I've currently got: * 6 x 9 Inch Speakers on parcel shelf * 12 inch sub in boot * 250 watt amp in boot I wanted to get a couple of 6 inch speakers to chuck in the doors, but after browsing the forums i have seen that this wont work?? i was gunna try to fit it in to the bottom rear part of the front doors and simply was gunna cut a hole in the door trims and then screw the speakers into it, but people have been saying this wont work? Does anyone have some advice on if this would work and where else i could mount the speakers? im pretty happy with the sound now but it could defiantly do with some speakers in the front. If the door trim doesnt work can anyone else suggest a place to put the 6 inches?? Also, i was looking at another 1000 watt sub, it was 12 inch xplod, do u guys rekon i would get much more bass over the current 12 inch 600 watt clarion sub?? If i got the xplod one, i would sell my current clarion too, how much should i be roughly be looking at for selling it with a box included? Any help is greatly appreciated, its my first time mucking with audio stuff and im a bit in the dark at the moment

You can put them in the front doors. Best way to do it is to buy a 6" spacer from any Car Audio place. take off the door trim. Measure Size of hole needed by using spacer Cut hole using jigsaw Mount spacer Run wiring Fit door trim Mount speaker Enjoy Get some splits and mount the tweeter in the original 4" spot. As for the subs, sound quality is going to depend on a multitude of things. Type of enclosure, if it's ported if the subs are inverted ect. I don't think there would be a massive advantage in changing subs, Sony aren't highly touted in car audio although are good for entry level stuff. Look at spending money on amps and proper installation.

Quote: Originally Posted by Yeti You can put them in the front doors. Best way to do it is to buy a 6" spacer from any Car Audio place. take off the door trim. Measure Size of hole needed by using spacer Cut hole using jigsaw Mount spacer Run wiring Fit door trim Mount speaker Enjoy Get some splits and mount the tweeter in the original 4" spot. As for the subs, sound quality is going to depend on a multitude of things. Type of enclosure, if it's ported if the subs are inverted ect. I don't think there would be a massive advantage in changing subs, Sony aren't highly touted in car audio although are good for entry level stuff. Look at spending money on amps and proper installation. So basically u pull off the door trim, mark out and cut a hole in the door trim?? and then its just a matter of wiring and installing? aswell what are splits and tweeters lol?? sorry i havent done much with audio before, and where is the original 4" spot, in the doors?? or those speakers sorta near the vents on the outside of the dash? i think my sub is 10" so a 12" with almost double the watts would probably provide a good boost?

you can definately fit 6" or 6.5" in the front doors. you will have to cut a little bit of metal but it is minor. 'splits' are also called 'components'. they are usually a 6 or 6.5" speaker aswell as a little 1" tweeter. just as your sub is designated to reproduce lower frwequencies the component set splits the frequencies into high and low and sends them to the different speakers. this generally gives you a crisper sound and a more responsive system than a set of normal speakers. the stock 4" positions are at either side of the dash, (above the airvents as you said.) these are accesible pretty easy (once you know what you are doing that is) there should be a tutorial on the street commodores forum. as for the sub, the power ratings you are stating are whats called max ratings. what is more important is rms or constant power ratings. generally a 600w clarion is probably about 4-450rms. the sony xplod would com in at 300ish from my memory of when i last looked at their 10000w offering. this means that while the sony has a higher advertised rating it doesn't really use more power. also it isn't always power thats important but the quality of the brand. a base clarion will outperform a mid range sony. if you want more out of your sub i'd look at a better name amplifier or redesigning the box and ports. if you don't have the knowledge to be able to do this yourself then i'd recomend just buying a premade sub + box cmbo with a matched amp. the cost of getting a custom box made is quite high. if you do want to replace your existing sub go somewhere other than strathfield / autobarn / jb hi-fi / wow / supercheap auto. the more stores you go to the better your decision will be in the end. autobarn and JB are a good start and wow's option audio are reportedly well performing for the $$. anyway point is don't go sony do some more reswearch. i'd better end now before this gets any longer hope this helps.

yeh only reason 6'' in doors wouldnt work is if the cone hit the door so yeh just buy spacer like yeti said.. as for the amp for the sub it will make a dif but yeh sony not the best.. will make a diff but you wont get your moneys worth

Quote: Originally Posted by DVO_17 as for the amp for the sub it will make a dif but yeh sony not the best.. will make a diff but you wont get your moneys worth i doubt it will be a good difference. the sony will not be higher powered than the clarion and even so probably won't get a better sound. eg my 45 series mtx 12" in a 96 magna vs. a vs with 2 x 1000wmax 12" jaycar subs... magna with the 450w max won with 130.2db. you should also look into adding some weight (sound deadener) to your panels. for a few hundred bucks and an afternoons work you will drastically improve the sound of your car without changing any of the system's components. on my vlc i used bitumen paint (like what is used underneath your car); sheetmetal inside the front doors on the firewall / front footwells boot floor parcel shelf and the bit between the boot and cabin, (both sides) rear wheel wells, spare wheel well, any other curved surface in the boot i then used dynamat on the bootlid and as a replacement for that plastic dirt cover in between the doortrim and the door. i also used some foam offcuts from clark rubber and stuffed them in the area surrounding the taillights and bootlock. (any hollow space will cause undesired vibrations) i also used dynamat on my numberplate and 4 screws instead of 2, and dynamat on the little braces that hold the rear garnish on. all that vibrated after all of this was the roof and the rear bumper! anyway this is good to look into and will definately positively affect your install. you should expect much better sound from the front doors and the parcel shelf aswell as less distortion / noise from vibrations. your DB reading may be negatively affected but thats a maybe... it is disputed whether sound deadener increases max volume or not and is largely dependent on the car and install. another easy trick is face your sub at the rear of the car not towards the cabin. increases wobbles but also increases your max sound! there are lots of little tricks to get the best out of what you have.

Thanks for all the replies. I am currently doing some more research. The clarion does pump a lot of noise, but I had a look on the wow website and come up with a new sub and speakers I would like. The sub was a kenwood kfc3011 or something like that, 12 inch and 1200 watts and only 180 with a box. I'm sure this would be better then the current clarion I have now what do u guys rekon? I was also looking at fusion encounters 6.5" with tweeters aswell I think these r the go. As for installing the speakers with some spacers I shouldnt have to cut any metal hopefully has anyone done a install like this before? I might buy a new amp I currently have a clarion it says 250 on it so I'm guessing it's a 250 watt amp. If I got a good amp and the new kenwood sub I probably would get pretty good sound and could probably sell off my old sub and amp together for around 200-250 bucks hopefully. Does anyone have an idea of what they may be worth?

sell your sub and box for $50 as clarion is not realy the best and about $70 for the amp

the fusion are alright but encounter are their entry model. what i think is the best attack is take a mix cd down to the audio store and trial the fusions, then trial everything else in that price range and choose your favourite sound. as for the sub you need to know the wrms. sounds like your clarion is about a 250wrms. the kenwood will probably be a lot louder and 180 is a budget price!

About the door pods, with my old VL I brought some door pods from JB-HIFI which looked like this. They gave me more room to play with and sounded great because of the extra angle they where on also I little side mount for the tweeter. With amp matching I'd try using the same amp as the speakers because using different amps and speakers run a different frequency's & ohm's. If I was you I'd match amps & speakers(same band). (My 2 cents) Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

can u explain a little more?

About 9 years ago I brought some 10" pioneer's subs for the vl because they look cool with the mesh cone look. Anyway I hooked up the 10" pioneer subs to the 654 kicker amp and sounded mint, 1-2 months later my amp wouldn't stop going into protection mode because of the extra resistance from the 10" pioneer subs. The bloke from Car Audio Works said I have burnt out the protection mode on the amp and to repair the amp would allmost be the same price as I brought the amp for. So I chuck that amp and learnt a expensive lesson. Lesson:- Match subs(brand) with amp(brand). Because each product has different resistance, ohm, frequencey, impedance and watts rating. Running the same product will give you the best results, unless you can match them.

first time i have ever heard of a fault because of different brands what probably happened would have been the amp was overworked due to not having enough power to drive the speakers. i konw of a car that is even running HOUSE SPEAKERS as mids (9.5") and its working PERFECTLY even won a comp or 2 apparently i think "the guy" from the shop told you whatever to get another sale?

it isn't matching brands but matching the impedence (?) or the ohm's opf the sub. eg. your amp may be rated at 1000w @ 2ohm stable but your sub is 1ohm, your amp is not suited to the sub (unless the amp is also 1ohm stable, most amps are stable at a variety of readings but as the ohm number gets lower the power delivered will get higher.) in hturbo's case he was probably running the subs mismatched to the amp. any car audio store will be able to ensure your amps are matched even if they are seperate brands. the important thing to note is ensure that those advising you are knowledgeable and that they have all of the information they need to make reccomendations.

Yeah one thing I didn't realize was when you change your amp from 4 channel to parallel the amp runs at 2 ohm instead of 4 ohm. About a month later once the subs had run in they started making a popping sound because they were exceeding their limitations because of the extra load. Then the amp wouldn't stop going into protection mode even after I turned the gain down. Big lesson learnt. To much load.

hturbo, all this ohm stuff is a little beyond me. i get the basics but don't fully understan it. i just make sure that everything matches up with the seller / mobile electronics aust.

I've had a look on the net on the type of sub I have, it is actually 12" and puts out about 350 rms I wanted to get a 1200 watt kenwood with a 1000 watt amp, but I searched the internet and found specs on my sub, it is actually 350wrms. my sub is only 600 watt but it has a good rms and I don't want to replace it to be honest I think the fusion encounter splits are the go, I called up car audio excellence in blacktown and he said he can install them for 110 a side, and that includes cutting the door trim making a custom pod with speakers and tweeters all in one plus wiring etc, it's a bit pricy but I rekon the finish and profesionalism of it will be way better

as long as hes making custom doorpods and its ALL new wiring...

Quote: Originally Posted by SIroller hturbo, all this ohm stuff is a little beyond me. i get the basics but don't fully understan it. i just make sure that everything matches up with the seller / mobile electronics aust. I totally agree. Matching speakers with amps will give you the best results. Brand matching all helps becuase every manufacture has different specifcations.

Quote: Originally Posted by SIroller hturbo, all this ohm stuff is a little beyond me. i get the basics but don't fully understan it. i just make sure that everything matches up with the seller / mobile electronics aust. I totally agree. Matching speakers with amps will give you the best results. Brand matching all helps becuase every manufacture has different specifcations. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.