeter. It's all 6 to 12" woofers and they produce plenty of high frequencies. Speakers with all that crap attached to the front is never going to sound as good as a single 6.5" woofer in your door, it's designed to be pretty and sell a cheap speaker. All higher quality components are single channel woofers. If you've heard the difference in person it's not even debatable.

Since these door panels have an existing tweeter location I'd strongly recommend something like Rockford's R165-S component set, with pre-wired tweeters. You could snag something like that for $60-80. I'd rather see you spend $100 on door speakers and not even use rears. Seriously! It's that big of a difference. I have good comps in front and rear and I run my fronts at about 70% to 30% rear.

As for the Rockford amps, I've used two of their PRIME series and absolutely recommend them. I used the 300W mono amp on a 10 and had no issues, though I wanted more power. I also use the R300x4 RF Prime amp for my interior speakers and it pushes very clean sound for the money! I used to drive an hour each way to work so I jammed 2+ hours a day and they've been in there a year. Make sure whatever speakers you choose that you power them at the right amperage. So if your speakers peak at 80W, you want to run them at 60-85amps at most, and no less.

My last piece of advice is not speaker related. Go buy a $20 roll of U-Seal from home depot (in the roofing isle). Pull your door panels off and seal all the holes in the door frame with this mat. It will turn the door into a tightly sealed speaker box and you'll get 10% more volume and at least 25% improvement in sound quality. Best $20 audio mod I've ever done. One roll is enough for ~3 doors. You can use it inside the trunk as well if you have some bad rattling areas. Let us know how it sounds when you're done and good luck!

SSmith

iTrader: (7)

There is so much wrong in this thread I think I'll just stay out of it.

Shane

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

That's a massive difference in scale and scope between a high end theater setup and a noisy, cramped car environment. Reduce the scale even further and try explaining how a pair of Sennheiser headphones sound so freakin' good. And those theater speakers probably aren't being labeled as woofers... They're just bigger tweeters. Again, scale. Everything needs to be bigger and more powerful to fill a bigger space.

If you're worried about the smaller drivers in front of the woofer, you probably shouldn't install grilles, either... And it's designed to produce all the frequency ranges relatively well in a compact package, with none of the drivers distorting majorly by doing something they're not well suited to, not just to look pretty.

I've got component speakers in my other car and they do sound better, but not by enough that I felt it was worth the extra cost and installation complexity in the SC. I take my audio pretty seriously and am the go-to guy for that stuff in my circle of friends, and I wouldn't tell anyone to skip over a quality 3-way unless they simply wanted to spend more.