Has anyone ran these before and can you do it while retaining the factory grilles??
Mount them under the rear deck and use some type of spacer to prevent them from wobbling or rattling. I had some mounted for years with some weatherstrip foam around the edges to provide a seal, and a bungee cord per side to hold the speakers in place, using the factory mounting spots. The stock rubber things were way too small to use with the aftermarket speakers which were both taller and had much larger magnets. You could also just drill 8 holes and run some bolts through the rear deck. The bungee and foam thing was a 5-minute install.
They worked until I went to some infinite baffle subs and ran only 2 channels up front for better sound quality.
I have them rigged under the deck with zip ties using the rubber mounts in the stock location. Sounds decent but rattling is driving me nuts. What I was wondering if the speaker is bigger than the hole 6x9 vs 6x8 i think, would the speaker physically hit the metal mount?
picked up some of this stuff..should be interesting to see how it works out
http://www.amazon.com/Thermwell-Prods-Mortite-Weatherstrip-Caulking/dp/B000LNMQI0
I mounted mine in one screw hole, then I lined the outside edge of the speaker with double sided sticky tape to help hold it in place and stop rattles. Its basicaly tape covered foam. Then I sheetmetal screwed two or three more holes. I only used 6X9's because they were cheaper then 5X7's.
Are you screwing them in from the bottom or the top? I was trying to figure out how to take off the grille? Does the entire carpeted rear deck come off?
If you remove the high brake lamp and interior panels on either side of the car, the carpet, and attached grills, can come out in one piece.
I mounted my 6x9's from underneath, and just drilled new holes to match the bolt pattern of the 6x9's. Then just bolted them in place, with an 1/2in MDF spacer covered in dynamat between them and the sheetmetal. Dynamatted the entire rear deck as well, made a huge difference in sound quality. I also have 4inch speakers installed in my dash, with no hacking of anything whatsoever.
What speaker fit in? Tell me more......
This won't be for everyone. I'm an Audiophile and have to have killer sound in all my rides, so I went as big as I could possibly go in 4 inchers, so these don't just drop into the stock holes without any modification. No Hacking, but there is a bit of grinding and reshaping required. :) Can't remember the exact model number, but they are Alpine 2-way 4in Speakers, 75w RMS, and with the large magnets. The plastic dash structure under the speaker grilles did have to be slightly clearanced to fit these large magnet speakers in the holes themselves. You only have to take out around 1/4in out of each corner, not even to the stock bolt holes, and they will drop right in. Then, I used a scoshe adapter plate to bolt them down in the stock bolt holes. On the inside of the dash, on the DS, the side of the magnet hits the Dashes inner structure, so you have to grind away a little of the dashes inner plastic structure right to the left side of the speedo, not much though, only around a 1/4in of material needs to be removed. On the PS the magnet hits the top of the blower ducting inside the dash pretty badly, so you need remove the ducting and use a torch to heat up the area just enough that it become pliable, and then use a hammer to push a 1/2in deep dent into it right below the speaker. The duct won't leak air if you don't burn a hole through the plastic, and now the speaker will drop right in. If you accidentally burn a hole in the ducting, metal HVAC Tape can fix the hole permanently. If you do it right, they fit underneath the stock speaker grilles, and you can't tell any difference from stock apearance wise, sound quality is much better though.
So you're an audiophile, but you don't try to run two/stereo point sources? How does that work? :p
I won't be using dash speakers in my next build. They obviously help bring the sound stage up and forward, but they are pretty bad for sound quality. In the dash, you really only need/want tweeters anyway, so 3" or 4" won't matter. The problem with these cars is that you can't really do kickpanel mounts to get the more ideal driver distances, unless you remove your e-brake and even then, we have far less room down in that area than a lot of cars. Our shallow windshield/dash depth also makes a-pillar mounted tweeters do a pretty lousy job and severe time alignment adjustments are needed to fix it. Then you still have problems with speaker positioning and distances.
I don't think our cars can ever have exceptional audio systems and it sucks because I'd love to get closer to the sound quality of sitting between two powerful, detailed speakers in an acoustically controlled room. If we remove the front seats and sit in the back center, it can get pretty good...
ASSume much?, lol!
The definition of an audiophile is a person enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction so one could say that sound quality is all in the ear of the listener. I have heard what others swear up and down is mind altering system and don't think much of it as it images wrong for me. I like the dash speakers and run off axis all the time but that is my personal taste. I don't thumb my nose at a system unless its just a bunch of bass and harsh upper end. I have built systems that get tickets and can be heard from a mile away and done the factory replacement stuff, it all depends on the person and their ear as to what they like and then it comes to their wallet.
They make adapter plates for all kinds of speakers and 5x7 to 6x9 and 6x8 to 6x9 are very common place.
http://www.soaap.com/electronics/824200-metra6x95x76x8speakeradapter-p-375.html
Darren
I have some Altec Lansings that bolted right into the dash in my 87 LS. Sounded great to me. I have them in their box now in the basp00get waiting to go into another Cougar.
Dumb question im trying to get to the rear deck and ive removed the side trim pieces but it seems like the back seats are keeping it in place..where are the bolts to remove the back seats lol??
You have to pop the bottom cushion out and then you will see that the upper seat cushion is held on with some torx headed bolts at the bottom of the upper seat cushion.
Darren
I just haven't heard a dash speaker that has anything decent for a tweeter. The factory system was a killer setup for most people - the EQ got people what they want and the dash helped make the music more "in your face". I think many jack up the bass and highs, which the dash speaker helps on one end of the spectrum.
I also believe that the term "audiophile" doesn't mean much. I think most consumers simply get to a stage of good enough, and don't care (and good for them). I try to only think of it as an attempt to reproduce the recording as it was originally recorded. This has little to do with stereo separation or time alignment, as you don't get that if you're sitting in front of an un-amplified band. This doesn't mean much for most popular music today as much of it is electronic, but there is still music out there that has a night and day difference between the normal and high end equipment. I think "audiophile" has come down to more than the audio - now it seems to mean more about the equipment, and making sound waveshiznit your ears at the same time? What does this have to do with the original musicians? Who knows. Perhaps only arrays of speakers, although "destroying sound quality", can help reproduce the acoustical environment one gets when listening live.
I stick with thinking that most consumers are good with some 6-7" in the doors, whatever in the dash if there is space, and something bigger in the back to help out lower frequencies. In most vehicles, road noise destroys the sound quality anyway, so why bother.
I think 6x9's are also great in vehicles for most music that isn't boom boom.
Amen my brother and +1. Could not have said it better myself.
Darren
Referring to the OP question, would changing to 6 x 9 in the rear help a little with the bass (on a stock system)? Or is the size of the speaker irrelevant and dependant more on the type ?
Bigger speakers provide more bass. You can also use more excursion. More air moving can get you bass.
6x9's wont really be doing a lot.
An 8"ish sub in the rear will do million times more. Never under estimate what a sub can do.
Also, having speakers in the rear is totally useless.
Spend it all on a good front stage and sub.
All rear speakers do is ruin the sound stage :)
I'm a little bit "anti" 6x9's. Rather get a good kit system for the front imo. And ofc amp for that.
Wayyyy back when I owned my Mazda mx6 I had one 15" woofer in the trunk mounted to the (perforate/modified) seat facing forward for base, two 6"x9" speakers at the rear window, two 4"x4" or 5"x5" (I don't remember) in the doors along with two tweeters and two 3" speakers up front. Two Alpine bi-amplifiers, at a total of just over 500 watts, a Alpine equalizer and an Alpine radio/cassette player. My speakers were Polk Audio. That was a long time ago. I really loved that system! Now, I need to put a system in my Cougar. I've got some homework to do, because I have no idea what's out there anymore.
If I remember right it was best to go with component speakers. The more bass, the bigger the speaker. Bass in back, mids. on doors, and tweeters on doors or up front. If you put too big a speaker for the mount, it will most likely sound led. At the least you will not get the full potential of the speaker.
Music is generally stereo. For best sound quality, you want a single point source up front with stereo imaging, and the subs help supply the bottom-end. The subs can work wherever since it is omni-directional, but other things like rattles actually localize the subs on other locations.
In a car, my opinion is that you can most successfully setup a 2-way front soundstage with a tweeter and quality 7-8" midrange/midbass driver, then the sub(s) in the trunk help provide the lowend. 3-way front soundstage setups can sound better (say 1" tweeter, 3" midrange, 8" misbass), but most people can't tune it correctly.
To most people, having sound coming from more directions sounds "better", so just stick whatever in the doors for midbass (coaxial or component is fine), use the dash speaker locations, and if you want, mount rear speakers, then go subs. It is good enough, but it won't win any sound quality competitions. EQ's are also often used for more bass and highs, so a harsh/metallic tweeter and boomy sub is the best to many.