can anyone tell me what 3.5" speakers will fit in the stock mount in the doors with no mods. how many of you have done this and how much did it improve the stock system?

 

Alpine and Infinity seem to be a popular choice by members on this forum. Either will sound better than the Blose.

 

Boston Acoustics makes a very good 3 1/2 with 91db@1 watt and they make some the smoothest tweeters.

 

bump

are the 3.5's plug and play or will i have to do wiring work?

 

You can get the plug adaptors from Crutchfield (free with speaker purchase) or Partsexpress.com

 

Went with Infinity and am very pleased. You will have to buy the adapters.

 

Anyone got a PN or link for these plug adaptors?

 

If you're replacing the rear twiddlers you'd need an adapter plug if you don't want to splice the stock wires, but for the front 3.5" speakers you don't need anything. The stock front speakers attach to the stock wires with the two different sized spade plugs that are standard on most speakers (1/8" & 3/16" ???). Just pull the spades off of the stock POS paper Bose twiddlers, unscrew a few bolts, install the new speakers, then push the spades onto the new speakers. The hardest part is taking the door apart

As far as what speakers to get, ANY 2 way aftermarket speaker will be an improvement over the Bose speakers. Just be sure to keep the RMS rating of the one you choose under 50W, the stock HU doesn't put out much power

 

Ummm... no. You could put a speaker rated at 1000 watts in that location and it wouldn't matter. What DOES matter is the sensitivty of the driver and the impedance.

The speaker power rating only tells you that the speaker can handle that much power without adverse effects, given the proper crossover frequency and a clean source. What you said is like saying, "Don't put my 50 lb. dog on a chain rated at 70 lbs! He's not rated for that much chain!" Maybe you have a well-behaved dog that can stay on a 35 lb chain... but my dog is a beast so I want to make sure that he can't break the chain. See what I'm saying?

Impedance is the electrical resistance of the driver... not to be confused with the DC resistance of the voice coil. Basically, it is the amount of load that the amplifier will "see" during use. Impedance changes through out the frequency spectrum based on the speaker characteristics. (There is a TON of info on this on the net... more than I can get into here.) The biggest thing to remember is that your amplifier puts out a certain voltage and can only deliver a certain amount of current before damage will occur. Match your impedance properly, and you can dance within the specifications. (I.E. You can pull the maximum current, and ultimately power, without damage to your amplifier.)

Sensitivity is the dB output of the driver at a given voltage/distance. The higher the sensitivity, the louder the driver will be with a given input voltage. (Until the driver reaches it's limits, or the amplifier clips.) Having a speaker with a higher sensitivity is great... you get more for your money. The problem is, you will need to "tune" your system to have a balanced sound. You can do it in many ways... active/passive crossovers, L-pads, precision resistors, etc...

Let me know if this clears up a few things. Best regards.

Mark