Jsolos

I'm upgrading the sound system a bit and I realized that part of the problem is that the stock front speakers suck!

Does anyone have any ideas on how you could upgrade the front speakers on an FB with something a little better. The stock ones are burried below the dash at your feet so you lose the higher frequencies. They are too small for much bass.

Is there any other place to mount some up front? Is there any room in the doors above the door bins? I have probably removed the door panels a dozen times and never noticed if there is enough space in there for a 6" speaker.

Let me know if you have any ideas...

81gsl12a

iTrader: (1)

get some focal 4inch they are gr8 but they come with the price tag of gr8 super good highs and handel mid bass like no other 4in i have heard..or you cna get some eclipse 4inch very good speaker for the money good highs and handels mid bass well...also i would be good if you replaced the stock speaker wire and ran some new wire no smaller then 14g that will help as the stock wires SUCK *** thin and old

yes there is enough room

PS im a car audio/video installer

Paradox

iTrader: (1)

yeah after looking at the doors i dont see how large speakers can be stuffed in there either without interfering with the mechanical aspects.

however people have done it, search the forum a bit.

otherwise just upgrade your fronts, i am planning on doing the same, right now im using the stock speakers from my '90 toyota supra in the RX hehe.

81gsl12a

iTrader: (1)

an ez way to do it would be to get an air saw..cut the hole in the door make a spacer or of 3/4 or 1 inch mdf..sand it make it nice and smooth paint it black screw it to the door than mount the speaker to mdf..that should give you more than enough room for the speaker to not hit any of the moving parts.. the window i beleave is the only thing you have to worry about.. or you could get a shalow mount speaker to fit

frozenwings

I popped in some tweeters and gave up on the floor speakers. That is the most ridiculous spot for speakers that small. In order to actually hear them at all, you have to fade to the front a ton. Then overall the sound sucks because you tuned down the back speakersso much. You could probalby figure out someway to mount some bigger speakers on the door, I have seen it done. But like Paradox said, it could be tricky given the limited amount of space provided.

81gsl12a

iTrader: (1)

with good speakers and a good head unit the speakers being in that location is not so bad...if you have a sound system build (i dont mean just bass) the sound comes from the front of the car not the back..lol a sound system is like a motor it has to be TUNED...an most ppl set them up backwards..making the most sound come from the back..tyring the bass all the way up just making it sound like crap and blowing up there speakers....

the 4in speakers i refured to are very very good and both are worth every bit of money

if you want bass in you car you need to get a sub 8in sub is more then enough and speaker that is not a subwoofer is a mid bass speaker and is not ment hit hard (even tho ppl make them by turning up the bass and turning up the volume)

treble should be turned up the most than mid bass and the bass should be left at 0-2 shouldint be turned up more than that the LOUD button should never be used it does not make it sound better

frozenwings

Agreed. I never bought a sub before, and just got one for free the other day along with an amp. I never wanted to turn any of my cars into ghetto blasters, but I must admit the one sub with the 6x9s and the tweeters sounds pretty nice. I wish I could figure out someway to get more midrange in the front though, the spots on the floor **** me off to no end. Probably the only thing I actually dislike about the 7. Well that and my new nemesis, the split air pipe.

81gsl12a

iTrader: (1)

well the focal speakers will give you all the midrange you could ever want..they are like 150 for 4inch tho..but they are 1 of the best speakers on the market that

$100T2

iTrader: (1)

Yep, I have ideas.

steve84GS TII

From what Ive heard,the lower kick panel is actually the best place for proper front speaker imaging.Unfortunately you cant fit anything bigger,but if you get some good speakers and a decent amp or head unit,itll sound good.
My system consists of Fosgate seperates up front and some Polk 6.5"s in the rear.It not much in the way of speakers,but its all ran from pre-outs into a very nice,powerful Pioneer 4 channel amp and its plenty loud and clear.More than I could/would ever need.Running pre-outs and high quality cables makes a big difference.Eliminate distortion and crank up the wattage and even little speakers can rock.

81gsl12a

iTrader: (1)

you are wright about the imaging.. but when ppl have pods made to go there they angle the speakers so they shoot up towards the driver...its also the best place to put tweeters long as they are also aim up at the driver as that is the most foward you can get speakers glad to see some ppl know what they are talking about

$100T2

iTrader: (1)

That's not technically true. You can fit bigger speakers, you just need to be a bit creative.

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

i would stick with the stock size, upgrade to some infinities. you can get the reference series at a great price and they have tweeters built in, as they are a two way speaker. upgrade your speaker wire and your deck. if anything, IF you install a sub in a 7(a waste in my opinion) you'll probably want speaker savers(200-400mhz). you can use your stock stereo system, just get some flux cleaner and clean the stereo ****'s contacts and the fader contorl's contacts. unless you are going for a ridiculious sound (i know some people enjoy rap and bass and industrial) the stock sizes and locations are great. just upgrade the components and make sure you do it properly.

tempusfugitive

why bother? i prefer to just listen to the engine and exhaust notes

aussiesmg

iTrader: (1)

I found some Blaupunkt (?) 5.25" and fitted them into the doors without cutting the metal, above the location of the manual winders there is a void in the metal inner panel they fit perfectly here. They work great and the sound is crisp and clear, footwells are less than useless for speakers in our cars IMHO.

I also run super tweeters, 6 X 9 Polks in rear and a single 10" Jensen sub all from a 800 watt Sony amp, mix and match set up but the sound is solid and clean without being thump thump thump.

Tranquil

iTrader: (1)

pics?

aussiesmg

iTrader: (1)

I knew you'd ask that lol....have to take some. It's a cheap and workable set up though, not a show winner but really good sound.

Rob Stolz

When I bought my gsl it came with two 4 inch or smaller lol, kent speakers, I don't know if they are worth anything or not, I bought to JL 6 1/2 inch speakers and a JL 12 inch sub. There were belts in the back already from the previous owner so I belted in the sub, also there were 6 inch sonys to my surprise i realized that it was time for the jig saw. That was a bitch! Then I put my clarion APX4001 mounting it on my sub box. Bridged my sub on the top two channels and put front and back left speakers out of the left rear channel and opposite on the right rear channel, turning my amp down a tad to save the life of the kent speakers. I can hear them quite well due to having them hooked up to an amp with a high pass, you just need decent speakers and an amp with frequency options. Stereo all around sounds awsome and you can easily hear the music over the bass, and the bass is pretty loud.

clean85owner

I run CDTs in my FB. 6.5s in the back and 4s in the doors. I'll get some pictures up later of where I have the 4s mounted. I have my V12 amp mounted in the passenger bin.

Tranquil

iTrader: (1)

Good sound? And yet the open headers make the stereo useless?

You contradict yourself, my friend!

thumper/bftp

there is no solution for the problem just add a subwoofer and get over it. i did

clean85owner

I know this thread is a week old, but I said that I would post pictures. If I were to redo it, I would glue a grill to the back of the door panel and perforate (sp) the vinyl door panel.

The mount:


The trimming:


All buttoned up:

southernrunner

Shawn I am thinking about doing the same but when I get the interior redone, I am going to get them to put like a little speaker cover so it won't muffle the sound from the speaker.

Nicholas P.

iTrader: (1)

I just ran all new wire from the back of each panel.

takes forever but it is very simple.

all you have to do is take the stereo out. and the chart is on top of the stereo. or in the instructions.

well I dunno. me and my dad hooked the radio up ourselves so everywire is single. no connectors. I dunno man. Im just gonna get some small ones to put on my front too. some little cheap ones from autozone. and just set the frequency

front 2. back 8 lol so not much sound goes through the front. work for ya?

Craig_mw

Well this will be my first post, ever on these forums. While I know only a little about the mechanical apsects of these cars, I know a fair bit about sound, and sound systems.


First, the stock location in the GLS, is one of the best places for speakers to be. It has everything to do with imaging, or where your ears's percieve the sound comes from. Let me explain why you want the speakers where they are.

The important thing to remember is, our ears, for the most part have a really difficult time telling if the sound they hear is coming from above or below us. So no matter what level the sound is coming from, you'll almost always think its at eye level. Unless of course you drive with your head tilted...

Ok so now we have that covered, lets explian why the kick panels, and not the doors, dash, or a-pillar is the best place for speakers. Our ears detect the direction that sound is coming from, by calculation the differance in time that the sound hits each ear. So for example, if a sound is coming from your left, it will hit your left ear first, then your right, and your brain will calculate the differance in time, and you'll know where that sound came from. And its also suprisenly accurate.

Now in order to have the best sound 'image' (where you think the sound comes from, even though there maybe no speaker in that area) you want the speakers at exactly the same distance from each ear. Which is frankly impossible in a car, since we sit on the left (most of us anyways) so we have to do the best we can, to get both speakers closest to the same distance apart. Go ahead an measure common speaker locations if you want. But you'll find the place where the speakers are clostest to each other are in the kick panels. And if you don't believe me, look at a car stero mag, you'll find almost all the cars in there have costum kick panels made for exactly this reason. Or go to a high end stero shop, and ask to listen to a good system in a car, you'll be suprised, it will sound like the music is coming from the middle of your windshield even though the speakers are on the floor.

Ok so now we know where to put our speakers, how do we get the best sound? The answer is, by good speakers, and just as importantly, a good amp. While not all of us want to spend $2000 on a set of speakers, we can get good sound without spending to much.

First get a set of component speakers. Don't buy those replacement speakers that have one cone, or a tweeter stuck right in the middle of the speaker. You want a speaker with a seperate tweeter, and a cross-over (somthing the seperate the frequencys of the sound to differant speakers) You don't have to spend the back, put it will be worth it upgrade to decent speakers.

The next thing you want is an amp, a real amp, not the thing that came with your cd player. To put it nicely, the amp in all indash cd players suck, and suck big time. And they are not powerfull at all. They might say 40 watts per channel, but in reality, you'll only get that amount of power if lighting strikes your antena and travells through your deck and into the speakers. The amp at the back of a cd player only does maybe 10 watts, and at 10-20% distortion. A dedicated amp will do ushally what it say on the cover, and at 0.1% distortion, in many cases less. (Beware, cheap amps, and speakers will have two differant ratings. If it says peak power, or max power, the amp will never do that, except in a lab under specific condictions for a milli second, what your looking for is RMS power or constant power rateing, which is what the amp can do inside a car with a 12volt power supply.)

Ok so now you have your speakers, and amp, what else do you need? Well you DO NOT need rear speakers. What you say, no speakers in the back? No you don't need them. Think of it this way, have you ever went the a concert and had the band playing behind you? Most compition stero's will only have two front speakers, and no back, or if they do have back speakers they will be at very low volumes and at limited frequencys.

You do, however, need a subwoofer, or you should think about it at least. I have never ever heard a person say that music in a good system doesn't sound better with a sub renforcing the bass. I'm not talking about a bigg booming stereo, that everyone can hear. But at least an 8 inch sub hidden somewhere in the back (note while you want speakers in the front, there no room for a sub, and our ears can't hear thedirection of the low frequencys they produce) A sub needs some sort of box (they make better sound with a box they can resonate in) and anouther amp. Or you can get a 4 channel amp, use the front two for your speakers, and wire the back two mono (two channels in one) to your sub. But make sure your amp can handle this some cheap ones can't. If you don't think you want a sub, just listen to a good system with the sub on, then off. You'll be impressed at the differance in sound quality they can make, and you don't need them to shake your car apart to do it either.

Ok so know we know what to get to make a good system, the question is, where to spend your money. The most important thing is the front speakers. These speakers will produce 90% of the sound your listening to and if they suck, nothing else you buy will make the system sound good. I wouldn't hesitate to spend 50% of my budget on the front speakers assuming I had enough to by the rest. The next important thing, is buy an amp (actually this might be the most important, as the amp in the cdplayer will always be the limiting factor in your system if you use it no matter how crappy the speakers are, that amp is just that bad) When buying an amp, you can ushally go pretty cheap. Just make sure it has a cross over, to limit the bass to your front speakers as bass can damage them. The next most important thing is, the Cd player, really nothing to it, you can get away with something pretty basic, just make sure it has RC outs, to connect to your amp. The last thing to consider is the sub, and amp to go with it. $500 subs only sound a tiny bit better then $50 ones, and especially at lower volumes. And do to the nature of a subwoofer, you don't need to spend a fortune on the amp to power them. Don't let the sales man tell you other wise, 100 watts to a sub is fine, and amps in this range are cheap.

Anyways hope this helped. Not everyone is an audiophile, but having a decent sounding stereo does make the ride so much better. Just try it out once, you don't have to spend a fortune, just spend the money in the right place.