Icehawk's "OEM+" speaker upgrade

[Icehawk]

That would be great, I'd love to mount my sub driver a little better. I'm meeting with my installer on Tuesday to go over everything else, hoping he can take my car then or very soon.

The Palindrome stuff is so overpriced it blows my mind.

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[Yorkman1]

That would be great, I'd love to mount my sub driver a little better. I'm meeting with my installer on Tuesday to go over everything else, hoping he can take my car then or very soon.

The Palindrome stuff is so overpriced it blows my mind.

Yeah they are so expensive. I have 60 bucks in my sub and I’m happy. Only has gotten better the more I’ve played it

 

[Icehawk]

Ok, the speaker install is set for Feb 19 - that's getting the tweeters F/R, center, and R door drivers mounted. I'll have him look at the rear hatch too.

I ordered some baffles for the front door speakers since I could see they have gotten water on them. Probably need to do that for the rears too now that I write this...

York, I sent you a message - if you have extra adapters for the sub I'd love one, I think mine could be mounted/sealed better.

 

[Fl5ap]

Ok, the speaker install is set for Feb 19 - that's getting the tweeters F/R, center, and R door drivers mounted. I'll have him look at the rear hatch too.

I ordered some baffles for the front door speakers since I could see they have gotten water on them. Probably need to do that for the rears too now that I write this...

York, I sent you a message - if you have extra adapters for the sub I'd love one, I think mine could be mounted/sealed better.

Revised spacer with recessed OEM mounting holes to allow OEM screws to thread perfectly and creates a flat surface to mount new sub for a perfect seal.

 

[Ultimateone]

Being a CAD guy I absolutely love this

 

[JDM_DOHC_SiR]

Revised spacer with recessed OEM mounting holes to allow OEM screws to thread perfectly and creates a flat surface to mount new sub for a perfect seal.

Fantastic design!! would love to get one of these!!

 

[FL5CW]

Fantastic design!! would love to get one of these!!

I would like to be added to this list!

 

[Icehawk]

Car is at my audio guy finally - should see all the tweeters, center dash speaker, and rear doors done today.

 

[Ac12]

https://www.skaraudio.com/products/ix-8-inch-car-subwoofer

Quick question guys, would this fit in the stock enclosure?

 

[Icehawk]

Bad link but there is about 4" of depth clearance, not sure about the Skar driver you are specifically asking about but someone on FB posted that they used a Skar driver of some sort.

Picking my car up tomorrow, I forgot to get a 2nd set of capacitors for the tweeters so I'll need to plumb those in.

 

[Ac12]

Bad link but there is about 4" of depth clearance, not sure about the Skar driver you are specifically asking about but someone on FB posted that they used a Skar driver of some sort.

Picking my car up tomorrow, I forgot to get a 2nd set of capacitors for the tweeters so I'll need to plumb those in.

IX-8 | 8" 300 Watt Max Power Car Subwoofer
Ix-8 D2 it's called..it's on sale for 40 bucks including shipping, but if not I'll just go with the other 40 dollar one mentioned here...I have a ten inch Hertz powered unit I'll throw in the back or under seat if it fits...
https://hertz-audio.com/product/cba-250/
Also cause I have no clue what I'm doing and don't want to open anything up I think I'm gonna wait until next year or at least until the summer and then get someone to upgrade everything with those CDT speakers...

 

[Icehawk]

I think that Skar sub will work especially if you were to use/fab a trim ring to gain a little depth wiggle room. I went with a shallow sub since I was basically going off what the FK8 folks had done and it seemed like the recommendation was 4" mounting depth or less. Money and effort is better spent elsewhere IMO - pigface makes excellent points and my experience with a driver swap has been pretty "meh". There's also very little power being sent to the sub driver stock.

Got the car back, front tweeters are disconnected until I get some caps installed (later this week). Sounds a hell of a lot better even without them, once they are in I'll give a final review/parts list. It was good I used my audio guy for the tweeters, the front ones were kinda big and he had to use a laser cutting device to trim the housing down to get it to fit.

I did think it was interesting when I was chatting with my installer that he would have suggested instead of the driver swaps instead using a processor/amp and the stock speakers - he said I would be surprised at how decent they would sound with some good amplification behind them. He's very knowledgeable but I struggle to believe those $2 drivers would sound better with a decent amp vs Bose amp & good drivers? Would probably run the same cost and make it easier to then upgrade drivers later so maybe not so crazy.... but bear in mind when I give my wrapup the recommended cash outlay vs what I spent is a lot less. I have extra speakers, bought higher end than needed, etc. One could easily upgrade the important bits for ~$350 plus any install costs, I'm closer to $1,400 all-in.

 

[Icehawk]

...and DONE. Just wrapped up installing the caps on the front tweeters and buttoning it up.

Worth it y'all just like I expected. From a D+ to a B-. If you are in the Miami area and are curious to hear it, hit me up. I go to C&C in Doral sometimes, Supercar Saturday in Pembroke, and should be at FuelFest this weekend. I tend to hibernate once it gets hot though!


Let's review what I did below, all drivers except sub are from CDT Audio:

Front doors ES-6.2
Front tweeters ES-1200iS, 4.7uf cap added
Center ES-3
Rear doors ES-5
Rear tweeters DRT-25, 4.7uf cap added
Subwoofer Rockford Fosgate PS3D4-8
C pillars - STOCK

I WOULD recommend using DRT-25 tweeters up front, my installer did an excellent job using the (large) ES-1200iS but he has a laser cutter and experience. Skip the sub or at least use a cheaper driver than I did as I noticed little improvement there - I do want to go back and seal/deaden the box better though. Maybe I'll plumb a LC2i in someday but probably not. Center swap is optional, it adds a little but of all the replacement drivers it's the one that adds the least. Don't worry about the C pillars, there is no room and they are like 1% of the overall sound.

All in, with mistakes, extra parts, installer, etc I'm at about $1,500. I'm pretty happy with the results, getting better audio would mean plumbing in an amp & processor and the additional costs and complexities, my goal was reasonable quality sound and I've achieved it via the driver swaps.

If I did it all as cleanly as possible it would have been closer to $1,200 plus that dumb RF driver was way more $ than needed IMO. Note that $550 of the cost was my installer so you may be able to skip or reduce that depending on your skills, time, etc.

*I have one ES-3 and 2x Dayton 3" drivers if anyone is looking for center channel drivers. $35 for the CDT and $15 for the Daytons.

 

[Yorkman1]

I hope this works but this is the sub test at 50hz with the recoil at 1ohm. It does hit it…….

 

[mbaapk]

...and DONE. Just wrapped up installing the caps on the front tweeters and buttoning it up.

Worth it y'all just like I expected. From a D+ to a B-. If you are in the Miami area and are curious to hear it, hit me up. I go to C&C in Doral sometimes, Supercar Saturday in Pembroke, and should be at FuelFest this weekend. I tend to hibernate once it gets hot though!


Let's review what I did below, all drivers except sub are from CDT Audio:

Front doors ES-6.2
Front tweeters ES-1200iS, 4.7uf cap added
Center ES-3
Rear doors ES-5
Rear tweeters DRT-25, 4.7uf cap added
Subwoofer Rockford Fosgate PS3D4-8
C pillars - STOCK

I WOULD recommend using DRT-25 tweeters up front, my installer did an excellent job using the (large) ES-1200iS but he has a laser cutter and experience. Skip the sub or at least use a cheaper driver than I did as I noticed little improvement there - I do want to go back and seal/deaden the box better though. Maybe I'll plumb a LC2i in someday but probably not. Center swap is optional, it adds a little but of all the replacement drivers it's the one that adds the least. Don't worry about the C pillars, there is no room and they are like 1% of the overall sound.

All in, with mistakes, extra parts, installer, etc I'm at about $1,500. I'm pretty happy with the results, getting better audio would mean plumbing in an amp & processor and the additional costs and complexities, my goal was reasonable quality sound and I've achieved it via the driver swaps.

If I did it all as cleanly as possible it would have been closer to $1,200 plus that dumb RF driver was way more $ than needed IMO. Note that $550 of the cost was my installer so you may be able to skip or reduce that depending on your skills, time, etc.

*I have one ES-3 and 2x Dayton 3" drivers if anyone is looking for center channel drivers. $35 for the CDT and $15 for the Daytons.

For all that $ Id probably opt to go all in with LC2i but Id only be looking for bigger louder subs. In your opinion are the upgrades worth the $1,200?

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