Sound
System
Replacement - Speaker Installation - 6.5" mid base (inside door),
Mid-base
Speaker:
General Installation Concept:
I did not want to end up with 7" deep kick panel on my doors (one would
be really kicking it every time one gets in or out). I
decided to mount the speaker directly to the panel.
However, to provided some elevation for the speaker I have used
wooden rings to space 6.6" mid base. I have ended up with
three rings, two making up Main Ring and one used for door frame
attachment.
Door
Structure Modification:
to keep the speaker protrusion
as small as possible, speaker magnet hole was cut at the center of the
Door Frame Ring (approx. 4.5" diameter) red piece shown below).
Door Frame Ring:
ring is shaped to provide as close as possible contact with door
structure (must conform to non flat surface - as shown below),
ring is bolted to the door frame.
outside diameter is lightly smaller than Main Ring diameter (this
provides an overlap that is later used to better secure door panel).
ring is placed as close as possible to the lower forward corner
of the door.
ring overlaps window actuator access hole and is bolted as close
as possible to the door panel edges to allow for cover panel cutout
(see picture below).
Middle And Outer
Ring
Construction:
two rings are cut out of 3/4" thick plywood,
rings are glued together,
the rings are cut across at a shallow angle to allow
speaker to point towards the listener (see concept sketch for locations
of lowest and highest pints), and finally
rings are wrapped in black leather:
Door Panel Modification:
a hole was cut to accept Door Frame Ring with as tight fit as
possible (after carpet is wrapped around the cutout perimeter).
due to space restrictions cutout extends from lower flat panel
section, up to the door light opening (picture shown cutout had to be
enlarged later to accommodate speaker grill ring and allow space for
inserting grill).
To further reduce panel vibrations, Quiet Kote spray
was used to cover entire panel back surface in the front where speakers
are mounted:
Dynamat Extreme was used on sprayed panel to further reduce panel
vibrations (it turned out to have almost completely eliminated strong
vibrations felt with the OE ITT speaker, even with much more powerful
sound source of the new system) :
Assembly:
door panel is mounted to assure that
Door Frame Ring fits inside the cutout opening,
Main Ring is placed over the Door
Frame Ring and is bolted to the door structure,
speaker is mounted to the Main
Ring with four screws.
Attempts to seal the volume behind the cutout for the speaker
magnet (as shown above) resulted in huge mid-base speaker performance
penalty (loss of low range due to very small volume).
That forced
me to open-up the space, and
Deflex pads
are installed in the back panel inside door for better
performance:
