Icehawk's "OEM+" speaker upgrade

[Yorkman1]

Would you mind playing something like this freq test and see what you can go down to?



Regardless I think using a cheap driver here makes the most sense unless you are going full hog w/amp. Spend the money on the front door drivers and tweeters - it's where most of what you can hear is going to come from.

I’ll go do it Now.
@150 it was decent. By 120 distorted. By 100 just yuck.

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[Icehawk]

Very similar results to me - I think this is both the amp being weak and using an 8" driver. The front CDT door speakers showed similar results as the sub for me btw. I saw they actually have an improved bass version of the 6.75" drivers and I wonder if they would have been a good choice to plump the bass up a bit.

I am confident this replacement path will get us to a "B" in sound quality from the "C-" we're at now at a very reasonable cost, bearing in mind we're not going to get deep, thumping bass. To get much more we'd need to spend about 10x more with amps, processors, etc. I mean there is a company selling JUST a sub driver fitment kit for the OEM box for $400+. I'm pretty sure if you are willing to cut into the door a 8" driver will fit the front too. And so on

 

[Yorkman1]

@Icehawk I’m happy with the base level now TBH. The rearview mirror and my seats shake from the bass. Better than the Bose sub.

once the front doors come in I’m sure everything will be even better

 

[Yorkman1]

CDT 2 ohm 6.5 carbon fiber speakers arrived today.

 

[Yorkman1]

OK its time to discuss front door fitment. THe door speakers as you know have a shape that is not round at the bottom. This creates an issue with installing new speakers that have larger magnets doe the the frame of the speaker and how it is designed and the size of the magnet can allow for the speaker not to fit into the hole of the door. this is addressed by the speaker rings that you have around your speaker. Now for the part that has been the bane of my week, in order for me to install the speakers i had to have over 1 inch adaptors. the 1 inch ones would contact the the speaker woofer housing, so I picked up 1/2 inch ones to add the 1 inch ones. this worked except even with removing all of the ring to the interior of the door card the door card was contacting the speaker not allowing the card to snap back into place. after buying more ring i removed the backs of 1 set where it clips into the door frame and had them doubled up in thickness. This was the only way to get the depth i needed. Below is the final measurements of what does fit when you are willing to remove the plastic ring from inside the door card. The sound is so much better than the OEM speakers. I will link the speaker clips and the rings I used. the rings do come with pigtails. They are useless.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PQDCVQH?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SL6VJLV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

 

[Icehawk]

The ES6.2 fit perfectly with the trim ring I linked previously.

 

[Yorkman1]

I went with the CL line and the frame between the mounting ring and the magnet was pretty thick that was the whole issue with the size

CL-E62 Set
6.5” Cast 2-way Carbon Fiber Component System

• CL-E6 6.5” Cast carbon fiber mid-woofer
• TW-26 1” soft dome tweeter
• EX-530 2-way 24dB Elliptic crossver
• Power handling: 160 Watt / HPF 120Hz
• Frequency response: 55-20kHz
• Sensitivity: 91.6 dB
• Nominal impedance : 2 Ohms

 

[RUNN1N]

It's not speaker-related, but I figure @Icehawk (or someone else over here) might have an idea... how big of a hassle would it be to run a pair of low gauge wires from the inside of the back door panel through to the inside of the front door panel?

 

[Yorkman1]

It's not speaker-related, but I figure @Icehawk (or someone else over here) might have an idea... how big of a hassle would it be to run a pair of low gauge wires from the inside of the back door panel through to the inside of the front door panel?

Rear door through boot into the body and under the carpet then into the A structure into the front door boot and into the door. Honestly probably a pain the ass

 

[RUNN1N]

Rear door through boot into the body and under the carpet then into the A structure into the front door boot and into the door. Honestly probably a pain the ass

Kinda what I was thinking!

 

[Yorkman1]

Kinda what I was thinking!

Yeah. I looked at the boots pretty hard when I was doing speakers and was like nope

 

[Fl5ap]

Very similar results to me - I think this is both the amp being weak and using an 8" driver. The front CDT door speakers showed similar results as the sub for me btw. I saw they actually have an improved bass version of the 6.75" drivers and I wonder if they would have been a good choice to plump the bass up a bit.

I am confident this replacement path will get us to a "B" in sound quality from the "C-" we're at now at a very reasonable cost, bearing in mind we're not going to get deep, thumping bass. To get much more we'd need to spend about 10x more with amps, processors, etc. I mean there is a company selling JUST a sub driver fitment kit for the OEM box for $400+. I'm pretty sure if you are willing to cut into the door a 8" driver will fit the front too. And so on

LOL...in my opinion The company selling the sub speaker ring adapter and grill is way too expensive.

I 3D printed my plastic 1/2 in sub spacer and used the OEM hardware too. It's perfect and it cost me next to nothing compared to buying the $400 kit. If you guys are interested, I can put some feelers out to see if other people want to buy them. Going to make a 1 in version next and test it out.

 

[Fl5ap]

LOL...in my opinion The company selling the sub speaker ring adapter and grill is way too expensive.

I 3D printed my plastic 1/2 in sub spacer and used the OEM hardware too. It's perfect and it cost me next to nothing compared to buying the $400 kit. If you guys are interested, I can put some feelers out to see if other people want to buy them. Going to make a 1 in version next and test it out.

I've also ran the power wire to the hatch. I'm still not exactly sure where I want to mount the small mono Kicker amp. Ground wire is ready to go too. Likely going to run the bass knob up and going to locate a good remote wire to tap into depending on how the amp reads the bass signal and turns on. Don't want a sub pop when it turns on.

 

[Yorkman1]

LOL...in my opinion The company selling the sub speaker ring adapter and grill is way too expensive.

I 3D printed my plastic 1/2 in sub spacer and used the OEM hardware too. It's perfect and it cost me next to nothing compared to buying the $400 kit. If you guys are interested, I can put some feelers out to see if other people want to buy them. Going to make a 1 in version next and test it out.

this is wonderful! Does it hit the factory mesh speaker cover when the sub is bumping away?

 

[Fl5ap]

this is wonderful! Does it hit the factory mesh speaker cover when the sub is bumping away?

Yeah no clearance issues at all. Box is sealed really well too. I used a rubber adhesive padd around the ring between the sub and speaker spacer to ensure a tight seal. I'll make a couple extra 1/2 in spacers and 1in spacers. If you guys want to try them out let me know. Shoot me a dm.

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