Component front speakers in a box?

[Piece-it pete]

I was lucky enough to land a super nice set of 6-1/2" component speakers for a song, Clif Designs QX6500c.



I'm thinking woofs in the doors of course. Has anyone used tweeters alone in the dash instead of 3-1/3"? Does it sound OK?

Also, these have a very nice external crossover, but they are pretty big. I'd like to mount them up under the dash somewhere. Any ideas where?

Pete

[tjc78]

That crossover is huge. Way back when I put components in my 89 GM, the crossover was small enough to put inside the door (wire-tied securely away from anything). I mounted the tweeter high up on the door panel and IIRC disabled the dash speakers. Looking back, the tweeters were probably a bit too low but it still sounded damn good.

[mrltd]

It would be easy to put the tweets inthe dash, but I don't think it'd be very good for imaging or sound quality. The tweeters are supposed to be near the woofer...

I just flush mounted mine in the door panels.

[Piece-it pete]

Thanks guys. There's no way that crossover is that huge, I didn't notice that. It's pretty big though. Ditto for the tweeter, the pic must be cut and pasted.

So the 3-1/2 location isn't ideal, it occurred to me that it might muffle them at least. My door panels leave something to be desired though. I didn't want to do any custom install. Perhaps for now I'll just put them on top of the dash pad and refit during the next get-off-my-ass cycle.

I thought perhaps if I pull the glovebox out I'd find a bit of room back there for the crossovers, I don't remember.

Pete

[gadget73]

I did basically that with my S10. It sounds fine. Bass is non-directional anyway, and honestly the doors are kind of a crap location for speakers to begin with, along with really any other location in a car.

[85crownHPP]

They would sound fine under the dash - the sound will bounce off the glass well enough. Who says tweeters need to be near the woofers? Whats the point of a component speaker then? Just curious...
To me they sound the best up high - I have mine up high on the A-pillars, with that and the angled bezels in the the doors it sounds great, you cant even tell where the music is coming from (this is ideal afaik).
Mounting the crossovers in/on the door isn't so great - I did, and the passenger side one rattled apart on the inside, I guess from assholes slamming my door.

[1987cp]

My '87 P72 has vestigial tweeters in the dash from the PO's stereo install. He ran matching 6.5s (I think) in the doors and rear deck and a sub in the trunk, and tweeters in the dash. (Actually, I could measure, as the rears are still there.) No clue what it sounded like, though; I'm the cretin who removed the amplifier-mountey pine board glued to the trunk shelf and thinks it's a novelty to listen to NPR when I borrow my wife's car.

[MrMarquis]

I've got subs in the doors and tweeters in the dash, it sounded just fine to me...before they blew that is; I didn't know that I needed a crossover. I was such a noob...

[tjc78]

They would sound fine under the dash - the sound will bounce off the glass well enough. Who says tweeters need to be near the woofers? Whats the point of a component speaker then? Just curious...
To me they sound the best up high - I have mine up high on the A-pillars, with that and the angled bezels in the the doors it sounds great, you cant even tell where the music is coming from (this is ideal afaik).
Mounting the crossovers in/on the door isn't so great - I did, and the passenger side one rattled apart on the inside, I guess from assholes slamming my door.

The trick is to try and get the L/R speakers as close to equal distance from the driver's ears as possible. This is obviously tricky to do when you are sitting on one side of a car. Mounting the tweeters high up helps, also I have seen custom speaker pods done down low with the tweeter angling up. The soundstage can be pretty impressive when done right. My 89 GM I mounted the tweeets on the door panel IIRC around the edge of the door pull toward the dash. The stage was a bit low and it was tough to not "localize" the driver's side tweeter.

The absolute best way to do it is to get some removable double stick tape and experiment with placement. When you are happy mount them. If I would have done this, I wouldn't have drilled the holes and mounted mine where I did at the time.

[Piece-it pete]

NPR? 'Today we discuss the plight of the Ugandan Raping Lizard with expert Dr. I. M. Agenius.' I like some of their music shows, I remember one tune, 'who dat here like fried chicken', no kidding. The Prairie Home Companion is pretty good too.

Great advice. Heck with the car stationary I can move them around with blu-tack. When I get 'a round tuit' I'll report back, hopefully this weekend if I feel better (can't wait!). Then, jam some fried chicken lol.

Pete

[91waggin]

They would sound fine under the dash - the sound will bounce off the glass well enough. Who says tweeters need to be near the woofers? Whats the point of a component speaker then? Just curious...

The point of component speakers is to make it so that a single speaker diaphragm doesn't have to try to reproduce both the highest and the lowest frequencies at the same time, especially when that diaphragm probably isn't very good at reproducing either. Placement of the speakers is a different issue.

[1987cp]

I've got subs in the doors and tweeters in the dash, it sounded just fine to me...before they blew that is; I didn't know that I needed a crossover. I was such a noob...

Sounds like you're better off than me; I still barely have a concept of what a crossover is.

Though granted, when all you've ever done is run speaker wire from a receiver straight to a 2-way or 3-way unit that you treat as a black box, whatever happens with the signal past that point is something about which you neither know nor care!

[Piece-it pete]

Truth be told I don't worry too much about imaging etc in a car, I've always found it too noisy. I just want it to sound good

Next miniquandry, do I take a gamble on an older good quality used 4 channel amp, or buy 2 middling quality but NOS 2 channel amps?

Btw, a crossover simply keeps the low notes from going to the tweeter, and keeps high notes from going to the woof. Perhaps more accurately it sends the frequencies to the driver that the manufacturer (or home diyer) desires in an attempt to keep the driver in optimum operating range. Sometimes it is also used to lower the output to one driver, so that the actual output of all drivers is the same.

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

Well I picked up two middling 40 wpc NOS little amps. They were CHEAP, pleased my inner Pollack. Hope they don't sound that way, yeah right. If they're that bad I'll give them to kids.

I'll report back on them too.

Pete

[Piece-it pete]

Component speakers are IN.

Kinda. I'm waiting for the amps for a more permanent install, and wanted to play with tweeter placement.

They do sound really nice, not even broken in yet. Playing the radio the tweets are a bit harsh, so I'm going to put them under the dash like stock (the exposed wires look like crap anyway).

The crossovers are in the glovebox One of them has what I'm guessing is a cracked solder joint somewhere, but it must be near the speaker ground terminal, as when I ran the speaker ground directly to the radio speaker return ground it works. I looked behind the glovebox and it looks like I should have no problem mounting them.

The woofs don't exactly fit either, but they're in and relatively secure. Sometime when the weather is better perhaps I'll try to get them 'nice'.

Further updates as work progresses.

Pete