necromax

I recently bought my Scooby (Terzo), and have been very pleased with everything except the sound system. I have a couple of questions if anyone can help? Firstly, does anyone know the maximum speaker depth in the front doors? Secondly, has anyone experimented with tweeter placement? I thought the position provided in the door may be a little low, so a better sound may be achieved positioning them on the plastic plates behind the door mirrors? And finally, the back speaker issue. I have considered simply removing the back speakers, and placing two subs in the boot, with mids/tweeters at the front. Has anyone tried this? Would I be better to replace the rear units with better ones in addition to the two subs? Any advice greatly appreciated

john banks

64mm mounting depth goes in easily. Some have had 72mm with spacers but it is very tight. There are some good speakers 6ish" components that fit well. Tweeters are best pointing at your ears rather than your calves as you point out. On later cars there is a plastic grill by the door pull. This works well.

I tried removing my rear speakers after putting a sub in the boot and it sounded very boomy, but others get different results. The factory rears off the headunit provide decent rear fill - you don't need power handling or good freq response for this. Set the level of the fronts off a decent amp so that you can barely hear the rear speakers.

chiark

I'm currently running rear speakers faded so far out that they're not really running. Fronts are powered from a Soundstream 604 and rears are off the head unit...

They are just there for the rear passengers, nothing else. I had spare drivers and a spare couple of hours, so just whapped them in the hole.

You're best off with quality fronts as the first upgrade, then add an amp (4 channel for future flexibility), then add a sub bridged across the two spare channels of your amp - or at least that'd be my route.

Regarding tweeters, have a play. Mine are mounted on the triangles that are on the back of the wing mirror mounting points.

There's differing views on this: some say install as near as damn it to the midbass for accurate imaging/phasing and no separation issues, others say that they're such an important part of the imaging that you should place them where you can hear 'em.

There's no right answer, as everything in car will be a compromise. My tweeters image best on the wing mirror mounts, aimed across the car at the outside ear of the other passenger - if that makes sense. My tweeters do have a very good dispersion characteristic and perform best off axis, hence they're not pointed at the listener directly.

Experiment - that's the best way.

necromax

Thanks to you both. I do have the plastic grill by the door pull, so I might try them there and see how they sound. I am trying to avoid hacking at the interior, want to leave it 'looking' standard to passers by. I did think of trying to get two spare triangles from by the mirror mounts, so I could place them there, but still tidy up if/when I change the car.

My friend has two spare 8" Precision Power flat-piston subs .. and an enclosure we can modify to fit in the boot. He has two amps spare too... one four channel, one six channel. The answer to my next question could solve the decision of which of those to get..

I have read that the Infinity 605cs are a good choice for the front. I read some people are driving these with as much as 150W .. the four channel amp is 4*40 .. where the 6 channel is 4*40 + 2*160 .. so is it worth driving the front with 160w?

My friend has a pair of Coral Electronics 6 1/2" mid-range drivers .. which I thought might sit well in the rear shelf .. if I have the six channel amp, I could use 2*40 for subs .. and 2*40 for rear ... with the 2*160 for front? Sound like overkill?

Let me know your thoughts. I'm thinking a Pioneer MEH-P9100R for a head unit, with the 12 disc CDX-P1270 in the boot... unless it would fit under the passenger seat ?

Dick White

I`ve fitted some JBL P-62`s in the front of my Terzo, placing the tweeters behind the grills next to the door handles, if anything i`m getting too much noise from them!( Though this could be with my bodging around....just extending the tweeter wires rather than buying the proper component box with coils and such like in it).
Mounting depth of the speakers is quoted as been 64mm, and using the standard plastic mountings they just fit, with about 1mm betwen the back of the magnet and the window (it really is that close).One thing i did ponder on was to change the plastic mountings for MDF, anyone know if it would be worth doing??

john banks

40 W is not enough. I run 150W but this is a Kenwood amp and they cheat a bit with power figures by quoting at 14.4V. If it is a really high quality amp and 160W is at 12 V, then it is overkill - could be 240W at 14.4V! 160W may not be fully used - I don't think my "150W" is, but it gives plenty of headroom for hard bass hits, and sounds a lot better than 50 or 12 from the headunit.

What are the detailed specs of the amp?

necromax

I believe its a Magnat amplifier. I was mistaken about the power. Its 4*80 and 2*160 .. not sure at what voltage these are, I have to check with my mate. I only spoke to him briefly. I'll see if I can get more detailed specs later today.

necromax

...I double checked at what voltages those power levels were, and they are at 12v .. and are quoted in RMS. It wold appear the amp is a little more powerful than I thought

john banks

If that is the case then 2 of the 80W channels should suffice = 120W in Kenwood money which is probably about right for these speakers.