Has anyone replaced the dashboard tweeters with midranges?

I want to replace all of the factory speakers with aftermarket stuff. I would like to replace the dashboard tweeters with midranges, and put new tweeters in the A-pillars. Has anyone else done this?

The Alpine R2-S653 3-way component set has a 3" midrange. Per the owner's manual, it measures 3.5" (92.6 mm) across, including the bezel ring. It is 1.79" (44.8 mm) high, from the "top" of speaker diaphragm to the bottom of the magnet. I was wondering if anyone squeezed a similar sized midrange into the factory hole without major modifications.

The alternative (and easier) option is 2-way components, but I think a 3-way component set with mids in the dash would provide a better sound stage. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

 

From what I've heard through the grapevine, that's barely an adequate location for a tweeter, let alone a midrange. If you're doing an extra mid, put it next to the door handle. It would be easier to fab up a new location than to fight the windshield while shoehorning into that dash spot. And then rely on the glass to direct your mids.

 

3-way setups really only tend to emphasize the upper vocal range. i've demo'd a lot of 2-way and 3-way setups. in my opinion, a moderate 3-way setup can be easily bested by a same-priced, but higher-end 2-way setup.

with alpines type-r lineup, you really must add an amplifier to get the most out of those speakers, they're extremely power hungry. you'd require at least a 100x2 rms amp, though at that level of investment, you're in for a penny, might as well go in for the pound.. i highly recommend a dsp for tuning it, and going full active to bypass the passive crossover and it's inherent losses, which requires even more setup with 3-way speakers and amplifier channels.

and that's just the basics. because the midrange is dealing with a critical part of the upper vocal range, the enclosure setup around and behind it also plays a significant role in the 'voice' it carries. they really can't just be bolted into the dash. so extra expense in the installation takes place here as well.

and because of the additional speaker, extra attention must be paid to the way each speaker mixes with the others, which is where the full-active and dsp portion comes in. it's possible to do this manually with discrete components, but can be extremely difficult.


in all reality, i can do an awesome 2-way setup for at least half the cost of what it would take to build a moderate 3-way setup.

depending on your build focus, you can also do other variants of 2-way setup that you might not have considered. 2-way just means 2 speakers, it doesn't specifically mean a woofer and a 1" tweeter. it just means a woofer and a higher frequency driver. a few guys are very happy to run the kicker KS component set with 2-3/4" dash midranges. a few others are happy with the 3" cdt audio unity driver in the dash. my last build used dayton audio HARB252-8 1x5" drivers as 200+hz drivers mounted in the a-pillars, firing across the dash with great results.

 

I have these and the mid/tweeter sounds great

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_20648KSS26/Kicker-48KSS269.html

 

Thanks for responding, I was hoping this thread would catch your attention

I am not trying win any SQL contests, but I do spend a LOT of time commuting and the so-called "premium" JBL system simply isn't cutting it.

I am not 100% set on the Alpine R line. Their S line may be good enough for my purpose. I am definitely installing sound dampening in all of the doors and the rear panel, and seriously considering doing the roof too. I figure that if I am investing that much time and money in sound dampening, then I should also move at least one step up from "entry-level" speakers.

I am not 100% sold on Alpine speakers. I am open to pretty much any brand except JBL or any bargain-basement brand. I have focused on Alpine simply because I am also leaning towards their iLX-F509 head unit.

I was already planning to install a DSP, but haven't decided between passive vs active crossovers. Going full active will require some serious investment, and I am not quite sure I want to go that deep (I haven't completely decided against it, either).

I'll look into those suggestions. I don't have to have all of the same brand in every speaker slot. But I want everything to mesh well together, and not sound like I just cobbled a bunch of cheap random crap from eBay and Facebook market. I suppose the DSP will help ensure everything blends well.

 

I will keep that in mind. Thanks!

 

if you've read my previous posts on my intentions in my sound system builds, you might already be aware, i've chased this rabbit, and gotten extremely frustrated by the entire experience-- so much so, car audio specific speakers really are a last resort for me.

one part of that, every brand tends to have a 'tone' with the way their speakers color the source material in some way, regardless of if i'm looking at a brands ultra-tier stuff or their bargain basement stuff. i've always noticed it the most in car audio, though most completed-system audio brands have some aspects of this. this can be great if that tone aligns with ones desires/expectations/usages, though i've always found that tone to work very well with one type of music, but then work against another type of music. for one example, kicker speakers, i consider spectacular alternative/rock speakers. but they lack nuance and detail for older country, or other softer genre's, and tend to come on very flat or overly harsh in all the wrong ways. if that's all someone listens to, that makes the selection really easy. but my music preference runs the entire spectrum from john wayne to eminem to deadmou5 to eagle eye cherry... one strong characteristic simply doesn't work for me.

the second thing that really got to me is the 'levelling-up' in car audio.. the cheap crap is intentionally-cheap, and the extreme stuff is ultra-expensive with oddly-specific construction specifications, and implied prestige. despite the fundamental components of speakers being well documented and experimented with for well over 100 years, i have an impossible time believing that speakers must cost many hundreds of dollars each and use extremely rare materials in order to be successful as speakers--after all, i'm hiding them in my door. i couldn't care less if the magnets are polished, or the basket is aesthetically-pleasing. what matters most to me is how things sound.

for a while, i chased the car audio game in my car-- but i had significant issues with the included passive crossovers being too low of a frequency, and causing a difficult-to-trace distortion issues that left me changing tons of equipment that really wasn't to blame. simply put, i was to blame because i didn't pay enough for their better-tier crossovers...

i started to realize that much of the market is based on upselling to the next tier. 'buy our cheap speakers!'. 'missing out on detail? upgrade to our mid range offerings!' 'feeling like our midrange crossovers are garbage in our midrange offerings? upgrade to our platinum-encrusted bejeweled lineup!'

as with most things it started me on looking around. to put it bluntly, we all know a good many things we buy are made in china. and china has this normally-bad stigma of copying and knocking off everything for a significant discount... but if i don't need the brand name bragging rights, and the speakers are hidden anyways, as long as it sounds good, what difference does it matter who makes it?

this opened up a lot more options for me. now i tend to shop somewhat exclusively on parts express, madisound, and aliexpress for speaker options--though i'm always looking for new/alternative marketplaces. in a lot of ways, mixing and matching has been able to allow me to get the characteristics i want in speakers, without the 'fluff' of committing to some one else's concept of what a good component speaker set should be. and in all the cases so far, i've done it at the middling option budget.

my absolute most expensive build so far was mostly my curiosity getting the best of me. dayton 7" esoteric woofers at $150/ea(they're very pretty, if i ever take them out of the door!), combined with peerless ring radiator tweeters at $40/ea...

if you haven't already, i highly recommend you try to find somewhere/someone local that has that head unit so you can try it. according to the spec sheets, i've always loved alpine radio's-- they are supposed to be some of the more feature-packed radio's on the market. but i've never once been able to easily get into the settings pages in ways i'm comfortable with. i landed on pioneer radio's specifically because i can make on-the-fly tweaks in the audio setup at a stop light without a problem-- the menu structure just makes sense to me. personally, it's an area that i've never been able to like about alpine. they have a ton of features, but seem to bury the audio settings menus in a way that requires more 'stop, park, and adjust' time, in my opinion.

i'm not saying it's a bad choice, only that i've previously been mentally sold on specific radios after racing spec sheets on crutchfield, but then getting my hands on them changes the equation because of the way they operate.

the biggest downfall of a dsp is that a lot of people expect it to be a magic bullet. in reality, it's a tool that can make things work better, but it can't make something bad sound good.

i primarily use my dsp and full active setup to make specific adjustments to crossover location. different speakers lend themselves to different crossover setups--frequency, and slope--differently, and having that level of infinite adjustment on those parameters makes it worthwhile for me. it also allows me to level-match speakers that aren't always paired the best together, but work together to get the tone characteristics i desire.

i very rarely do much with eq adjustments with the dsp. if anything, it will be a minor adjustment to bring up detail that exists, but the environment might be over-shadowing, or in the case of the tweeters bouncing off the glass like the truck-- it can sometimes make certain frequencies harsher than if listening to the same tweeter without the glass reflection.

if i find myself playing with the eq too much, i go back and look at different speakers for the roles. my other car has the tweeters in the same location in the dash, and i've been through 3 different iterations of tweeter looking to find the one that suits my preferences, with the reflection characteristics(definitely easier and sounds better to mount them in the sail panel, but i don't like how obtrusive and visually-obnoxious that can be).

a big part of what i've tended to focus on is i only install front speakers-- i've almost entirely given up on rear speakers. by only doing a 2-way full active setup in front, i'm keeping my needs limited to 4/5 channel amps, which helps keeps the costs from getting crazy. it's really the same cost as a 4-speaker coaxial setup, only configured differently. this is where full-active 3-way starts going off the rails the most, as all the extra's get tacked on...

 

I couldn’t agree more. No single “perfect” speaker reproduces all types of music equally well. Every brand has its own sound signature, and the challenge for the consumer is finding the speaker that compromises the least with regards to one’s personal musical tastes.

I never considered the possibility of crossover-induced distortion, but that makes a lot of sense. I was leaning towards passive crossovers just to save a bit of coin, but I’ll give active more consideration.

Even most of the products “designed in the USA” are actually assembled in China (or somewhere other than USA). As much as I hate to admit it, where something is physically made is hardly a consideration for me anymore.

I am definitely getting hands-on time with HUs before purchasing. Not about to drop $1000+ on a tech product without playing with it first. There are “workarounds” for getting into the Alpine’s settings menu without stopping and shifting into park. And everyone I’ve talked to about that HU says the workaround is a solid solution, and definitely worth the time and effort. Of course, no workaround will fix a poorly designed UI, and the only way to assess the UI is to mess with it in person. I’ll be hitting audio shops after work this week.

Yeah, at the level that I expect to put into (and gain out of) this project, a DSP is a given. No point settling with the relative lack of granularity solely provided by HU.

I totally understand that, and a lot of people do the same. But I’m not quite ready to toss out the rear speakers, even if they are just “fill” sound. Maybe I’m just old school, but I still like to have a sense of 3-dimensionality, rather than a purely “forward” sound stage.

Thanks for the detailed response, I really appreciate the input

 

my issue with the tacoma's rear speakers is that they're directly behind the front seats and down.

just for fun, when i was building brackets, i had some extra speakers, and the wire harness adapters i got came in a 4-pack, so i threw some speakers back there--it was as i had mostly expected. the speakers are too low to adequately convey high frequencies, and because of the location, it tends to pull the front speaker image down and backwards, making a good front stage sound more am-radio-like.

i haven't gotten to my audio build yet(changed careers a month before i had planned to install all of it)-- right now i'm running full active off my radio's settings, which leave some to be desired, but works for now.

something i want to attempt, given that i'm only using 5 of 8 outputs on my dsp408, and i have another 4 channel amp begging for something to do, is to mount a set of tweeters up against the back glass, and put them on an increased delay with a bandpass filter to try to create a larger acoustic environment. if it works, it'll be basically the same as having back speakers, but with a different purpose... i might add back the rear door speakers and play with some other filtering to try to boost the lower end without pulling the imaging back, but initial testing didn't have a lot of bass with the rear speakers...

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/mid-range-dash-speaker-options.751784/

 

Thanks for the link. Lots of love for the CDT Audio Unity 8/8+ in that thread, and in other audio forums that I am lurking. Does anyone have experience with CDT Audio 6.5” or 6x9s? I want to replace the factory door speakers too.

 

@hyper15125 is running CDT's. Maybe he can answer some questions for you.

 

The CDT’s are awesome. The wide bands are something else they really bring the soundstage upward. Also, the only speakers I haven’t blown yet.

 

What amp were you running with those? I think it was around 75w-100w rms?

 

Alpine PDX-V9. Birthsheet said 128x4+582x1

 

I’m using these in my dash with bass blockers and they sound awesome.