Im looking at doing a full system in my car soon, and was wondering if I was correct in thinking I had 8" speakers in the door from the factory. Ive looked all morning and I cant find any info on the subject...

I have some 6.5" Utopias I was going to use, but now Im thinking about these instead...

http://www.dynaudio.com/eng/auto/esotar/esotar110.php

those mounted in the stock spot in the top of the door (I have no idea if they will fit!)

And these in the door... again dont know if they will fit, but there is a HUGE woofer in my door already, and the car has a ton of bass, even if its muffled.

http://www.dynaudio.com/eng/auto/esotec/mw172.php

Any help would be great! I dont need passives, so buying the speakers seperate is fine as I plan to run the woofer and tweeter on seperate amps with an active 5.1 Alpine crossover.

Thanks everyone for any help before I start to order stuff. I figure speakers such as this will take 4-8 weeks to get, and I dont want a lot of downtime when I tear into it... hate rollin around doorpanel-less and no tunes etc waiting on gear... did that in HS for months and it SUCKED.

 

You really should post this in the 'General Corvette/Audio/Electronics' section. You'll get more helpful info about this conversion there.

Also, check out the 'stickys' in that section. There is LOTS of helpful information about what you need for a stereo upgrade there, with lots of suggestions.

 

PM forum member Shagster

 

didnt know that existed, thanks man!

Mods, can u move this so there arent duplicate threads? thanks much!

I did find out btw that our cars do have 8" door speakers.

 

No problem. I am getting ready to install component speakers, an amp, a sub-woofer, and a Kenwood HU and I learned a lot by checking out the threads there.

Also lots of knowledgeable and helpful audio gurus are there.

 

The dyns would be a better choice in stock-install locations. They aren't as... fickle as Focals.

However, its a waste of great speakers to just slap them in the doors...

 

Are you planning on just running they 2 way in the door? Although the Dyn's will sound great, I think there's some basic drawbacks to that type of system.

The Dynaudio 8" has good frequency range, but the upper end is somewhat limited, especially off axis. The 6.5" driver is a much better midrange in this type of configuration. But... the 6.5" is very limited on low end, so I'd understand wanting to go that route. It's the same tradeoff that GM makes - better bass, sacrificing mid-range.

But the bass will also be limited unless you do some modification to the door - filling in the gaps, and deadening the panels.

So you'll be spending a lot of money, to put in some great drivers, which will automatically be at a disadvantage.

My $0.02 would be to put in good drivers in the doors, but go with a 6.5" mid/woofer, and then add a subwoofer in back.

Or... an 8" Dyn with a 3" dome midrange and the Dyn tweeter in the door, with a subwoofer in back, would be Sweet! I'm doing something similar with some old school (German) MB Quart speakers.

 

Dont expect the 8" dynaudio to kick a lot of low end ***, either. But you can run it without a crossover if you're careful (I'm not, so I run mine at 50hz). They also like tons of power. When they do start pumping the low frequencies out, they start to sound pretty bad even with a heavily deadened door.

6.5 + sub is the way to go.

 

The 8" according to their website is designed to work in a freeair environment, I had planned to make some wood baffle plates to fill in the factory gap, and seal them up, then front mount the woofer.. the 8 rolls off naturally around 2K and the 6.5 carries up to about 3... the tweeter will run down to 2K so I dont see any point in really worrying about there being a gap. The vocals will just sound a little higher in the door coming from the tweeter more than the mid, and Im ok with that if it has a hard kick to the music. I listen to a lot of rock, and I like the hard hit more than loud screaming vocals...

I also dont think there is room for a 3 as well, but I am thinking about running a 3 and tweet in the back, as the 5 is almost 6" and it wont fit back there w/o a lot of modding to the panels which Im not gonna cut the car up. Every thing I add will be stealth and reversable. I may get the 6/3/1 and run the 6 and 3 in the door instead of the 8? I can run them all active or with the crossover. If I did the 3 way setup, Id prob run one of the large MS 250x2 at 12 volt amps to it and not give myself such a tuning hassle.

Here's the plan thus far. Ill post a pic of the amps since there are very few people that know what they are, unless you are a PG freak like I am from forever ago...

Amps are 4 ZX600Tis in two sinks, 150x8 at 14 volts/4ohm stereo Gonna run one amp to the front speakers active and one to the rears/sub:
Radio choices, still not made up mind if I want nav and ipod over pure SQ
Sub is a 10W3 version 3 4 ohm SVC in a JL Audio stealth box, goes in drivers corner of rear hatch area behind the wheel arch.

Anyway, thats my start. I have Focal Utopias in 6 and 5 inch if I decide NOT to use the 8 setup in front or the Dyn 3 ways, but 8s in front would give the car a lot richer sound, and I have the juice for them, so Im thinking on trying it at least.

 

How do you figure the 8s will sound richer? Because you can cross them over at 50 instead of 70hz and they roll off faster? Or do you plan on boosting the midbass frequencies a bit and want to take advantage of the cone area that way?

 

Ill probably cross them at 60-80, where ever they sound best blended with the 10, but I always have heard larger speakers produce lower frequencies easier... the 100-150 stuff should sound a lot more effortless with the 8 than a 6.5, even with the same power and crossovers... of course this is all theory, I just think the 8 would have more "punch". Hell if I know really, I just want it to sound great... figured the 8s would make it better than a 6.5 setup would.

ANOTHER option which is up in the air, is some 7" Focal Utopias a local guy might sell me... That'd prob be my first choice as I like the TN52 tweeters better than the more mellow Dyn 102s. Too many decisions...

 

I own dyn 8s and 6.5s.

There really isnt less distortion in the midbass region on the 8s. They both play pretty flat down to 100hz or so then the 6 drops off quicker than the 8.

Theoretically, the speakers should have the same output between crossover points at every frequency. The extra oomph would come from the lower frequency response. not from the midbass region.

The 8 would clearly pull ahead of the 6 in a 3 way situation. Assuming you ran them at 70-250hz each. - because you could make it louder with less distortion. (And louder relative to the system, much like how most people do subwoofers. Bad for sound quality, good for boom boom) You can't do this with the dyn dome mid though, it gets really nasty under 700hz and would explode if you tried to play it at 250hz.



You can see all this by looking at the response curve on dyn's website.

I'm currently running 375w per side to the 8s in my doors. I had originally planned to skip the sub.

I'd go back to the 6.5s if I wasn't so lazy.

Power in the 100-200hz region isn't an issue. And if midbass distortion bothers you, you will probably be tuning that range down even with the 6.5s

 

GREAT info man, this is what I was hoping for... Any chance I can come meet u somewhere and listen to your tunes before I buy? I live in Fremont for the time being (Im moving in a month or two back to DFW), would be cool to check out exactly the same speakers in the same car before I commit. If I dont do 8s or a 3 way setup, Ill just run my Focal 165Ws since they are free. I did check the Dyn website, and the 3 way crosses at 900/3000 I think on the highs, and the 2 ways cross at 2200... I know for certain that little soft dome 3 isnt going to play much under their 900 as the roll off is fast below that and as u said, sounds terrible under 700.

Do you have 8/3/1s in your car? if so, how'd u mount em all in there? what part of Sac are you in?

 

Roseville. I started with 6 + mid + tweet. Then tried 8 + mid + tweet.

I finally landed on 8 + tweet. I cut the 8 at 2.5 and the tweet at 3.2 (To avoid a nasty peak in the car)

If I was going to go back to 3 ways, I wouldnt use the dyn 8"... Its really designed for midrange duty and would be wasted as dedicated midbass (and inefficient)


I'm currently using the MW172 and MD102 speakers.

Before that, I had Focal 165w in the car.

 

damn u are like exactly the man to talk to for my plans, u've done it all!

So, honestly, the setup u have now, do u like it more than the 165Ws? If so why, and whats the large advantage? What amps and HU are u using? Do u have a sub as well?

Thanks again man, sorry to bug you.

 

No problem!

I'm using ARC KS300.4x2

one bridged 375x2 to midranges
other is 2 channels to tweeters
one channel bridge to Stereo Integrity 12" sub.

Head unit is the Alpine 9855 (set to active of course)


If I was to bench test and listen to the Dyns and Focals, I'd prefer the focals. I think they just sound a little bit cleaner with better top end and midrange.

However the Focal tweeters only had TWO places in my car where they sounded right. They are very very particular about install. However the Dyn tweets were really flexible.

And when thrown in with road noise, the Dyns sounded much better because they are a bit "thicker" or warmer sounding than the Focals. And a LOT more forgiving of the install environment.

 

Ive always thought Focals were more accurate than the Dyns too... but the Dyn does have a "sound" that is very nice.

The TN52 is supposed to point to the opposite seat in the car, drivers aimed at passenger and vise versa, did u have it like that? Will the top of the drivers door not accomodate this, or do you need to angle it somehow? I have the factory angle mounts, so I could maybe angle it inside the door somehow? Also I will have a processor so I can adjust for time allignment to maybe aid in the tweeters sound?

U dont still have ur 165Ws do you? I could use a set for my girls car and sell her K2s, theres really no comparision once u hear the Utopias.

I really appreciate all your advice, I think you saved me some cash. Im gonna bug this local guy to let his 180Ws go to me, maybe that will be a good compromise as Ive heard they are about as good as it gets. I called Focal and they dont make a 180mm driver anymore, I guess there wasn't enough cars that could utilize a larger speaker w/o huge modifications, I dunno.

 

I have the TN51s, i believe the TN52s are a little more forgiving. I liked them best high on the pillars aimed directly at each other. Or in the footwells aimed at opposite headrests, but there's obvious blocking issues there.

I always felt like the Focals would have been served better if the tweeter was crossed over a little higher. I never did try them active.