If you have installed aftermarket front speakers, how/where did you mount your aftermarket speakers?

--Spike

 

Feedback for a future product idea? Trying to understand the point of this lol

I have mine in stock locations but would like to move to door pods at some point, kick's take up too much room in the wrong area for my taste.

 

Mine are in the kicks. Sucks losing the dead pedal, but you don't notice it after about a week, and it means you can avoid a lot of deadening in the doors (still some to cut road noise) and it made it sound 9000x better than stock location.

 

My MB Quarts are in the OEM locations to preserve the cabin ergonomics. That was almost 10 years ago, and they're still going strong. Together with the USX-2100 amp, they are some of the best mods I ever added to the Z.

 

Hertz HSK163:

6.5s in the doors
Mids and tweeters in the kicks

 

I still have the stockers in place, but since the CD player broke, I might be replacing some electronics soon.

 

Thank you for your reply. I do appreciate this. And… In fact, you answered your own question inside your reply to this thread.

There is no attempt here at market research for any product. The point is simply gathering statistics for the first time on my350z.com asking members where they mounted aftermarket front speakers. This has not been done before.

--Spike

 

I'd considered door pods but wanted to keep things as factory looking as possible. I even found some little JL Audio tweeters that fit PERFECTLY in the factory location.

Not a fan of kicks... I know WHY they should sound better down there, but just seems like a really bad place to stick speakers.

 

@JMII, my sincere thanks for the honest reply.

I’m trying to gain accurate stats when people install aftermarket speakers. Audiophiles insist that it’s essential to install aftermarket speakers in door pods or kicks, but I do not see the general buyer market accepting the additional cost (which can be quite high).

Door pods and kicks provide better sound (I’ve tested, and it’s significant), but that difference is obviously not important for the majority of owners. That last statement is based upon the low number of responders here. I hope we can get more members to vote in this poll.

--Spike

 

Kicks sound great, but mine take a beating on the passenger side because people don't know they're there.

 

Bingo.

My thoughts on car audio has always been: a car is terrible place to listen (critically) to music, as you are in a very compromised environment. So the real question becomes what compromises are you willing to make. And how good is "good enough".

I'd wager the average listener just doesn't care (sonically) about the differences between door vs kicks. Because just upgrading to decent speakers, using proper crossover points, eliminating rattles and applying proper equalization gets you 70% of the way there. Then throw in some kind of time-alignment processing (I'm running Alpine's Imprint) and you gain another 20% maybe. However that last 10% is the hardest... you need a big budget and a really skilled installer.

As with anything - given enough time and money my car could sound "perfect" (with everything hidden under false floors, stitched grill covers, etc) but in all honestly its just not worth it. After all its a CAR and not a concert hall.

Personally my biggest grip right now are rattles, even with just an 8" sub @ 250 watts the rear view mirror, door panels and various other bits are killing the experience. And yes I've already dynamatted the worst places, but tracking down all the little plastic bits that are squeaking in the hatch is going to take serious time. Sorry for going off topic.

 

I swapped out the stock fronts in the door and sail panel on my 06. I installed the tweeters in the sail panels, dremeled a whole large enough to flush mount them. Installed the 6.5" mids in the stock door locations. Used the 1" MDF speaker rings that Zenclosures makes to get the right mounting depth. Then drilled out the rest of the blocked holes in the stock speaker grill with my dremel. The crossovers are mounted low and to the rear on the door roughly in the void that the armrest pokes out from. Ran all fresh wiring throughout and used the stock routing path through the rubber bellows and the wire blocks at the door to body interface. Dremeling out the requisite hole in the plastic junctions were a snap everything looks factory except the tweets.

As for the rears I put in the SR65s in the stock locations with new wiring. They sound great with the Alpine 10" SWR-1043D sub in the Zenclosure under bar sub box in the hatch area.

 

^^ Nice work... Thanks for posting detailed info. Your description helps the community.

--Spike

 

I have Infinity Kappa Perfects. I like to always find stuff to do on my car so I decided to try all of the locations one at a time. I started with the stock location. I sound deadened the doors to start with. Sounded better than stock Bose speakers. Then last year I made some door pods. difference was very noticeable . Just this week I have started working on Kicks. should be done within a couple of weeks. (i take my time to do stuff lol). I expect it to sound better after all the research and opinions. my problem would be what to do with the door pods then. I can't take them off because i had drilled some areas that cannot be covered if i put the stock grills on. so I would leave them there dummy for now until i am ready to move on to a 3-way setup. another advantage i will get is to be able to locate the crossovers out of the door and still be close to the speakers. I had them fall off a couple times. (they are double-sided taped). I hope to post my experience when i am done

 

I have Polk component speakers in the stock locations, but I'm putting in my pioneer TSD's soon.... When I do I'm changing the tweeter location to the flat spot on the a-pillar up on the dash by the windshield for better imaging. Eveything should sound to be close to eye level and as far forward as possible when I get done.

 

Focal 3 way set. Tweet and 4" in kick pods and 6.5" in stock door location with mdf spacer.... and I still can use the deal pedal, even with my size 13 shoes. ;-)

 

Currently- Polk db6501's (shallow mount) w/ 6.5" in factory location via mdf spacer, tweets installed in homemade "pods" made from pvc endcaps, attached at bottom of a-pillar and aimed cross-cabin (to use on/off axis to help equalize volume without changing balance at headunit).

Soon- will be making my own fiberglass door pods to mount and aim Image Dynamics CTX65cs, same setup w/ the tweets as current.

On the topic of compromise, when mounting the woofers/mids in the factory location or in door pods, and the tweeter at the bottom of the a-pillar in some sort of cup or pod that can be aimed, the path lengths between the two are almost identical, and thus should not require much t/a other than the usual left/right. When using kicks, I'd imagine it would be a different story.

 

Put another set of mids in there playing from like, 65-200hz. More up front bass yo!