You are exactly right about the bass, however the dash speakers are
pretty efficient and every major speaker manufacturer makes them. In my
Miata I run 6.5" subwoofers in my doors with external tweeters mounted
seperately and use a capacitator crossover rather than spend all the
money for electronic crossovers. It's a car, it's a convertible and it's
loud and can't get too critical about sound.
-----Original Message-----
From: James W. Anable, Jr. [mailto:anable@halcyon.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 6:37 PM
To: Michael Landskroner; datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Car speakers
Michael Landskroner wrote:
> If you have an extra set of headrests try an experiment on installing
> 3.5" dash speakers in them by cutting the foam and punching some holes
> in the vinyl.
This is not a bad idea, but remember, you CANNOT rely on this type of
installation to provide full frequency response. You will still have to
have a source of bass and low mids, at least to 200 Hz, probably higher.
I'd try this with a couple of good 6.5 woofers (like Morels) behind the
seats and a subwoofer through the trunk, electronic crossover and decent
amps.
It's not easy to find high quality small drivers. Then you really
should
try to "seal" them somehow. If you don't isolate the back wave from the
front wave of the speaker, you get a lot of cancellation and NO bass
response. They also tend to be inefficient, however, since they will be
close to the ears, that won't be a problem. One problem that you can't
get
away from is that it is very unnatural to have the music coming from
behind
you. It would be nicer if they were shaped like Mercedes headrests,
kind of
like: )
Here's what I did: I took old Radio Shack minimus series cast aluminum
speakers, replaced the woofer with a high quality mid [kept blowing the
stock woofer when the top was down], and mounted them right above my
feet on
the wall inside the fenders (left on drivers side, right above the
footrest
thingy, right on passenger side). I put the tweeters on the bottom and
aimed them right at my ears. They are crossed over in the low mid range
(the lower the better, to keep as much sound in front of you as you
can).
Then I have two enclosures for mid-woofers behind the seats (real narrow
band between the sub and the mids) and an 8" subwoofer in the wall of
the
trunk (JBL 8's really DO put out bass, and a 10" would demand too much
cutting). It sounds VERY good (if I do say so myself), given the
challenges
of a Roadster installation. It has turned a few heads, most people
don't
expect decent sound from this type of a car.
The trick is to use enough power, speakers that can handle it, and
crossovers to direct the right frequecies to the right speakers. You
will
never get top quality sound unless you bite the bullet and put a
subwoofer
in the trunk wall. It's like the difference between a boom box and a
home
stereo.
The other option is headphones, but this is illegal for the driver
probably
everywhere (for very good reason, hard to hear traffic, sirens...).
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