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Speaker Mounting Locations


XTCoX

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Well, the car came with 2 speaker holes cut behind the seats of my 260z.

 

Im a little concerned about the obvious here... I think the sound might be muffled if mounted behind the seats, but I REALLY don't feel like kicking down an extra $140 bucks for an MSA speaker panel, or running wires all the way to the very back of the car, plus I'm not totally sure if that's even a reasonable concern. They are good, 6x9 speakers (does that even make a difference? I don't know).

 

Has anybody mounted the speakers behind the seats, and had it be decent, or should I just bite the bullet, not be lazy and get the damn speaker panel?

 

Feel free to speculate, but I feel that first hand experience in doing this is the only way to know whats really going to work and what won't (not sure if that's even relevant, but hey :redface:).

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Straight Up. I've also got a pair of 6'' rounds in the kick panels up front but those are usually faded out quite a bit since in the Z cabin my 6x9's are plenty for providing good sound, surprisingly little rattle either even with the plastic pieces still in place.

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Great! Thanks Bob. Ill probably end up doing that.

 

One more thing...any idea where to mount a subwoofer in the car? I was thinking about either mounting it magnet-up in the spare tire well, or making a sub box. The problem is that I have no ide where to put a sub box, and I haven't seen it done before, so i'm not sure if that' even a viable option.

 

Thoughts?

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I have the 6x9s in the MSA-type panel in the back. It works quite well. Here's a link to a picture (scroll down to post # 3):

 

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=147928

 

Some thoughts:

 

If you object to the cost of the panel, make your own. A piece of 1/2" plywood would be fine, use the cardboard tail light cover for a pattern, cover with carpet, and you are done.

 

Note the power amplifier in the spare tire well. This keeps speaker wires short. Running wires to the rear is quite easy, anyway. They run along the door sill under the carpet. There is only one little wire fish, over the rear tire wells, and it's easy.

 

The spare tire well is about the only good location for a subwoofer. Plywood will make you a baffle to mount the speaker, and the airspace in the tire well will provide loading. The sub should sound fine.

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Hmm, I have speakers in the stock location, Speakers on the Rear Panel like the MSA panel but custom, Tweeters in the Rear Shock towers (if you take of the vinyl there is a piece of wood at the top), Hoping to make a custom Enclosure where the rear seat was for two Medium sized Subwoofers, Tweeters where the air ducts were in the dash, And the previous owner had speakers in the Middle Console but it broke, So I plan on putting those in the doors. So Over all I plan on having 12 Speakers, might sound a little much but I am a Radio kind of guy and like my noise disturbution haha, I might even have to steal my Dads Bose Stereo out of our Audi.

 

Not looking to go crazy with the speakers and light them up and what not I just plan on making a Show/DD that will sound nice.

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I'm interested in how you plan on putting those speakers in the doors. You gonna slice out some of the metal inside to door to make room for the speakers, or what? Also, I'd like to know what kind of stereo that you're using. The PO of my car had removed the center of the dash and the console, and I never got it back. So I am thinking about having the middle of the dash fabricated, from an aluminum billet or something of the like, but could you think of any other options that may be easier or more practical?

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I'm interested in how you plan on putting those speakers in the doors. You gonna slice out some of the metal inside to door to make room for the speakers, or what? Also, I'd like to know what kind of stereo that you're using. The PO of my car had removed the center of the dash and the console, and I never got it back. So I am thinking about having the middle of the dash fabricated, from an aluminum billet or something of the like, but could you think of any other options that may be easier or more practical?

 

Just search there are people that covered it on this site I believe, and I don't have a Stereo at the moment I plan on something Sony Possibly the Touch Screen Stereo they offer at walmart for about 700 bucks. Well I have the middle of the dash and console but both are pretty shoddy so I just cut out a piece of sheetmetal for the middle of the dash and plan on buying a new console through MSA.

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I have two 3 way 5" mounted from the ceiling.

I have a 10" low bass/sub tube under the dash where the heater/ AC used to be.

I have a 12" sub in the spare tire well.

1000 watt driving the sub.

1000 watt driving the low/ sub and the mids/highs.

I have two 1 Farad capacitors which you will also need if you are going to use some serious power. If you do not have them when the bass hits it will pull power from your fuel injection system and your car will run poorly.

 

Most of this stuff is used/ remanufactured/ home fabbed.

 

PIX;

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wow that looks remarkably unsafe in the event of an accident with the speaker on the roof like that..

 

or is the photo taken at a weird angle

 

I wear a seatbelt. Two of them actually made into a 4 point harness.

 

The 5" speakers do not rattle the ceiling becuase they are my highs.

 

As far as 6x9 speakers being driven by a 1000 watt amp with the gain down: As long as it is a 4 ohm amp you should be fine. Also take the time to get the crossover correct with what sound you want incoming and outgoing of these speakers, that makes a huge difference.

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The amp im going to be using is a Phoenix Digital amp, and it says that its 2 Ohms stable, and it has two crossover modes, LPF and HPF (low and high pitched frequencies) it also says that it has a bass boost. Im pretty good with electronics and units of electrical measurement, but it makes me wonder how the gain is turned down...is it just a big rheostat that reduces the amps... Whatever its not really important.

 

The amp says that it should be used with a stereo with a suitable resistance level 2-8 ohms. Now that falls within the 4 ohms range, but I don't see how to adjust it, or is it automatic, or does it not even matter? Sorry the information is so vague i've been looking for the amp online in hopes of not having to post these questions here, but as of late I am SOL.

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The amp im going to be using is a Phoenix Digital amp, and it says that its 2 Ohms stable, and it has two crossover modes, LPF and HPF (low and high pitched frequencies) it also says that it has a bass boost. Im pretty good with electronics and units of electrical measurement, but it makes me wonder how the gain is turned down...is it just a big rheostat that reduces the amps... Whatever its not really important.

 

The amp says that it should be used with a stereo with a suitable resistance level 2-8 ohms. Now that falls within the 4 ohms range, but I don't see how to adjust it, or is it automatic, or does it not even matter? Sorry the information is so vague i've been looking for the amp online in hopes of not having to post these questions here, but as of late I am SOL.

 

Solid state amplifiers in general, on their output side, only care if you connect them to too low an impedance. If this amp is stable into 2 ohms, then it will produce 1000w of power into a 2 ohm load, assuming a stated input, usually -10dBV at a line level input. If you connect a 4 ohm load instead, and feed the amp the same level input, the amplifier will produce less power, theoretically 500w. An 8 ohm load will produce 250w under the same conditions. If you have no connection to the speaker terminals (an infinite impedance) the amplifier will produce 0w (and it won't hurt the amplifier).

 

So the short answer is that the amplifier probably won't hurt your 6x9s. In fact, most speaker failures are from too small of an amplifier. The owner turns the small amp up too loud, it goes into clipping, which produces square waves into the speakers, which then overheat and fail. With a large amp, you just turn down the input (there's usually a potentiometer on the input), which reduces the sensitivity of the amplifier input, and it won't produce its full power. Because it's just idling along, it will never produce a square wave.

 

The LPF and HPF are not crossovers, they are filters (LPF = low pass filter), and they do exactly what they sound like they would do. You would use the HPF for your 6x9s, and set the hinge point for, say, 200Hz to start. Don't use the bass boost.

 

I'm not really familiar with your specific amp, but this looks like it from your description:

 

http://www.millionbuy.com/phdpd395.html

 

Bottom line, it will work fine with your 6x9s, as long as you don't get crazy and push it too hard.

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That's great news. Thanks for putting it into terms that I understand Oddjob. Thanks for the correction on the LPF/HPF. Now that I understand just what kind of conversions the power is going through, I gather that the "load" you are referring to is the Impedance of the speaker (2-8 ohms) which is the division factor for the amp's max power. That's going to show me what is the total max power being fed into the speakers, which is further modulated by the potentiometer on the input side of the amp.

 

So a speaker with a high impedance is going to reduce the wattage of the signal being fed into it, making it "safer", right? (correct me If I'm wrong, but doesn't basic physics dictate that this high impedance translates into a lot of heat?)

 

So this is the equation then:

 

(AmpWatts/SpeakerResistance)/PotentiometerResistance=TotalPower

 

....or something to that effect. Close enough though, eh? ^That's mostly just for me to get a handle how the power fluctuates in the system, as long as its close.

 

And the link is close, but my amp is about half that thing's length, all the same features, looks exactly the same in terms of style, but it's not the same. I don't know why, but mine has ceased to exist on the net....

 

Anyway, thanks again for all the advice. Oddjob, you have helped immensely.

 

Edit: This is the system I was looking at: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_2481_Rockford+Fosgate+Punch+P1692S.html

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