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Looking for some decent 5.25" speakers


Scotnemily

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I haven’t gotten a chance to put power the speakers yet. I did grab one of my extra door pods for my car and take the factory speaker out. Pictures to come later. First of there is no way the new speakers will fit without a lot of modification to factory pod. The motor on the new speakers are so much larger. The enclosure for the factory speakers has a sloped surface. The magnets on the factory speakers are small enough they taper and fit with that slope. Even though the mounting depth is not much different the new speakers stuck up over an inch out of the enclosure. I might be able the use my heat gun and shape the plastic enclosure. And I might be able to add a spacer. I am not sure yet if either is going to effect the fitment of the door panel. 

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so it is a little less than 1 inch. A 1 inch spacer will let the speaker fit the pod. I am not sure if it will fit behind the panel.

i can also cut out the factory cover and use the new grill

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Yeah thanks. I might look at something else too if these don’t work out. I am going to try a 1” spacer and if it lets them fit and they sound good then I guess I will be done. If any of those things fail, I will be looking. I will probably keep these either way as long as they work just because of the good price. I’ll find a use for them.

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Quick update. I took the door panel off the passenger side. I removed the factory speaker and hooked up one of the CT 5.25" (without the crossover) to the factory wires coming from the factory amp. the factory speaker was 4ohm also. The factory system already has a decent crossover in it. Here are a few things I learned.

1st. factory speaker had a deteriorated foam surround and when the car is set to only play that speaker with the 2" mid and tweeter unhooked, it sounds pretty bad. start adding other speakers and it is harder to detect it is having a problem.

2nd. New speaker works, but there are some issues. the biggest is with the door panel . I am positive it is not going to fit with a 1" spacer. I think I have about 1/4" space maybe less before the speaker would hit the door panel. I still may be able to do something not sure yet. If I have to do much modifications though I might as well either go with something with less motor on the back, maybe a neo, or just modify the door similar to the picture I posted. Maybe 1 speaker and not 2. maybe even just the 5.25" since I have them already. 

3rd. the factory crossover works pretty good. too good to even be able to test the speakers. when I hooked up the CT cross over to the factory speaker wires and then ran the CT mid and tweeter, it was very unimpressive. I am not saying it is the fault of the speakers. while you could hear the tweeter it was so quiet you almost had to put your ear to it. I am pretty sure this is because the factory crossover has all of the higher frequencies blocked going to the factory speaker in this location. Also with the CT 5.25 hooked up like this it was noticeable quieter. I am guessing though I didn't measure the impedance is higher as it goes through the CT crossover. That, or the CT cross over is just eating enough of the power to make it quieter.

 

I think at this point the only way I am going to be able  to tell how they sound is if I either  leave off the CT cross over hook up the tweeter to the factory tweeter wire and the mid to the factory mid location. This MAY tell me something, or it might not. The speaker would be playing out of an enclosure for one, and two, it would be playing on the factory amp.

The other option would be hook it to the A606 and use the CT crossover. there are a few problems with this though. I am not 100% sure the crossover on the factory speaker happens in the amp. If it does then I hooking it to the A606 would bypass the factory crossover. Right now the A606 is running the subs only and I am getting it's signal by using a line converter from the factory sub channel. If the crossover happens before the amp, then hooking the speakers to the A606 will just mean it is only going to see the subwoofer frequencies and not the vocals or mids. 

Obviously all of these issue have a solution, just more time  consuming. I will eventually replace the factory radio and amp completely. I was originally planning on keeping it since the sound right now isn't bad. Nothing mind blowing, but not bad. I have been bitten again by that car audio bug and it seems to be spreading.... Now the factory stuff must go. Radio will probably be months away though. mostly because of the weather. I don't have a good place to work on it, and most of the stuff will need tobe done on the weekends. if the weather isn't good, raining or cold, then I won't be working on it. I am also going to have to make a custom bezel to fit  the radio I want in the car. I already started working on that at lunch today. it is going to be a while before I am done with it though. no reason to have the radion setting here not hooked up, unless it goes on sale. Otherwise I am guessing ti will be December before I even purchase it. Could even be next spring because of the weather. I would prefer to have something done to improve the speakers before the radio goes it.

Sorry for the long post. not sure if anyone was even wanting an update but you got it anyway :)

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I got some 1” spacers in the mail to try. I am still sure they won’t fit under the door panel. In fact due to the placement I am not even sure the door will close with them sticking out this much further. It might hit the dash. It is a shame because the speakers fit the pod nicely.

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I planned on trying several things today to test the sound of the new speakers. I ended up only doing one and no need to do anything else at this time.

First I installed the speaker and spacer in the door. Huge difference in sound from setting loose. I also hooked up the factory midrange and tweeter and set in the door above. I have all of this running from the factory amp with only the factory crossover. setting the fader to front then swinging balance left and right. the CT speakers sound a lot fuller and definitely have a lot more mid bass. Here they are in the door. 

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I am sure they would sound even better on a better amp. But here is why I didn't bother to test any further.

They just won't fit they stick out about 1/2 to 3/4 inch too far with that spacer. No way around it. the door would have to have heavy mods to make them work. I even think it would be easier to close off a section in the bottom and mount them then it would be to alter this location to make them fit. In the end it doesn't matter how much better it sounds if It wont fit. I didn't even want to hear them on my A606 amp as I would be even more upset they don't fit. I was hoping I would be able to take off the factory cover and do something there. Not as easy as I was hoping. the factory hole in the door panel is only about 4 inches.  it is also inset and on a shaped surface. I don't think I can just cut the hole larger and let the speaker stick through. not without a lot of custom work and body putty.  I am back to square one for now.

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I forgot I do already have a kenwood radio I could use. it isn't the one I want to use long term. it is a single din, and I want to put a  double din in. but it would work for now... I would have to run rca's but I was going to have to do that anyway.

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Did a little bit of unplanned playing after work tonight.

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just wanted to see what it would look like and what it would take to do it. It would look a lot better to replace the whole section with a pod, do to the trim around it, and the partial carpeting. Even if I used body filler and wrapped in matching leather, it would still look like it was filled in. Question is do I care.

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