Rear speakers

[jogon]

Ive got one of these under the false floor which sounds great considering it's size http://www.crutchfield.com/S-IIuCow2CPaG/p_13693133/JL-Audio-CP108LG-W3v3.html
Only negative is that it makes access to the battery a little tight as it sits close to where the flap opens up.

 

[paul_c]

I've now finished installing the rear speakers, including a 300W amp to power them; and a 500W amp to power a 12" sub-bass. I'll let the pics do the talking:

A little spacer was used to seal between the speaker and the door card, 4mm ply glued onto the door card then speaker screwed on through both plywood and door card




Tweeter - loads of adapters/different fittings provided. Found one which clipped into place




The crossover is stuck to the door card but a piece of ply is needed to make it flat, over the plastic melted fitments




Found a path for the phono cables and remote on, from head unit to boot

 

[paul_c]

Note the way extra cables are attached once the first is through the gap


Able to use the path of other wires


To get into the rear door, I used a length of 2.5mm2 mains single to go through the concertina and rubber fittings (tight!)


Then soldered the speaker cable onto this. The speaker cable was 2.5mm2, on reflection I could have used thinner okay




A short (but long enough to make attachment easy) length had ring terminals crimped/soldered/heat shrink on, to connect to the crossover


50A maxi fuse & holder, attached via 6mm ring onto battery terminal


The amplifiers were mounted to the floor/carpet using M4 bolts

 

[paul_c]

Messy but getting there!


Sub-bass enclosure sits neatly in the boot

 

[paul_c]

Would it not be better and easier just to upgrade the front speakers or add a subwoofer? Is going to be a lot of work to add speakers to the rear and the benefits won't really pay off unless you're going to be sat in the back of the car.

Trust me, I can hear the difference with the rear speakers!

 

[bretti_kivi]

Please bolt the sub down.

- Bret

 

[JIGSAW]

Hi Paul

Just thought id ask why you fitted the speakers and mounting plates you made to the door cards, surely it would of been better to mount them to the inner alloy door cover panel , that way the speakers use the doors inner volume like a speaker box and hopefully the speaker resonates correctly or was there a fitting issue why you chose this method, would be good to know as ile be installing my own system soon and any extra information would be appreciated,
I have not really had a good look see yet bar the connection plug, as i debated about wiring through the original plug between the pillar and door , but by drilling out the spare connector holes in the multiplug so i could feed the heavyier ofc cabling through with no joins but leaving an extra foot or so of cable incase it ever had to come apart again.

Gary

 

[paul_c]

Hi Paul

Just thought id ask why you fitted the speakers and mounting plates you made to the door cards, surely it would of been better to mount them to the inner alloy door cover panel , that way the speakers use the doors inner volume like a speaker box and hopefully the speaker resonates correctly or was there a fitting issue why you chose this method, would be good to know as ile be installing my own system soon and any extra information would be appreciated,
I have not really had a good look see yet bar the connection plug, as i debated about wiring through the original plug between the pillar and door , but by drilling out the spare connector holes in the multiplug so i could feed the heavyier ofc cabling through with no joins but leaving an extra foot or so of cable incase it ever had to come apart again.

Gary

I didn't think about mounting in the inner alloy door trim, not sure if there's clearance in there either (eg from the window winding down), or the mounting arrangements would leave gaping holes. Also there is the issue of weather protection too. Ideally I wanted to find a "pod" which I could have bolted to the door, same as fronts or stock rears, but I couldn't find any (at a sensible price). Making a pod would have been more difficult than mounting to the plastic door trim.

I didn't do an exact calculation but small speakers don't need that much air space.

I'd not drill/damage the original connector, since there is space below it. My cable is thick but made it through this space with no worries, the main hassle is getting it through the concertina'd section and the other seal too.

 

[JIGSAW]

Thanks for the info paul,

It looks like ile be laminating loads off 22mm ply together and make my own spacers up or as mentioned earlier about ripping the guts out of a standard speaker and using them, by the looks of things the standard speakers do use the door volume for resinance but someone with more knowledge with have to confirm this and how much difference it would make.

Gary

 

[bretti_kivi]

if you want anything approaching bass, the rear wave MUST be isolated from the front one. Otherwise they - generally speaking - start cancelling each other out. Dipole speakers aren't an exception to this - even they use a solid front baffle. There are a bunch of ways to stop the waves meeting.
The door card will be "acceptable" because it's pretty tight onto the door, so it turns into a leaky box. Which again will not deal with power and can't deal with big bass unless the speaker driver is specifically designed to do this, which you won't know until you try it.
The far better way to do it is with an adapter onto the inner door skin. There are minimal moisture issues because the whole thing is sealed off from teh window mech - even mine appear to be still sealed - and this will give you around 14l to play with in the front doors. Whether your speaker driver wants or needs this much space is another question entirely.
Personally, I need a bit more than that which is why I built an adapter set a long time ago which was raised up around 75mm from the door and replaces much of the door pocket. I have a set of Seas ER18RNXs for the front doors; they may yet find their way in over Christmas. I'll have a set of SB Acoustics' SB17NRXC35-8s here next week which are intended for a pair of floorstanders; I may well try those in the car to see how well they work. Those adapters are 9-15mm plywood and reinforced with fibreglass to get a really solid mount to the door skin and the door frame itself.

The Fi is a great example of why mounting to a solid base is important - the front woofers are on a plastic inner skin and vibrate the door panels like crazy. So you lose a lot of energy which should be bass to buzzing and vibrating your arms...

- Bret

 

[JIGSAW]

Thanks Bret for all your input,

I just examined one of the rear doors i purchased from steve for my electric windows and sure enough they are the same as you discribe the fronts and have there own little alloy encloser as such inside the door so no trouble with anything interfearing with the window glass or frames, so a nice ply spacer will make do nicely or even triming the hole alloy panel so the speaker can bolt staraight to it for clearance to the door trim as looks best way forward for my own upgrades. From what i understand enclosure size and the resonance and volumes play a big part it the sound quality.

I agree with you bret with the tweeters as also noticed on my other A2 at higher speaker volumes the trim does vibrate, so maybe some further packing or reinforcement of the standard trim is required to improve things even further ..

Gary

 

[paul_c]

Thanks Bret for all your input,

I just examined one of the rear doors i purchased from steve for my electric windows and sure enough they are the same as you discribe the fronts and have there own little alloy encloser as such inside the door so no trouble with anything interfearing with the window glass or frames, so a nice ply spacer will make do nicely or even triming the hole alloy panel so the speaker can bolt staraight to it for clearance to the door trim as looks best way forward for my own upgrades. From what i understand enclosure size and the resonance and volumes play a big part it the sound quality.

I agree with you bret with the tweeters as also noticed on my other A2 at higher speaker volumes the trim does vibrate, so maybe some further packing or reinforcement of the standard trim is required to improve things even further ..

Gary

I agree, adapters bolted directly to the door will be better. I did think about this for a while, one of the issues was to make it accurately enough to fit into the space - the available space is only just enough for a 6.5" (16.5cm) speaker to fit into this, with a couple of mm to spare. So you'll need to come up with some way of accurately determining where the speaker should be located. Are you planning to fit 13cm or 16.5cm speakers?

 

[JIGSAW]

I agree, adapters bolted directly to the door will be better. I did think about this for a while, one of the issues was to make it accurately enough to fit into the space - the available space is only just enough for a 6.5" (16.5cm) speaker to fit into this, with a couple of mm to spare. So you'll need to come up with some way of accurately determining where the speaker should be located. Are you planning to fit 13cm or 16.5cm speakers?

Nope a we bit bigger than 16.5cm, more like 23cm 3way pioneers and before you ask ive just tried one and with a little bit of fetling in and trimming of the inner alloy door cover they will just fit in by a few mm hear n there so a very tight fit but the trim still goes back on and they sit very snuggly into the door too..

As for location , i removed the rubber seal that covers the speaker hole , as no rear speakers fitted, placed the speaker into the hole upside down front first, and moved around until perfect clearance with the trim clip holes , marked around with a marker pen , remove the speaker and measure in from the line 2cm to allow for the securing lip on the speaker , little bit of trimming required with tin snips or a nibbler , position the speaker , mark and drill out the fitting holes, then all you need is some speed nut U clips taped behind with a blob of pu sealer to glue in place and some bolts to secure the speakers, a little bit of door frame foam seal around the edges to seal everything up nicely. Job done

 

[paul_c]

any pics?











.

 

[JIGSAW]

Hi Paul ,
Yeh i can take some pictures and post them up in the next few days... ive one while trying for size for now so you can see fitment .
I bought 4 of these Pioneer speakers about 15years ago, although a tad heavy and rather big they do sound great , even when the kids got hold of the remote and turned them right up to beyond deafening as prefer the deeper richer sounds from low down volume myself..
Ive already made a speaker box/enclosure for the boot which goes over the spare wheel positioned in the middle so i have 1 speaker each side with its own enclosure and was debating about making a custom enclosure underneath each side of the dash , but sadly not enough room so all i was left with was cutting through into the front underfloor and have the speakers in the tops of the access pannels , which i decided against due to foot trafic ect and was left with front or rear doors ..



note the speaker just resting in the bottom of the standard hole and needed triming to position corectly so the trim fits and clears all the trim clip holes but when the speaker was lifted slightly the fitment was spot on. the recess into the door is just over 3inches so plenty of room and clearance when fitted correctly.

Regards Gary