[BigDean]

Hi Everyone. I'm in need of a little advice please : I've replaced the front door speakers with a set of 6.5 inch 3-way Kenwoods, and merrily cut away the plastic "bass reflex" type housing that the factory speaker fits in until I had a solid mounting point to screw the new 6.5 incher in there, and put it all back together. I was dissapointed with the results - tinny and flat sounding - and a friend of mine who is into hi-fi tells me that the problem is that the speaker is no longer sealed - i.e. from the drivers seat you're getting sound waves coming from the front of the speaker, but also reflections coming off the back of the speaker which are interfering with the sound. Makes sense I guess.

So now I've pretty much sealed the speaker into the plastic housing that the factory speaker fits into with foam weather strip and it has improved it quite a bit, but the sealing job isn't quite 100% (I cut away quite a lot of plastic!). What advice can anyone give me ? I hear quite a lot of people have upgraded to 6.5 inch speakers up front, what do you all do ? The other option is to mount the speaker onto the door panel, but I can't think of an easy/effective way to do that either...

Thanks in advance.

Dean.
Johannesburg, South Africa.
95 JDM Supra RZ, 6sp TT. White.
3 inch exhaust & downpipe, MBC at 1bar, US stock twin turbos.

 

[#1SomeGuy]

What you need to do is put a baffle of some sort behind the speaker. Sealing off the front waves from the rear waves like your friend said will greatly improve midbass response. How to seal it off, well after sounddeadening and weather stripping...fibreglass door pods are the best way

 

[supra400hptt]

Most door speakers are designed to play in a volume the size of a door. I made the mistake of sealing 6.5" in the kick panels with little volume. Those foam baffels would probably do the same. I've got the 6.5" in the doors similar to what you have done. I cut away at the box until they fit. What you have to do is seal the inner door so the sound cant get out and leak into the car. If any of the sound radiating from the back of the speaker makes it out it will cancel the sound from the front of the speaker. After mounting the box back in I ran expandable foam all around the edge to seal the box to the door. Then I used sound deadening mat to seal up all of the little holes and the big open area where the door handle mounts. I also put in two layers of sound deadening on the outside portion of the door and some acoustic foam that is suppose to absorb sound waves. Basically, make the door into a big sealed speaker box. Don't let any rear sound escape and cancel the sound waves from the front of the speaker. You're midbass should improve dramatically. You can't rely on the door panel to help things unless the speaker is sealed up to the back of it which isn't practical. Oh, I filled that speaker box with cement also. So when lower frequencies are played, the box does not vibrate compromising the speaker output. Good luck. You just need to deaden and seal the door up.

 

[yellow97tt6spd]

i modified the factory boxes. how to do it is listed in the faq section at the top of the main page... i was told it would be too small a box but they sound good to me...

 

[captaintonyd4]

I've had a similar experience with toyota speakers. Those enclosures make a difference. Rope caulking can be used to seal voids. I comes in strands. It can be moulded with your bare hands, and is surpisingly not messy. The stuff I used was given to me by a car audio shop, but they got it at a local hardware store. You should check a few brands. My materal remained plyable even two years later when I serviced a connection on the speaker. I was even able to reuse it. The largest gap I filled was was about 1cm.

 

[supraboy4life]

i got a stick of hot glue,a lighter and melted the glue over the areas that where leaking.it worked like a charm.