speakers in a 2 door

[Bally]

hi what size are the speakers in the footwell.

and also I want to fit parcel shelf speakers, dont mind cutting the parcell shelf but do not want to touch the metal, what speakers have others fitted, interested more in getting a good sound more than having it loud.
thanks

[aaronsmart]

ummm 5.25 inch in the front well
just invest in some good speakers and mabye amp them up?
and for the rear there is only a hole underneth the parcal shelf to fit upto 6.26 inch in the rears
so it would depend on how muc you spend on the speakers IMO

[Bally]

thanks , will get to a sound shop and see what they suggest

[Alex]

ive got 6.5's in the rear, its very tight mind between the metal and shelf. i imagine shallow mount 6.5's would be best if you dont want to take a risk

[mrLEE30]

or you can remove the rear parcel shelf cover, then cut out a piece of 3/4 inch plywood to the same shape as the parcel shelf, then cut out the speaker holes as required. the wood can be fixed to the parcel shelf in a few locations with nuts and bolts, this will be obvious when you remove the shelf. the shelf then sits on top of the plywood and you gain quite a large amount of space for deep speakers, the mod is not visible once the shelf cover is replaced.


this is what i mean on only a test fit

[Kemix]

get some decent 5.25" component speakers up the front, preferably use an external amplifier and get yourself a little 8-10" subwoofer (or not), you do not need rear speakers as it ruins your sound staging by dragging it into the rear of the car when you want it to be as if the stage is infront of you!

[mrLEE30]

^^^ thats the first time i have ever heard anyone say two speakers are better than four! Surely thats what the fader is designed to avoid?

[Kemix]

its what my local car audio shop told me and hes done some massive installs! Kinda makes sense though, you want the music to be coming from in front of you as if your at a concert.

[mrLEE30]

^^^ and that is the first time i have ever heard someone professional say that!!

I will also challenge you to find any decent concert that only has speakers at the front of the auditorium.

Yes I agree on running front from an amp but disagree on not installing rear speakers. i am running an Alpine HU and it even comes with a plug in microphone that sets the delay from front to rear/ left to right to adjust the optimum sound for the four quarters of the car, and i am sure Alpine know a thing or two about in car stereo.

plus the main problem with E30 front speakers is the point at your ankles, so you will never really get great sound from the fronts, for that you need custom angles door pods and tweeters - which i my opinion look ugly. so best comprimise is fronts in kick panel and rear in parcel shelf run from an amp, sub in the boot as big as you can be bothered with.

[Kemix]

and the rear parcel shelf speakers point directly at the roof. Rear speakers are for people sitting in the back of your car, listen to your music and fade the sound to just the front, you won't hear any difference without the rear speakers on

It doesn't matter to much that the fronts are pointing at your ankles if you have components, you dont exactly need a subwoofer pointing at your head for it to sound good, hence 'sub in the boot'. The tweeters are what you need pointing at you for clarity. Maybe we should agree to disagree!

[octanejunkie]

The sub can be anywhere in the sound field as the deep sound produced from it is non directional.
In an ideal world, of course you want more of the sound stage at the front. Just as you have in a home theatre system (my other passion by the way )
Unfortunatley in a car there is not a large plasma screen in front of you, but a windscreen you must look through and limited space in which to place speakers.
Quality should rule over quantity as far as speakers are concerned. A decent pair of speakers in the kick panels, and something of equal quality in the parcel shelf is the best compromise. A 10" sub in the boot along with a good quality amp will give a great sound in the little E30. For added dimension to the sound you could add a pair of tweeter pods into the black plastic panels that cover the wing mirrors.

If extra oomph is required in the front you could substitute the door card pockets for some of those ghastly looking fibreglass pod things that you see fitted to some cars. This will give the sound some real extra punch, though IMHO a bit of an over kill in a small car like the E30.
There is also an option to fit some speakers into the rear door cards, though again, not really necessary.
I like the interior the way it is, and am working towards having the set up mentioned in the first paragraph. I had this professionally fitted in my last E30 and it sounded fantastic. Its worth mentioning that that was 11 years ago, and i liked a bit of gangsta rap at the time. I was always well pleased with the sound and it gave a real thumping bass when i came over all "Snoop dog"
Get quality gear, install it properly, and it'll sound great.

[mrLEE30]

Kemix,

I am not disgreeing with you! as pointed out above low frequecy waves are omnidirectional, that means the sound waves lose energy proportionally to the distance from the source (and the desity of the medium through which the wave passes, i.e. how far the speaker is away from you in any direction and what is in between you and the speaker.

higher frequencies do not deomnstate this pheonomenon as they tend to be more directional, and the higher the frequency the more directional they are, alsmost to the point where very high frequencies can only be really found directrly in front of the source (hence why microwaves and above travel in very straight lines only)

what this means in a real world is the speaker inside the car playing the higher frequncies will ideally be directed at your ear, the bass can live in the boot but must be loud to be heard through the rear seat and fire wall (hence a big amp is normally used for a sub).

the interior speakers cannot be pointed at you in a normal car so manufacturers in the days of E30 put them anywhere they could, i.e. kick panels, inside side mirror moulding, and then the only realr sizable area is the rear shelf - this also helped with cheapewr factory set ups to get some bass notes.

So in an E30 i still maintain some decent fronts, some decent rears shelf in parcel run from an amp and time shifted to reach your ear at same time, then a bass speaker in the boot. I agree quality over quantity, but quality and quantity will trump it every time - again you dont see home theatres with one decent speaker in the front only any more per channel, now it normal to have mutlple speaker, centre speakers, raised speakers, low speakers etc etc...i.e. more is better.

[Bally]

Thanks , as stated dont want anything fancy, wont be going for amp or sub (i listen to radio 4 .....) like the idea of raising the shelf to create some more space, is it possible to plastic risers that can go between shelf and speaker , black plastic, this will raise the speaker up slightly any ideas. i could try to make wooden ones and may be put a strip of black insulating tape along the outside.

[Bally]

like this , right need to decide what size now prob go for 6 X9

http://www.incarexpress.co.uk/view_prod ... rtno=SA007

[mrLEE30]

6x 9 are much maligned speakers and i do not know why! they work well for the price and dont sound bad even is run from the head unit, as it happens i had very deep 6x9s and also did not want to cut the metal, you can see below i installed the piece of wood under the shelf and then made wooden spacers to raise the speaker even more. if was not hard to do only needed a jigsaw and some wood and few hours for careful measurements.

purists will argue that round speakers are better, and i agree, but round speakers take up space so decent 6x9's run from a good quality amp wil sound good enought not to need a sub for general use, only issue is security as they are quire visible and thus in UK will attract theives!

the wooden spacers were then painted black and only close inspection are they really visible.

[mrLEE30]

PS be careful with the ones you linked to above, the seat belt comes up through a raised portion of the rear shelf so your sqaure spacers will foul on this riased bit, it may be possible to move the speakers in a little bit, but you will also notice the indentation in the metal under the [arcel shelf where the magnet will fit is close to the seat belt, my point is test fit them before you buy!!! otherwise you may find they dont fit without the magnets hitting the metal

[Bally]

like that mr lee , getting a standard parcel shelf with blind , so will have a test on old shelf , will try wooden spacer as you have done , my grill will be black, so hoping the spacr will not be to obvious , or my just go for 6 inch round ones