Hotred94

I have a 94 vette with an aftermarket Pioneer FHP4400 radio. On a 94, the front speakers are located on the floor on the side of the sill beam. The PO replaced the stock speakers with a 4" round speaker, but they still sound very poor. The factory location of the speakers seems very lame to me (on the floor pointed at your feet) and I would like to improve the sound as much as I can by just replacing the existing speaker with a better speaker, or by putting the speakers in another location (not in the doors). I see the speaker mounting plate is cut to house a single 4x6 speaker or a 4" round and a 2" round. The mounting depth is less than 2". I'm not a fan of small speakers but a 5x7 speaker will not fit (too deep for the available space). So, with all that being said, is there some amazing speaker that will fit in there to give me better sound, or should I consider relocating the speakers to another spot where they will function function better--and where would that spot be?

Spkrboy

There is no magic speaker that can do what you'd like. The factory locations are indeed horrible, and IMO not worth the effort to replace at all.

The best answer is to remove the forward segment of each door panel and customize the back side for midranges while adding tweeters in the dash. Like this :

Fasthotrod

Either I don't know the C4 interior like I should, or you did one hell of a job hiding the mids... Where are they exactly?

Mark

Spkrboy

Thanks. See the curved light gray panel right below the power-window switch? From the factory, that's a plastic panel covered in carpet. Now it's open-cell foam with grill cloth, hiding 7" midranges.

Fasthotrod

Yea... now that you mention it I remember that panel that used to be there. Nice job on covers... you had me wondering WTF was going on.

So how in the world did you get 7" mids stuffed in there? Looks like a 4" is all that would fit from what I can see. Got any other install pix?



Mark

GKK

I installed Infinity Kappa 5 1/4" components in the door sill area that sounded really good but, the highs were blocked whenever I had a passenger.

I decided to mount the tweeters in the upper door panels which brightend the sound stage and now the music sounds great.

The problem with the 90-96 door panels, are that both sides are not symetrical. You can modify the passenger door panel easy enough but, the driver side door panel is a lot tighter.

Here's a couple pictures.

Infinity Kappa's installed.


Tweeter relocated to the passenger door panel.


Tweeter relocated to the driver side door panel.

Spkrboy

I did this quite some time ago, before digital cameras were widely available, so no pics of the back sides, sorry. The driver is a Vifa PL18WO-09-04

The driver side was considerably easier than the passenger side which required a sort of 'funnel' to get the response right. The main drawback was poor right-channel midrange response for the passenger (but quite good for the driver). I went through 7-8 variations of positions using the doors, dash and factory rail locations. The rails were awful in every instance, even when using very good drivers. While the tweeters were merely OK in the upper door panel, the whole soundstage opened up when I found just the right spots in the dash.

I went through both ideas GKK has, but quickly found them both to be unacceptable. I know my version requires a lot of work, but after several years of measurements and trial/error, I found it's the best alternative.

Hotred94

I seems everyone is recommending the use of seperate tweeters. Spkrboy, I can't quite see the speaker in the pic of your door. Is it in that black area, and doesn't it get muffled when the door is closed? That's a great location for tweeters, what make are they?
GKK, that is a good idea on the floor because the new mounting board will allow speakers with more depth than the stock mounting plate. You can also angle the speakers a little better. I may try some 5x7s on the floor and tweeters up on the dash like Spkrboy.

Thanks for the ideas everyone.

Spkrboy

The mids are behind the light gray triangular area near the front of the door panel right under the black area. When you're in the seats with doors closed, it's above knee-level. When you take off your door panel, you'll see that area can be removed and modified.

-=Jeff=-

Spkrboy,

how are the 7" aimed? are they off axis or one axis? if on axis how are they mounted.

I know that there is room to mount the speakers in the doors. I also don't like the door sill mount. Although I had a 4 and tweet mounted to the sill, they sounded decent, but were easily blocked by the legs of the driver and passenger. that same system had a 6.5" in the door..

Maybe the 2 way will work better with the 6.5 in the door with a tweeter mounted like GKK did

Spkrboy

They were as close to on-axis to the driver's position as I could get them. I used MDF, PVC, ABS sheet and a little epoxy to get the mount in the right position. Obviously there's only so much you can do on the left side, but the depth behind the passenger side allows you to tilt a woofer pretty far. You can see just how far to do that when you pull the door panel, remove that section, reinstall the panel on the door and start building out.

Any attempts at using the lower frame area were pointless. I hated every attempt I made. If it were only some sort of shallow midbass, it might have had a chance, but as a mid... no way.

Same as above, mounting the tweeters in the doors was unpleasant. It managed to raise part of the soundstage a bit, but the separation was excessive, and there was no depth whatsoever. I settled on a tweeter that could handle a lower crossover point than most. That helped a ton. Besides, getting tweeters in the upper dash is quite easy compared to getting mids in the doors.

FWIW, I'm extraordinarily picky about sound quality. Audio is important enough to me to go to these lengths, and it was not a simple task. The C4 is far-and-away the hardest vehicle into which I've ever tried to get a high-quality system. In the end, it was (to my ears) merely tolerable. After several years and countless attempts, this was the only solution I could live with.

GKK

Spkrboy,

Could you post a picture of the tweeter mounted on the drivers side of the dash? Thanks

-=Jeff=-

At one point I had a set of Orion HCCA 5s speakers, the 5.25" in the doors and the Tweeters in the dash (actually just on the dash surface) they were very harsh to me. could have been the speakers themselves. But I cannot recall how well the sound flowed in the car. I know the Pass speaker was closer to being on axis then the driverside.

Spkrboy, As you stated there is not really any room on the drivers side to get speakers on axis. I was all set in doing the tweeters and mids in the sill, but now I need to rethink things.

I like the set up bogus has with the 6.5 in the sill, the 4" in the door and the tweeter above.

I have a thought of that but need to see how/if I can fit the 6.5 in the sill, if so that might be a better route..

Athought the mid in the drivers door gets somewhat buried in the dash with the door closed

Spkrboy

This is the best I have. You can just make out the top of the tweeter under the inspection sticker.



Jeff... I was never a fan of Orion drivers. Loved their amps, but speakers were a different story so they may have been the problem. As far as using the sill for a midbass, well, I haven't come across a midbass yet that was small enough to fit down there yet good enough to justify trying to integrate. The closest I came (still not really all that close) were the Kicker RMB6s. After messing with those, my hatred for Kicker grew exponentially. That's why I used very large mids. In the driver's door, if you take care, there is enough room to slightly tilt the driver. Nothing tremendous, but it's better than nothing.

I really can't emphasize strongly enough how BAD the factory locations are. Maybe Bogus will add to this?

-=Jeff=-

Oh I agree completely.. What I am using for this install (as of right now0) is all CDT: Tweeters (TW-24), 4" (CL-4) and a 6.5" (EF-6). I have a set of ES/HD-300 3way crossovers. it sounded good in my 89, with the exception of the leg blocking. the 6.5" in the doors worked well as a mid-bass. the Sills had the 4" and Tweeter and I built pods to set them a bit closer to on axis and i was hppay with it (sans the leg issue)

I could ditch the 4" and use the 6 and Tweeter with the EF X-over or run active on a 2way in the front. I would like to use the drivers I have and might try to pitch the driver door speaker on axis.

As for the Sills, I could build out a bit, as I HAD to on my 89, since it had the 91 dash I had even LESS depth but I had something working. I have extra sill grilles to use and build out a bit for a 6.5" with might work out and the put the 4 in the door with the tweeter in the door/ Dash and see how that works.. I dont think the legs will be that big an issue with the mid bass..

where is bogus with his input??

Hotred94

Okay, so when I split the midrange and the tweeter, do I need a crossover or will the capacitor that comes on the tweeter work okay? When you mounted the tweeter in the upper dash, did you go in from the bottom or from the side? That door speaker is so nice I can't even tell it was altered. Nice job! What mids and tweeters would you recommend?

Spkrboy

To do the dash tweeters, that whole black top comes off. Remove the center console trim pieces. Then the whole glove box. Then the fuse-panel screws and the same panel on the driver side. Then the instrument cluster bezel. That should give you access to all the screws that hold that pad on top of the dash. Once all the screws are out, that whole thing comes off. From there, the correct hole-saw does the trick. Make sure you position the driver tweeter hole correctly because there are parts in the dash under that location that might interfere with the back of the tweeter, keeping the pad from re-installing correctly. Route the wires while the dash pad is off.

Speaker recommendation is a tough thing. For car audio stuff I like Focal Polyglass components. Given my choice, I prefer raw drivers from Seas, Focal and Vifa with my own custom-built crossovers.

-=Jeff=-

Yeah speaker choice is also personal preference too, What I might like for sound, You may not like the sound of, but both could be considered equal

Also for Crossovers if you have the Amplifier channel capacity you could do active crossovers instead of the passives