Making door speakers actually sound decent.

[BR3W CITY]

So since the p.o cut the doors on my 66, for 6x9's I'm stuck with some holes in my doors. Since I don't want kick panel speakers (I need the ankle room), I'm going to try and make the doors sound decent.

I'm adding deadening mat to the inside panel, and I'll be making a mdf ring for the speaker to mount to, instead of screwing into the sheetmetal and vibrating like hell. What else can i do? What about the polyfill stuff for sub boxes? Would there be an advantage to adding this to the doors?

With the old door speakers, screwed into the door and the crappy 3-1/2 speaker the po jammed in the dash, you can barely hear the stereo under many conditions.

Thoughts?

[Sick5]

subscribed!!!

Im hoping someone shine in with some ideas..

[Cole Trickle]

your screwed...lol

There are a couple things you can do but old trucks are never going to be great.

First of all 6x9's will never sound good as the woofers aren't round. They produce more volume and work great in boats but an ok quality 6.5" component set will crap on the best 6x9 produced.

My 69 has a pretty crappy stereo because it just dosent excite me to spend $$$ on something that will always be so/so. (new kenwood deck and new fosgate 6.5's)

I have done a couple high end installs in my day and recently finished a budget/decent install on my 98 tahoe that surprised me for what I invested. (2 6.5s 2 5.25 2 10's all powered by an alpine pdx5)

I added fat matt to the whole car and then really concentrated on the front doors. I installed sound deadning on the outer panel the inner skin and then completely covered the door and also sealed all of the access holes with deadner...essentialy making the door a box.

The hard core guys will use sheet metal to do this followed by deadner/cloth but I wasn't going that extreme.

It made a huge difference and the $175 alpine SPRC's actually sounded pretty decent for a budget speaker and produced decent mid bass.

After it was all done I kind of wished I would have gone with a better speaker like a hertz or focal but screw it to late now.

When I tear down my 69 I will weld up the 6.5" holes in the doors taht the PO cut and build kicks. It will be hard to get great sound out of a door that is always going to be all metal. Installing deadner inside the door and perhaps behind the screw on panels will help alot but it will never be great.

[Cole Trickle]

Originally Posted by Cole Trickle

your screwed...lol

There are a couple things you can do but old trucks are never going to be great.

First of all 6x9's will never sound good as the woofers aren't round. They produce more volume and work great in boats but an ok quality 6.5" component set will crap on the best 6x9 produced.

My 69 has a pretty crappy stereo because it just dosent excite me to spend $$$ on something that will always be so/so. (new kenwood deck and new fosgate 6.5's)

I have done a couple high end installs in my day and recently finished a budget/decent install on my 98 tahoe that surprised me for what I invested. (2 6.5s 2 5.25 2 10's all powered by an alpine pdx5)

I added fat matt to the whole car and then really concentrated on the front doors. I installed sound deadning on the outer panel the inner skin and then completely covered the door and also sealed all of the access holes with deadner...essentialy making the door a box.

The hard core guys will use sheet metal to do this followed by deadner/cloth but I wasn't going that extreme.

It made a huge difference and the $175 alpine SPRC's actually sounded pretty decent for a budget speaker and produced decent mid bass.

After it was all done I kind of wished I would have gone with a better speaker like a hertz or focal but screw it to late now.

When I tear down my 69 I will weld up the 6.5" holes in the doors taht the PO cut and build kicks. It will be hard to get great sound out of a door that is always going to be all metal. Installing deadner inside the door and perhaps behind the screw on panels will help alot but it will never be great.

[BR3W CITY]

Our plan is to put 2 6.5 components and an 8" sub into the center console, which has yet to be fabbed. The dash speakers are coming out.

I need to leave the doors 6x9, since I have no further interest in making a patch for that. I need a certain level of loud to get over my obnoxious exhaust noise The 66's don't have nearly as many openings in the door, so I only have to cover a fairly small area under the door card it looks like.

What about the polyfill stuff, does it help anything or not really?

[Chad215]

I would think polyfill in any door would eventually get exposed to water in some way or another and just soak in and hold it. I wouldn't do it. My .02 .

[Cole Trickle]

Originally Posted by BR3W CITY

Our plan is to put 2 6.5 components and an 8" sub into the center console, which has yet to be fabbed. The dash speakers are coming out.

I need to leave the doors 6x9, since I have no further interest in making a patch for that. I need a certain level of loud to get over my obnoxious exhaust noise The 66's don't have nearly as many openings in the door, so I only have to cover a fairly small area under the door card it looks like.

What about the polyfill stuff, does it help anything or not really?

no need for poly fill...its a cheat when you don't have enough air space it slows down the bass waves.

If you want loud your on the right track. It dosent sound like your worried about sound quality or imaging.

personally i would spend the effort and $ installing about 100 sq feet of sound deadning everyehere inside the cab. it made a huge difference in driver comfort on my 69

[BR3W CITY]

Originally Posted by Cole Trickle

no need for poly fill...its a cheat when you don't have enough air space it slows down the bass waves.

If you want loud your on the right track. It dosent sound like your worried about sound quality or imaging.

personally i would spend the effort and $ installing about 100 sq feet of sound deadning everyehere inside the cab. it made a huge difference in driver comfort on my 69

I'm all for sound quality, but with the engine noise and cab construction, its a losing battle. SQ is sort of relative when your talking about this thing. I'm looking for enough volume so I can hear it, but ya I'd like to avoid distortion and be able to recognize the music I'm hearing. Right now, I can barely make out the audio, its either too quiet to hear on the road, or so distorted that you don't want to listen to it lol.

[Cole Trickle]

Originally Posted by BR3W CITY

I'm all for sound quality, but with the engine noise and cab construction, its a losing battle. SQ is sort of relative when your talking about this thing. I'm looking for enough volume so I can hear it, but ya I'd like to avoid distortion and be able to recognize the music I'm hearing. Right now, I can barely make out the audio, its either too quiet to hear on the road, or so distorted that you don't want to listen to it lol.

I did 2 layers of fatt matt on the floor and firewall....huge difference

I drive my truck and took a 500 mile round trip to a show and my ears were bleeding from the cab echoing.

I would say its 75% better now that I added the sound deadner

[85sierraclassic]

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...om=857-141-166 try some of these too in your doors plus keeps the weater off of them if the window seals dont work the best

[BR3W CITY]

Maybe if I cut them in half to use as a rainshield, but mounting a free air speaker in a 25^3 in box would suck the life out of it. I've seen those a few places, but haven't seen any claim they actually make things sound better. If I could get a single one to cut in half as a rain guard, that might work.

[v30crewcab]

I was thinking of putting some 6.5's in the bottoms of the doors on my 88 crewcab. If I use a pair of those foam baffles behind them, will they sound decent? i've already got peel&seal in the doors. just can't hear the speakers in the rear corner with a diesel in it!

[85sierraclassic]

Originally Posted by BR3W CITY

Maybe if I cut them in half to use as a rainshield, but mounting a free air speaker in a 25^3 in box would suck the life out of it. I've seen those a few places, but haven't seen any claim they actually make things sound better. If I could get a single one to cut in half as a rain guard, that might work.

its a mid range driver its not like it needs a 5cuft box so its not going to effect the performance in a way it would harm it it ten bucks and an old pickup whats it hurt to try

[BR3W CITY]

i understand what your saying...but most aren't designed for a box at all. 6x9's especially are used to free air environments (like the rear decklid), so most enclosure won't benefit them. (there are plenty of speakers designed for enclosures, many 6.5 components are a good example.


Theres no harm in trying tho...if they do anything, its better than nothing I suppose. Keeping water off the speakers is a concern, I agree. Although my truck tries not to see rain, it has plenty of times, and the door seals aren't exactly awesome.