Car Audio

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » August 2, 2005, 4:22 pm

Ok. I bought some speakers for my car last weekend because the factory speakers are blowing out.

When I worked at circuit city and whenever I have bought something there since they have had free installation. They do not anymore apparently.

I installed my Sirius just fine by myself, although I wouldn't mind having the cords run through the interior so they weren't draped over the dash. What I am wondering is this; I am not paying 150 dollars they want to install the speakers because I think that is unreasonable above what I already payed for the product and warranty. I am considering trying to do this myself.

I bought all polk stuff, and the front speakers are components, like a 1 inch tweater for the highs and 5 and a quarter inches for the lows.
The back is straight 6 and a half inch speakers. These are the same exact size as what is in there now, so no modifications need to be made for them to fit.

I am just looking for any advice basically. I don't think I should need to rewire. I haven't really done much with car audio before, but I pick things up quick.. The components obviously have a crossover and such, but I am just wondering if I open up my door panels am I going to be like wtf? or is it fairly easy to do ?

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » August 2, 2005, 7:40 pm

Depends on your current setup to be honest. The rear speakers are most likely pretty much "plug and play", you MIGHT have to fab up a new mounting bracket due to screw holes being different but most likely not.

The front speakers will depend a bit on your setup. Are they straight door speakers now? No tweeters? If so, pop off the door panel, take out the speakers, hook up the wires used for the speakers into the crossover, pull the wires from the crossover to the new speakers and tweeters, connect and put panel back. This is simplified but it really isn't that difficult. And to be honest, rewiring the speakers is a pain and unless you are a true audiophile you wont notice much of a difference at all.

The largest problem will most likely be the tweeters. Mounting them can be a bit of a pain, and how much will depend on the car. My car was a total pain due to lack of space behind teh door panels which made it difficult to flush mount them. If you decide to surface mount them you can do that very easily.

Also keep in mind things like sound plane, phase shifts etc. Personally, I have my speakers in the stock location (front lower corner of door) with the tweeters flush mounted above them next to the window controls. Having them too high up (and too far from the normal speaker) makes for bad sound imo. Especially if the tweeters are of the "hard" sound variety.

Also note, on a lot of crossover is a sort of "jumper" setting between flat and.. erh.. more powerful sound. I started with the latter but quickly decided to swap back to the flat sound since it allowed me a bit more freedom of adjusting it from the head unit.

Of course remember that sound in a car will depend a lot on head unit and amplifier as well, not just the speakers

That said, I would never have Circuit City do my installations. A guy in my car community got his 3000GT VR4 totaled due to crappy installations (lead to a car fire) and I have seen multiple other horrible jobs by them. Do it yourself and take your time. It will take a lot longer than you might think most likely (although speakers are the easiest part) and you will learn a lot.

Plus it is fun!

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » August 3, 2005, 12:04 pm

On a side note.. Crutchfield.com has a lot of good info on how to do car audio stuff. Can probably find pretty much anything you need there.

Kluden · Post by **Kluden** » August 3, 2005, 12:11 pm

Yeah, speaking of Crutchfield, you can always call them, tell them your POLK speaker part numbers, and your make/model/year of your car, and they will sell you the install kits only. They are usually like $3 or something...but totally worth it.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » August 3, 2005, 3:45 pm

Cool thanks guys.

Yeah the tweeters are just replacing old ones too, so I am guessing since the setup is exactly the same that there might be a crossover in there already. I will probably just order the install kit like you guys suggested and do it myself.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » August 5, 2005, 1:30 pm

Ok, possibly a very stupid question. When I do all this crap do I have to unhook the battery? Im assuming yes, which sucks cause in my car after you unhook the battery you have to enter about 10 codes in the radio to get the car working again.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » August 5, 2005, 1:39 pm

Well you dont have to but I would just to be on the safe side. It is less important while changing speakers than hooking up a new head unit or amps for sure, but it is always better to error on the safe side.

Come to think of it.. when I picked up some wires at Circuit City I watched their installation guys for a while and don't think they unhooked the battery for speaker installations. But I wouldn't use them as a reference for how to do things heh.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » August 5, 2005, 2:28 pm

A very good thing to buy is the little adaptor harness that makes your factory speaker wires plug and play with the aftermarket speakers.

I didn't disconnect the battery when installing speakers or head unit, just left the ignition off except for testing.

My car had component tweeters up high in the doors too, and I found I couldn't use aftermarket tweeters as the OEM tweeters are mounted to a proprietary bracket not available in stores or at installers. If this is the case, best bet is to hit a local salvage yard and get a pair of these brackets from junkers and figure out if the aftermarket tweeters can be affixed to the brackets.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » August 5, 2005, 4:43 pm

Thanks again for all the help guys. I will be doing it sometime next week and will let you know if I ruin my cars electrical system or actually succeed.