Need speaker box ideas

[72kool]

I need some ideas and suggestions please. Right now I have a retrosound stereo in my ttruck with cheap speakers tucked under the dash. I have a bench seat in my truck and was wondering if anybody else has built a speaker box that allows the middle seat to still be used. I was thinking something that I could put cup holders in top and hold like two 3.5 speakers and something bigger in the front? Any ideas would be great

[James the III]

Originally Posted by 72kool

I need some ideas and suggestions please. Right now I have a retrosound stereo in my ttruck with cheap speakers tucked under the dash. I have a bench seat in my truck and was wondering if anybody else has built a speaker box that allows the middle seat to still be used. I was thinking something that I could put cup holders in top and hold like two 3.5 speakers and something bigger in the front? Any ideas would be great

Why not put a pair under the seat..

[72kool]

I have heard they don't sound the best? I could be wrong.. biggest reason is I'm trying to achieve 2 things at once. Really need something for cup holder and thought maybe build setting that would hold speakers also.. all I ever find that has been.done though, is full center consoles. Unfortunately those don't fit my trucks needs

[68c10airstream]

I had a neighbor that was a stereo nut! He told me to build kick panels for holding speakers and tilt them up and back because they need to shoot to your ear as direct as possible. The right side shoots to your head and the driver's panel shoots to the passenger side.

I built my kick panel speakers from small tin pails (buckets) turned upside down and cut the bottom out of it leaving a little inner lip to screw the speaker to. Another words the bottom of the pail should be about 1" diameter wider than the speaker leaving you about 1/2" lip remaining after you cut the center out of the bottom. Now i took the top of the pail and about every 2" cut slits down the sides as fingers to bend out to drill and screw to an mdf panel. By experimenting with the cut lengths you can lay that pail over like the leaning tower of piza! Once you happy with the layout go and get a gallon of evercoat body filler (bondo), it usually is on sale for about $20.00. I used the full gallon for both kick panels.

Start spreading the body filler around the pail and once cured grind it a little and put another layer on it until it's built up to your liking. Sand and paint as needed.

Put a little fiberfill inside the box and wire it before you install the speaker. Because of the mass and weight of this kick panel i think the bass sounds better than a fiberglass equivalent.

My neighbor told me about using a polyester fleece you spread around your form and then brush or roll out resin over the fleece. This would have been quicker and had that modern molded look but it was a new technique for me and i knew i could do it in body filler. No regrets here.

I did 10" woofers behind my seat and it works pretty good. It could always be better, but i don't need bass so loud that the dirt lifts up 5" unless i want to vacuum it up to clean up my act!!

[BIGglaSS]

Adding more speakers won't make the current speakers sound better. I don't think putting speakers in the middle seat or under the dash would sound good. No need to go crazy with big speakers and amps. One set of quality components and a small amp is plenty. Then add a subwoofer later if you need more low end.

Kick panels with properly aimed speakers is the best location. A-pillars would be the second best option. Check out par4tom's kick panel build.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=730495

[lsversaw]

My 2 cents...

Putting stereo speakers, a cupholder, and seating for a third person in the seat, between the driver and outboard passenger, sounds like a challenge. I love challenges, but I would separate the speaker mounting requirement from the cupholder requirement.

Here's a way to do that: put your speakers in the rear cab corners, possibly using brackets made by forum user bigblock73, AND/OR put 2 speakers behind the center grille in the dash using the mounting plate available from forum user Kyle@FTP. Or you can build or buy kick panels with speaker mounts, but the left speaker may compromise access to your parking brake pedal if you have one. Or cut holes in the doors for speakers.

Then you can buy a center console that sits on the middle of the seat from a number of vendors, or you could go as far as finding/building a seat with a built-in fold-down console. When carrying a third passenger, with the console folded up or thrown in the bed, just ask the passenger to hold your coffee. Ha.

And you can buy a cupholder that mounts to the dash in the ash tray hole. No new holes, no muss, no fuss. And full seating space.

I hope this helps.

[demian5]

Did you ever figure it out? I have kick panel 6 1/2" and a 2011 Tahoe sub enclosure living where the jack components used to live. Sounds great, uses one amp and I got my under seat storage back!