Premium Audio Upgrade for less than $250

I was really blown away with how poor the stock speakers were....plastic basket, “shot glass” magnet/voice coil structure....just crap really.

It’s amazing they sounded as good as they did.

 

Does anyone know if the Subaru tweeters can go in the front dash of a ‘14 Camry?

After hearing my setup, she wants me to do something with her car.

 

Anything’s possible with some tools

 

I don't know if anyone else has tried this or mentioned it in this thread so forgive me for 'flogging a dead horse' as it were, but I experienced much better sound clarity as well as significantly better volume simply removing the speakers and putting foam cones behind all of the door speakers. They are available on crutchfield sized for any speaker! About 5$ for a pair of them and 20 mins to install!

 

You talking about the stock speakers? I know someone on here tried the foam baffles with the Kickers and said the sound was better without them

 

Well, no. I've got Kenwood excelon door speakers but I figured it would help pretty much any speaker to sound better. I'm very surprised to hear that someone else had a negative experience with speaker baffles, as I had to turn down the midrange on my speakers because I was getting dramatically more punch compared to before but after that everything sounded great! For me this was the single best audio upgrade I did easily beating out doing the door speakers and subs initially. Oh yeah I also put 10x10 foam squares behind both my subs but inside the box

 

It was in post #422 in this thread

 

Replaced the front tweeters yesterday, sound quality is like night and day! Less volume is needed, its much crisper, easily the best $100 I've spent in a long time. Don't think about it, do it!
Easy install, you will want to take the pillar covers off. I had been contemplating ordering door speakers, not sure that I need to now...the sound difference is that good.

 

The extra bass and clarity from the rest of the speakers is well worth it. I thought the same thing after doing just the tweeters.

 

I see the post and disagree, my experience has been the exact opposite! To each their own though.

 

Which did you buy and did you have a cutout in the baffles?

My slim boommat had a hole cutout on the bottom and the bass went completely flat and sounded fluttery. It sounded like crap.

 

Everyone has their own tastes . I couldn’t be happier with the setup sans sub, amp, and baffles but enjoy YOUR setup - that’s what matters!

 

mounting my new door speakers on Tuesday, i had a few minutes today so to save some time when i go to install i went ahead and mounted the speakers to the Metra speaker mounting brackets that were included by Crutchfield. The 6 3/4" bracket holes were perfectly lined up but those 6x9 bracket holes were pathetic .. i got the screws in them but to me it seems if you would try to tighten them really tight they would strip out.
I also used 3/8" wide X 3/16" thick weather stripping between speaker and bracket plus put it on backside of bracket that goes against door .. maybe not necessary but it was cheap.

 

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_237XT65/XTC-6-1-2-Speaker-Baffles-3-1-4-depth.html?tp=2809
I used 4 of these, with a small slit cut out close to the top to run wires through, but no hole cut out. I secured them by removing the speaker and using the mounting screws from the speaker to hold the corners of the cone in place and screwed the speaker down on top of the cone so its screwed down nice and tight. Holds the speaker nicely and one more layer of isolating vibration from the speaker from the frame!

Its also worth noting that having the baffle be completely sealed is the idea here, you want the baffle to hold all of the vibrations from the speaker, because any that escape will bounce around inside the door and be perceived as distortion to the listener.

 

yes they will strip and eventually get loose from vibrations.
you need to lock them in place with the mounting tabs supplied.

 

THANKS !! i will go back and put those on .. guess i should have read instructions LOL as i just put the screws in

 

I got it figured out hopefully this can be a help to someone else ... use the longer screws and the clips on the underside to get the speaker tight to the adapter bracket

 

I sound deadening my front doors yesterday. It went much faster after doing the back doors last weekend. Well worth the time and effort, much tighter mid-bass response, less road noise. Since I ran out of mat after doing the back doors I bought a 50 sq ft pack of 50 mil Noico to cover the front doors and the rear wall of the cab. The 50 sq ft pack has bigger sheets in it and it takes less than 2 sheets to entirely cover the outer part of the inner door skin. I used the left over from the first pack I bought to do the inner part of the outer skin. Hopefully I'll get to the back wall next weekend, it's going to take some time since I'll need to remove the seats and the bins. Then on the subwoofer install at some point. The weather was great yesterday for doing work outside.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I put the plastic vapor barrier back on the front doors. I didn't bother with the back doors since it's just plastic while the front has some padding on the plastic that probably keeps the plastic trim panels from vibrating against the metal.

 

That is exactly how I secured mine. I don't know how so many people were confident with just the screws.

 

I installed these exact same baffles when I did my install. They made the speakers sound horrible. I pulled them out, trashed them, and installed sound deadener around and behind the speakers in all 4 doors. Works GREAT!

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ballis...r-most-vehicles-black/8685029.p?skuId=8685029