Wasted $50 and an Evening

[Rick]

After reading the archives I went to the store to buy some Pioneer 3.5" dash speakers. These were supposed to be for tweeter purposes I guess. Anyhow, after digging in and replacing, all I replaced was some genuine AC Delco tweeters. Kinda maketh me think all me efforts were in vain!! Seriously doubt I gained anything by putting the Pioneers in. Since I don't know much about this there is a good chance i am wrong but just doesn't make sense to replace the tweets with these. It's not like I need high quality speakers for the highs. Maybe I'm wrong. Education sure is costly and time consuming.

 

[Rick]

I must have gotten the wrong ones. The grill is broken on the dash piece and sticking up because the speaker sticks out too far. The grill was cracked before but at least it would lay flat. Should I put the factory tweets back in?? Should they be replaced due to age?? I was expecting some junk paper cone speakers in their when I took the dash panel off.

Also, I have some 3-way crossovers. I'm going to hook up the dash speakers as tweeters, should I hook the door speakers up as midrange?

I have an Alpine amp on the way that is a 5 channel. I'm going to drive my 6x9's with it and future sub-woofer and drive the fronts directly from the head unit. Am I on track with this way of doing it?? Alpine CDA-7893 is next on my list!!

 

[TURBOV6]

You must had gotten the wrong ones these should fit and sound good http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/CarProducts/CarProductDetails/0,1429,18,00.html

And as for the crossover don't need then jusy paralell with the doors.

 

[GNandTTA]

Were the speakers in the car you took out tweeters? Sounds like they may have been. Do you have the factory speakers in the doors (Concert sound)? If so, there is a cap on the speaker leads going to the dash speakers. You will need to find that and either have no filter or get the correct cap for the 3 1/2's. They should fit with minimal modifications. Try bending the mounting tabs a little. Full range comming out of the dash is far better than just tweeter sound. That is old technology having tweeters in the dash and midranges in the doors.

 

[Rick]

Those are exactly what I have. The tweeter in the middle is pushing up the grill. I'll try bending the tabs(won't the plastic just break?). I haven't gotten to the door panel speakers yet but when I updated the speakers in the back they were stock and yes the speakers in the dash were AC Delco tweeters so I'd be really suprised if the speakers in the door were not stock.

Full range? I didn't think you wanted to feed bass to that small of a speaker. At least that is what I was understanding from the archives. Which is right?

I'll stick to the dash speaker problem until it is resolved before I move on to door speakers, crossovers and amp

Again, Thanks for helping!!

 

[Rayk]

Originally posted by Rick
I must have gotten the wrong ones. The grill is broken on the dash piece and sticking up because the speaker sticks out too far. The grill was cracked before but at least it would lay flat. Should I put the factory tweets back in?? Should they be replaced due to age?? I was expecting some junk paper cone speakers in their when I took the dash panel off.

Also, I have some 3-way crossovers. I'm going to hook up the dash speakers as tweeters, should I hook the door speakers up as midrange?

I have an Alpine amp on the way that is a 5 channel. I'm going to drive my 6x9's with it and future sub-woofer and drive the fronts directly from the head unit. Am I on track with this way of doing it?? Alpine CDA-7893 is next on my list!!

To answer your question about the 5 channel amp, yes that's a good way to set up a system if you want to have the convenience of only one amp. It's very similiar to my setup. I've got a 5 channel Kenwood. 2 channels drive the rear 6 x 9s, 2 channels drive the fronts, and the sub channel drives the 10" sub in the trunk. Why would you want to drive your fronts from the HU when you can use your amp?


If you're not going to go with components for your fronts and want to use the dash speaker for the tweeter, you can use your crossover to keep the lows from the dash speaker. If your dash speaker is a true tweeter then you want to feed it a high pass signal with a crossover somewhere in the 2000 to 4000 HZ range. IF it's a coaxial (i.e. full range) then you can lower the crossover to the 400-1000 HZ range. Sounds like yours are coaxial since you said they have a tweeter in the middle. Do they have a rubber or foam surround? Then they are full range speaks.

You should decide what kind of door speaker you are going to go with as this decision will affect what you do with the dash speakers. Good luck with your project.

 

[Rayk]

Originally posted by GNandTTA
Were the speakers in the car you took out tweeters? Sounds like they may have been. Do you have the factory speakers in the doors (Concert sound)? If so, there is a cap on the speaker leads going to the dash speakers. You will need to find that and either have no filter or get the correct cap for the 3 1/2's.

Are you sure there are Capacitors (bass blockers) in the factory concert sound wiring? The factory wiring diagrams don't show any and I've had 3 TRs with concert sound and none of them had caps. Have you actually seen them in a car? This would be very strange.

 

[Rick]

The cap was a big cap mounted on the tweeter itself. It wasn't in-line with the speaker wire. The way it looked is the speaker wire fed the cap and the output of the cap hooked to the speaker coil.
The Pioneers are co-ax. I'm going to put new coax 51/4's in the door. I'll have to do a search of what will fit.
How should I hook the front's up to the amp? Should I parallel the dash and door speaker? Will I need anything to protect the smaller speakers? I'd love to have full range on all speakers since I don't have a sub yet but don't wanna blow up th 3.5's either.
Let me know and thanks for all your help!!

 

[Rayk]

Originally posted by Rick
The cap was a big cap mounted on the tweeter itself. It wasn't in-line with the speaker wire. The way it looked is the speaker wire fed the cap and the output of the cap hooked to the speaker coil.
The Pioneers are co-ax. I'm going to put new coax 51/4's in the door. I'll have to do a search of what will fit.
How should I hook the front's up to the amp? Should I parallel the dash and door speaker? Will I need anything to protect the smaller speakers? I'd love to have full range on all speakers since I don't have a sub yet but don't wanna blow up th 3.5's either.
Let me know and thanks for all your help!!

The cap was hooked up properly (but not factory) as a bass blocker. I assume the negative wire went directly to the speaker and, if so, that was correct. You only need these capacitors on your small speakers if you aren't using an electronic crossover or some other passive crossover to control what sounds get to each speaker.

In hooking your speakers up to your 5 channel amp (is it the Alpine MRP-F320?) just hook the "A" side speakers to your crossover that you said you had. Then take the mid range output of the crossover to your door speakers and the high range output to your dash speakers. I don't know what the crossover frequencies are but you can post that here if you want to. Then take the "B" side speakers to your rear 6 X 9s. That will leave just the 5th channel which will go to your sub when you get one. If the 5th, sub channel is in the range of 120 to 150 watts, don't buy too big a sub because that's not a lot of power. My sub channel puts out 120 watts RMS and I've got it driving a Rockford Fosgate HE 10" sub and it has great bass. Not trunk shaking, but more than enough for good sound quality.

Even if your dash speakers are full range I still wouldn't let anything below about 400 HZ get to them because they are too small for the real low stuff. Keep us posted.

 

[GNandTTA]

In hooking your speakers up to your 5 channel amp (is it the Alpine MRP-F320?) just hook the "A" side speakers to your crossover that you said you had. Then take the mid range output of the crossover to your door speakers and the high range output to your dash speakers.

I would parallel wire the fronts. Let the doors get the full signal and put a 300 uf cap on the positive lead going to the 3 1/2's. This way you can get some midrange out od the dash speakers yet keep the bass freqs away from them. Don't treat the 3 1/2's as merely tweeters.

 

[Rick]

Yes, its the Alpine unit. I should be receiving it later this week. I'll fiddle with the Pioneers to see if I can get them to fit better and find a good set of door speakers.

I'll try hooking them up both ways to see which I like better. I doubt it will be too long before I have a subwoofer. I may get one that can set in the back that I can throw in the trunk or take out when the family is with me.

Thanks a bunch and I'll let ya know what door speakers I get. Any suggestions given my setup????

 

[Rayk]

Originally posted by Rick
Thanks a bunch and I'll let ya know what door speakers I get. Any suggestions given my setup????

Speakers are a very personal thing and also very dependent on budget. If you can find speakers you like at Best Buy or Circuit City they will give you are a replacement warranty if you don't like them after you listen to them in your car. Can't get any better deal than that!

The other advise I can offer on your door speakers is that there is a depth measurement that is important. Some of the window hardware is right behind the CII speakers in the door so the maximum depth of the 5 1/4" speaker from mounting surface to the back of the magnet is about 2 1/4" or thereabouts. And the factory speakers are mounted in a plastic basket which may be too narrow for the larger magnet sizes of current higher power speakers. If you remove the lower door panel and take one of your 5 1/4s out you'll see what I mean. You may have to cut out the rear portion of the basket, as I did, to get your new speaker in.

 

[Rick]

Just picked up a set of 5.25" Alpine's. I was gonna go with the CW Stealth but couldn't find any local dealers. Now comes the fun part of installing this stuff. Should be getting my amp Thursday. Since I am real impatient about reading instruction booklets, I think I'll download it and read it before the amp gets here!!