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Replacing Fender Speakers - Does Fender System Have Crossover?
- Thread starter George Ab
- Start date
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
Just the phone. I'm not going for absolute levels, just verifying what my ears told me, making changes and then looking at deltas.
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
So some good news. I wrapped the circumference of the stock plastic spacer with 22 gauge galvanized steel and epoxied it in place. After this dried I added a layer of Raamat on the surface of the steel.
Installed M5 rivnuts into the door (who pop-rivets speakers in place?) and reinstalled. One note - if you do this you have to grind down the plastic lip on the back side of the spacer around each mounting hole (you'll see what I mean when you look) and then add a new layer of something compressible to seal the speaker to the door since the rivnuts have a ring around them that sits above the metal surface. Was going to use speed clips but I hate those things and then I remembered I had the rivnut kit, that is why the paint is all scratched up.
Stock (unmodified) driver response at 1 ft:
Stiffened stock driver:
On a crap phone screen shot it is subtle, but the unmodified driver has a peak at 1200 Hz where as the modified one is flatter from about 600-1200 Hz. It definitely sounds fuller by ear. Most importantly I was able to get this response from it by changing the head unit low/mid/high settings in less radical ways than needed for the fronts (there is no door panel at this point so the tweeter isn't hooked up, that is why there is a huge drop at 10k).
So this looks like the best way forward without going full replacement. Going to pull the other rear tomorrow and do the same before moving to the front.
Also, if you haven't worked on the rear doors it sucks. Everything is tight because they just don't open very far.
Installed M5 rivnuts into the door (who pop-rivets speakers in place?) and reinstalled. One note - if you do this you have to grind down the plastic lip on the back side of the spacer around each mounting hole (you'll see what I mean when you look) and then add a new layer of something compressible to seal the speaker to the door since the rivnuts have a ring around them that sits above the metal surface. Was going to use speed clips but I hate those things and then I remembered I had the rivnut kit, that is why the paint is all scratched up.
Stock (unmodified) driver response at 1 ft:
Stiffened stock driver:
On a crap phone screen shot it is subtle, but the unmodified driver has a peak at 1200 Hz where as the modified one is flatter from about 600-1200 Hz. It definitely sounds fuller by ear. Most importantly I was able to get this response from it by changing the head unit low/mid/high settings in less radical ways than needed for the fronts (there is no door panel at this point so the tweeter isn't hooked up, that is why there is a huge drop at 10k).
So this looks like the best way forward without going full replacement. Going to pull the other rear tomorrow and do the same before moving to the front.
Also, if you haven't worked on the rear doors it sucks. Everything is tight because they just don't open very far.
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
So while the stock rear speakers really needed the help, the fronts are considerably more beefy. I wrapped them in the same manner, but the overall effect is not as good as I was hoping for.
Since I'm doing this all on my phone the screenshots result in images that are all exactly the same size so I was able to just keep the peak hold lines and overlay the two.
Red is stock wit the the EQ all the way down for mids and cranked up for lows like I had many posts ago, blue is with half that correction and the stiffening in place. This midbass hole is definitely better and the level throughout the midrange stays flatter. It is no longer annoying to listen to, so that is a positive step.
I should point out while I was in there I fully damped the door steel with raamat and applied ensolite to the back of the door trim panels.
Eventually I'm sure I'm going to go with the Zen V setup with a four channel amp and DSP running the fronts and a separate amp running a better sub. No rear fill, there are enough surfaces in a car for sound to bounce off of.
Since I'm doing this all on my phone the screenshots result in images that are all exactly the same size so I was able to just keep the peak hold lines and overlay the two.
Red is stock wit the the EQ all the way down for mids and cranked up for lows like I had many posts ago, blue is with half that correction and the stiffening in place. This midbass hole is definitely better and the level throughout the midrange stays flatter. It is no longer annoying to listen to, so that is a positive step.
I should point out while I was in there I fully damped the door steel with raamat and applied ensolite to the back of the door trim panels.
Eventually I'm sure I'm going to go with the Zen V setup with a four channel amp and DSP running the fronts and a separate amp running a better sub. No rear fill, there are enough surfaces in a car for sound to bounce off of.
Im running a portable hi res player into an audiocontrol dsp to a 5 channel amp then to front 6.5 and tweets. I really don't miss the rears much even with my seat pushed nearly to the back. Once you upgrade your front stage, i doubt you'll miss your rears too after a bit.