Component placement in a first gen?

[k5james]

Well as soon as my Blazer get's back from the suspension shop I'm going to start working on the system. I know where I'm putting my two subs, amp and head unit. Now I need to figure out where to put my components (2 6.5's and 2 1" Tweeters). I'm ordering brand new doors so I hate to cut them up to put the 6.5's. Where else can I put them? Any ideas?

 

[Greg72]

How do you feel about cutting the floors!???

I put my tweeters IN the floor, but you could do the same thing with mids too...just needs a larger box behind it.

 

[k5james]

I don't mind cutting the floors, they're getting cut up anyway for the cage, but I'm not sure where you could put them down there and still have them sound good.

 

[Z3PR]

Kick panels.

 

[Greg72]

I don't mind cutting the floors, they're getting cut up anyway for the cage, but I'm not sure where you could put them down there and still have them sound good.

Try this area:

Perfect "line of sight" to the listening position.....AMAZING imaging! As I said though....putting Mids there is going to need a fairly LARGE box, and susbstantial mods to the inner fenderwell.....depending on your tire size & lift, you may not have the clearance to do it this way...


Heh, it's funny to talk about using a suspension lift to clear the stereo!!!

"How much lift do I need to clear 6.5" Mids?"...

 

[k5james]

Yeah, that's pretty funny. I don't think that will work in my ride then, I'm only going to have 5-6" of lift and 35's. I can just see landing off of a jump and the tire hitting my speaker box and just shredding apart, then the rim catching some dirt and then the whole truck doing an endo. I think the kick panels are probably my best option other than possibly building some kind of box that attaches to the rollcage.

 

[k5james]

What do you think of these

A guy on another forum custom made them. He wants $350 unpainted though.

 

[Greg72]

The only problem with kick panel speakers is that people WILL "kick" them.... You may also lose the functionality of the parking brake depending on how well those panels were designed.

Also, I'm not convinced that the mid has enough air to "breathe" with such a shallow enclosure. I guess it depends how the system is setup and how much power you intend to feed it. My door mounted mids would REALLY move air....I could feel a "breeze" through the window-scraper area when the windows were rolled down....ultimately I need to seal the enclosure in the bottom of the door to tighten up the mid-bass and get it perfect.

Have you thought about carpeting the lower panel of the door like the later model K5s do??? It would allow you to mount the speaker down low, and if you mounted it from the inside of the doorskin with a spacer, you could play it through the carpet (if it's a non-backed style). Nothing would show, and most people would'nt even know the doors didn't come "stock" that way.

Just a thought. There's really no perfect solution.....like everything in life, you choose your compromises and accept the ones you must.

 

[k5james]

Well, I found some doors on ebay for that are much cheaper than new ones but they already have speaker holes, so I guess I won't be opposed to putting speakers in my doors after all. I've seen how you mounted yours in the doors, is that lower right hand corner pretty much the optimum spot for staging the mids?

 

[Greg72]

Depending on how large your speakers are, that lower corner could be the perfect spot. There is a small "detail" seam that runs around that lower door radius....the speaker hole I cut follows that and picks up that curved shape nicely.

From there I just got the two mids as close together as possible. The tweeters I used are a fairly unique design, and they can play lower frequencies than most....so I messed around with crossover points until I got the sound to blend nicely. The overall effect was really awesome.... There are a number of people here who got to "audition" that system in Moab 2002 and they were pretty blown away. Not just by the volume (which it had LOTS of!) but because of the detail and imaging that the setup provided....

If there's a way for you to do the mids in the doors, and still get some sort of tweeter in a much smaller kickpod or "near the floor" mount, I think you'll be amazed at the type of sound-quality it provides.

A coaxial speaker with an "aimable" tweeter would be a reasonably good alternative, I suppose.