Speakers in dash?

[kaptnkaos]

Hey green68250...

Personally, I wouldn't cut any holes in the dash...
If I were I gonna mount speakers under the dash, I'd drill a nice pattern with a 1/8 inch drill bit and use that as a grlle cover.
I prefer using speaker boxes because they always give you the best quality sound.
I have 5"x4"x7" bookshelf style boxes with "u" type brackets mounted just below the door panels.
The boxes are angle up toward the center so they just clear the floor to close the door...
I just bought some new 400 watt ones to replace my old ones with.
(I've had the ones in it now for almost 20 years)
I don't have a behind the seat gas tank, so I have an amp mounted back there.
The amp is set up with 1/4" female jacks so I can use professional 1/4" audio speaker cables to hook up and kind of speaker set up I want.
Right now, I 'm running a pair of 6'x9"'s that sound real good with plenty of punch.
Before that, I had a Pioneer 10" sub which sounded pretty good too, but I put it back in the Caravan.. it just sounded better in there.
One time just for kicks, I bridged the amp (500 watts) and plugged it into a Peavey bass cabinet with twin Black Widows... I had the Peavey box in the bed.
Talk about putting some thump in yer bump... Oh yeah
Seriously the 6x9's had the best sound, with the book shelf speakers.
The one thing I do wanna add, is a pair of super dome tweets to mount right in the corners of the dash. It's amazing how much those things crispen the sound.
oh yeah... For now, I'm running a Sony head unit...
I am going to replace that with a unit that has an auxillery input so I can plug an mp3 player directly into the unit. My phone has an mp3 player with an 8 gig memory card...

KaptnKA S

[fireguywtc]

If you are supplimenting other speakers somewhere in the cab like I did, I would just go with a pair of 4" speakers mounted together under the dash. That is what I went with on my pickup since I had already had a pair of 6x9s in the doors. The two 4" speakers under the dash really made nice soucn, having 2 of them allows for stereo, and you would be amazed how much sound comes from those speakers and bounces off the windshield.

[green68250]

Sounds like you know your sound systems, kaptn. Do you have a picture of those boxes you made? I have a plan to put some 6x9's in the doors and then put the 4"'s somewhere else. Should I try and fit the 4's somwhere in the kick panel or ? Do you think I even need the 4's? Should I just run the 6x9's with an amp and call it good? I dont know all that much about stereo systems so any ideas on what would be a decent system for a person on somewhat of a budget who wants a decent sounding system? My current stereo systems include a deck with 2 6x9's in boxes sitting on the floor with no amp. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Corbin

[kaptnkaos]

Hey green68250

I just bought these on ebay to replace ones I bought like them 20 years ago...
If these sound as good, I'll be extrremely happy.

They are mounted with two sheet metal screws below the door panel, so no holes go into the door panels at all.
Behind the seat, right now I just have a 300 watt amp with a pair of Pioneer 3 way 6x9's in a kicker box .
When I get to do the work on the interior, I want to install buckets.
In the area behind the seat (where the in cab tank used to be) I want to build a custom box.
The bottom part will house a 10" sub on each side. The top half is going to be a storage box to keep oil, jumper cables, etc
What I know about speakers and boxes has mainly came from playing in bands for about 40 years.
I was stationed in the Air Force with a guy that worked at the Bose plant in SC making speakers... he taught me alot about size, space and air movement.
He helped me design and build a matched pair of reflected/baffled bass cabinets with a 15" bass speaker and a matched piezo tweeter with a crossover... match that with a 300 watt Behringer Ultra-bass and it'll shake the rafters.
It is one of the best sounding mid sized bass rigs I've ever heard...
It's all a matter of matching the speaker to the application, then figuring out how big of box is needed to meet the space required for that speaker to produce it's optimum sound. Wedges always produce the sound.
A place in a bump that a guy could mount a wedge pretty easily is the kick panel... rather than cut a hole in it.
You could also mount a couple of small wedges on the bottom lip of the dash... like where an a/c would mount.
With a little bit of ceativity there are lots of possibilities.

Edit: PS I got these for only $27.98 they list for $199, an dhad a buy it now price of $44

KaptnKA S