Here’s my situation. Right now I’ve got a 6.5 component set up front. I’m hoping to install a 5.25 component set in kicks later this summer. What should I do with the 6.5 set that I have in the doors now?

Keep them there and run two sets of components in the front, OR

Keep the woofer in the door and run a psuedo 3-way system with the woofer playing everything below 200 (or so) Hz and the kicks taking the rest?

I’m looking for some ideas, or any variants of these ideas, so help a guy out and let me know what you think would sound best. TIA!

Greg

As a sound quality competitor, I'll fill you in on my front stage. Currently, I'm in the process of installing a "free-air" 8" sub into each door. A 5.25" component set is being installed into a set of custom kicks and I'm installing a "padded-down" tweeter into the stock tweeter location.

This setup should yield me perfect imaging and staging, plus yield excellent stage height and listening position.

In your case, you might be able to do a similiar setup, but using the 6.5" woofer in the door and pad down the tweeter into the dash. This will allow you to run the 6.5" woofer as a mid-bass driver and use the component set at a mid-range and tweeter set.

Good luck to ya!

Yep, keeping all your sound up front, including the bass frequencies, will help your sound stage greatly. You will find a lot of top competitors dont even use rear speakers at all.. Music normally comes in front of you, not behind you. I'd say put the 6.5 comps in custom kick panels, and at least a 6.5" sub/midbass in each door. Or do more custom work, and get an 8" sub in the door. If you do that, be sure to dampen the doors very well, to rid any vibration or resonance. If you can bring in the frequencies in the door speakers, right above your sub cutoff frequency, that that would be perfect.

I agree that placement of the speakers is crucial to getting proper imaging and staging. In addition, the polarity of the speakers is also extremely important.

In my previous install (6.5" component set in the stock locations), I ran the passenger's woofer out-of-phase. This put the car acoustically in phase.

With the new install, I will definetly run the subs in the doors out-of-phase and I will have to see about the kick panels. I won't know until I get them installed and determine which phasing produces the least amount of phase shift!

See ya in the lanes!!!