What's everyone running? I am considering getting a set of these...



Right now I have some Polk 4x6's, but they've seen better days. I can't find a 4x6 speaker that sounds any good... if you play a 4x6, and then immediatly play a 4", you can hear the sound quality big time...

 

it depends what car and body style your trying to put speakers in!

for instance, if you want to put speakers in a 3rd gen firebird/camero, those speakers that you have a picture of wont even work. unless you do some custom installing and make panels for those to fit. just stick with the 4x6. try mb quart.

it just depends how much money u want to spend to be honest.

 

Grab some components and put them in the kick panels.

 

No modifications needed. All you need is the plate that converts 4" speakers to fit in the 4x6" hole. JL's 4" speaker comes with this bracket. I have done plenty of these kind of installs in the past on all 3rd gen f-bodies. I plan to mount the tweeter somewhere in the A piller.

 

I agree w/ Nate. put components in the kick panels. you will be much happier

 

No I won't. First and foremost, the kick panels are on the ground, and the back speakers are right behind my head. I will hardly hear the kickpanels
Second of all, my car is stick. If i put a kick panel there, there goes all my foot room.
No thanks.

The 4" driver goes into the dash, no modification neeeded. The tweeter is going in a A-Pillar. I'm going to be cutting a hole so they will be flush mounted.

 

I used to think the same way you did until I finally bit the bullet and tried kick panels. Now I won't go back. Just because they are down low doesn't mean you'll have problems. My soundstage is at windshield height, and far, far wider and deeper than I ever could have gotten with dash speakers. Of course, I consider rear speakers to be a waste of time and money, so I don't use them, but even if you prefer to have them there, you can use your FADER control to dial in just however much rear fill you want.

Oh yeah, my kicks don't interfere with driving my 5 speed one bit.

Don't sell yourself short and make assumptions about kick panels until you have an opportunity to listen for yourself.

Do yourself a favor and buy a used pair of kick panels on Ebay for $5. Fab up some MDF rings to hold the components, and temporarily attach them to the new kicks. Get in and listen, and then start forming some opinions. You just might be surprised. I know I was.

 

I used a combination of the fader and turning the gain down on the rear speakers. I can hardly tell the rear speakers are there and the soundstage is amazing, and my kick panels are nowhere near professional quality. Although they look good and sound decent, I could probably squeeze more midbass and better imaging out of a better build. One thing is for sure, the proximity of the rear speakers will not be resolved by dash speakers... If you get woofers that are shallow enough (even if you use those 4"), you can fab kicks that don't interfere with your clutch and sound MUCH MUCH better.

 

My friend has the kicks, I just don't like them as much. And with the way I sit in my car, I really do hear my back speakers a lot. Not to mention, I have really nice back speakers, so it works for me.

Seriously though... it makes a BIG difference going from a 4x6 driver, to a 4" driver. I don't know if you guys listened to either or in a store or not... but, imo, the 4x6 sounds kinda dingy. Round speakers do have better sound quality... and the oval ones are usually a little bit more boomy.

Anyways... The 4" comps sound really nice...
It's okay, I don't mind the difference, everyone's ears are different... everyone has their own perference. I just don't like the kick panel comps. That's all

 

I agree that the round speakers usually sound better than the oval ones - probably because the woofer cones flex more along their long axis than the short axis, somewhat altering the sound.
As far as not liking the kicks, well, to each his own.

 

It makes me wonder how your friend's kicks were set up. I've never heard a dash-system that was even in the same ballpark as any kick panel setup I've listened to. The imaging and staging is terrible with dash speakers.

 

I agree that the dash may be a bad location... but I don't think that non-circular speakers necessarily sound that much different...

what about solo barics?

I think the main problem is, most 4x6's are intended as stock replacments, and are CHEAP AS HELL! when you get into the component 'ballpark,' then you start to see more of the audiophile stuff pour out.

I think that you CAN find a really good oval 4x6 that will sound as good as your 4" driver setup... It's all about design and manufacturing... for instance... what material are your 4x6's currently made out of? all of my stuff is AIP (aluminum-injected plastic) ... many newer speakers are made out of this, or materials that compare, or even more rigid and lightweight than AIP...

Overall, I'd say it's easier to find higher-end components though...

if it were possible, I'd like to find a 4x6 ONE-WAY speaker system, that has a tweeter that can be mounted separately... that way you get all the bass of the large cone, and the crisp high's of the tweeter.

 

I've heard that solo barics do sound different than round speakers (and it makes sense theoretically), but I haven't verified that myself. I will say from personal experience that round 4" speakers sound slightly different than the oval 4x6" when comparing traditional coaxial speakers of the same brand and speaker line. The reason is that round speakers transduce sound in a more uniform pattern.
Square and triangular shaped subwoofers are a fashion statement. These types of subs exist because they stack more efficiently than round ones in a multiple sub configuration, so they appeal to SPL competitors who are looking for a way to pack as much bass into a small location as possible as well as have a design that stands out from the rest of the competition.

The only reason 4x6" aftermarket speakers exist is because car companies make speakers that size (why the car companies like that size, I'm not sure).
Nobody makes 4x6 components because there is no reason to install a quality component woofer in the dash. Even if you could mount the tweets are in the a-pillars - this would improve imaging but not sound quality.

Here is why dash speakers do not compare to kick panel speakers:

1. The sound that you hear from the woofers in dash-mounted speakers is a combination of off-axis sound from the woofer, reflected sound from the windshield, and even rear wave sound from the woofer that manages to make its way through the holes in the dash. So what you hear is a big mess, rather than one clear and precise sound. Kick panels isolate the rear wave from the front wave, the sound does not bounce off the windshield due to their lower mount, and off-axis sound can be used to your advantage rather than against you. The soundstage is still above the dash even though the speakers are not.
2. The pathlengths are nowhere near equal between the left and right channels for dash mounted speakers, resulting in poor imaging. Kick panels give relatively equal pathlengths between the speakers.
3. A great speaker in a bad location results in average sound AT BEST. In other words, you're wasting your money and energy to put an expensive speaker in the dash.

 

Ever heard of Infinity Kappa 4x6 Component Plates?



I agree that the sound is bouncing off the windshield... BUT at the same time, I think that makes it NOT off-axis... because the sound is being directly reflected off the glass and into your ears.

I think that kick components would be better... but I think only if they are angled directly at you... otherwise you'd have pure off-axis sound, with no sound reflecting into your ears...

 

Those aren't really components, although they are as close to it as you can get. They do utilize a round woofer and separate tweeter, but they still fall into the 2-way multielement category.
All the SQ competitors would be mounting speakers in the dash and bouncing it off the windshield if it produced better sound. Sound from the windshield is a distorted version of the on-axis signal, unless it is properly utilized. The only speaker to actually use the windshield properly is CDT Audio....
The key with kick panels is to mount the speaker on the driver's side at the passenger seat, and vice versa, to help equalize path lengths. This leaves the closer speaker slightly off-axis, creating the auditory illusion that it is farther away.

 

hrm, kappa plates may 'Technically' be something else... but they are clearly components... there is really no difference in having the 4" woofer you are getting that comes with the custom mounting plate... other than the location of the tweeter...

 

But you're making the failed assumption that just because the tweeter isn't mounted on top of the woofer that it's somehow superior. The whole reason that a set of components is typically considered superior to coaxes is not because of how the tweeter is mounted, but the fact that much higher quality components can be used when you're using an external crossover network. The infinity plates use the same low quality drivers as a typical coax, and uses the same low quality (non existant) filter network.

Just because the drivers are next to each other instead of on top of each other doesn't make it better. It's a decent sounding speaker, but certainly not up to the quality of a decent set of components.


Oh, and as long as I'm pissing all over everybodys theories, the Kicker subs sound different because they're junk, not because the cone is square. At those frequencies, the energy storage and distortion issues associated with oddly shaped cones won't come into play. They just sound bad because the overall design sucks. They chose to cater to the boom crowd instead of the SQ crowd.

 

LOL! I'm glad I put the coffee cup down before I read that...

 

I wasn't sure about how the square cone related to sound quality in the subwoofer range. My theory for non-round speakers was reserved for the multi-element coax's, but I see how the two seemed to be intertwined in my ramblings...... I'm glad Jim's here to clean up after me

mmmm external crossovers.

 

what's the big difference if the crossover is mounted externally, or mounted to the plate itself? Is it simply the external crossover has more room for better parts, making it more accurate?

 

That's essentially it. Coaxes are intended to be affordable and compact. These two features mean it needs a super simple, super cheap crossover. Most coaxes have a woofer that plays full range, and a tweeter that has a single cap in series with it. This introduces a whole laundry list of comprimises associated not only with the filter itself, but with what kind of drivers can be used.

That's not to say that the entry-level component speakers from any particular brand is guaranteed to be a big improvement, because they still use cheap parts too, but typically, at the very minimum, a more robust tweeter is used and the external crossover is at least sophisticated enough to allow for a much better filter.