Attempting 850 speaker replacement.

[kcodyjr]

Someone else's post just inspired me to go pull the front grilles out of my 96.

I can confirm that the SAK-3204 grille and basket are independent: meaning, you can use the basket to replace the speaker, or the grille to replace the OE grille, or both. Actually, the new one looks better IMO. The OE looks like one big wraparound grille, these look like a speaker grille set into a frame.

Speaker test set is supposed to arrive Monday, and I'm now considering the Lanzar TWS tweets for the dash. 1200-25000Hz, 1" titanium dome, neodymium magnet. At the $35/pair price it's worth a try.

[ojdorson]

Instead of tweeters in the dash, have you looked at 3.5" speakers? they do fit and it's easy enough to fashion a mounting plate from black abs plastic.

[kcodyjr]

I've toyed with the thought. Looks to me like there won't be space between the edge of the speaker and the edge of the hole, whether or not the plate is wide enough, leading either to air leaks or vibration or both.

I would like to pull as much midrange to the dash as possible, but I want to conspicuously avoid introducing any low frequencies... God only knows what might start rattling inside a 15 year old dashboard.

Also, I'd like to be able to aim the tweets to play with imaging configurations, which I doubt a 3.5" coax will let me do.

If you can identify a two-way coaxial that fits a 56mm mounting hole, I'd have to buy a pair and try them...

[urbex]

Instead of tweeters in the dash, have you looked at 3.5" speakers? they do fit and it's easy enough to fashion a mounting plate from black abs plastic.

I was able to get my 3.5" Polks in the dash of my wagon just by carefully twisting and "threading" the speaker down underneath the dash plate, although I had to as the tweeter sticks up so damn high that there would have been absolutely no way to mount the speaker above the dash, and still get the factory grille back in place (I'm a huge fan of hiding the stereo stuff, and making it appear that all is stock in the car). I started looking around at other speakers at local stores, and it seems that damn near everyone is making coax 3.5" speakers with the tweeter well above the surround of the woofer.

Frankly, given the position of the openings in the dash, I'm not sure you'll gain anything, SQ wise, by putting woofers in the dash like that, even small 3.5" ones. Although, really, I think it's a horrible location regardless of what you put there, but if you're like me and trying to maintain an OEM look....

Also, for the sub, at least for the wagons (sorry to those with sedans ), I'm planning on doing an over-the-wheelwell stealth type box for mine. I've done this type of enclosure for prior vehicles (Jeep Cherokee, Ford Explorer, Chevy Blazer), and was real happy with the results. If you're super picky, having the sub fire sideways across the vehicle might introduce some weirdness. Being that all my other vehicles I've done this with have been lifted SUVs, there was probably enough noise and vibration already present to mask any small issues with the sub enclosures. Also, I think I may be limited to a 10" driver in the wagon, vs the 12" I've always been able to fit in the SUVs. l

[ojdorson]

I fit JL Audio 3.5" speakers in there with no grille interference. JL Audio does public very nice detailed drawings of all their speakers online so you can accurately measure. You may not gain much, and the dash is perfect for glass-smeared audio, but I noticed a really nice cohesive soundstage with much better location/separation after putting in 5.25" in the doors and 3.5" in the dash. There is some bass loss, but I'll pick up a sub as soon as I can.

[ojdorson]

Oh, and I - for one - would really appreciate pictures of those adapters if you're able to provide them. Thanks!

[kcodyjr]

I'll see if my old cellphone's camera still works when I go to do the install in the wagon, maybe tomorrow, maybe Saturday.

Meanwhile, the other package arrived, containing the speakers, the SAK-3205, and the SAK-3213.

The SAK-3213 contains only rear door grilles. They're the same heavy plastic surround with metal grille as the 3204, and looks to be pretty sturdy actually. I'll be using them in the 96 but not the 97.

The SAK-3205 is supposedly the front door for 1993's, but looks to be just right for the rear door in the 1996. I'll confirm when she gets home with the car. It consists of a flat adapter ring, copious screws, and wiring adapters that appear to fit on the speakers unmodified.

I can confirm the speaker lays perfectly in both brackets (3204 and 3205) and also fits well in the 5.25" SAVO5 - these are actually 5.125", but there's more than enough overlap, just the screw centers are 1/16" further out in the speaker tabs. In the two SAK- adapter rings, the screw position is absolutely perfect.

More detailed specs on the TS-E1302i:

Woofer: 10oz strontium magnet, butyl surround, aramid/basalt dual layer injection molded low compliance cone, heat-resistant coil

Tweeter: .2oz neodymium magnet, .75" soft dome, rear chamber, wave guides, ferrofluid.

Rated 35W RMS, claims 35-40KHz within 20db; reading the graph, 50-35KHz within 10db. Average response 1W/1M says 88db, by the graph I'd say more like 85, and claims 60dB response at 20Hz.

That's pretty good specs, actually, but referencing both above discussions and common sense, I'll believe it when I hear it.

[kcodyjr]

Still no camera yet, but I've got the fronts installed, and grilles on all doors. Don't worry, I have two sets for the camera.

That's SAK-3204 (front frame and grille kit) in the fronts, SAK-3213 (rear grille item only) in the rear. I verified by mark-one eyeball that the SAK-3205 (rear frame item only) will fit on the doors, at least, the holes line up perfectly.

As to the TS-E1302i in the fronts... wow, what a difference. The car can play classical now, at least for the front occupants.

A note about bass. There was an ever-so-slight decrease in the amount I could feel from the fronts alone, but a marked increase in what I could hear - the beginning and end of notes, different instruments, etc, even down to lower frequencies. In technical parlance, just a hair less oomph, in exchange for vastly better detail and precision.

That's the comparison, to a T, between acoustic suspension and free-air systems. It's closer to an infinite baffle _without_ the speaker being tuned for the door (enclosure), and also, less likely to rattle the pieces of the door against each other.

This was truly a drop-in replacement once I figured out:

* Old front frames come out by removing the two outer screws and the bottom-front speaker screw, whereas the new units secure only by the outer two screws, and all four speaker pins are occupied by short screws. The long OE screw doesn't line up.

* Once unscrewed, the old frame levers out from the top rearward corner, tilts forward, then lifts up. The new frame wants to install exactly the reverse, except there's no clip-tabs, it's pressure-fit until the screws go in, nice and tightly, too.

One more note about bass: although slightly less is produced at the same bass/treble and volume setting, just bump the bass slider up a hair and balance is restored; what's better, these babies can pump out WAY more than the OE's ever could. I was running it high enough to feel it through the seats, on the front speakers alone, without the slightest hint of anomalous vibration.

Acoustically, I've got to call these an unequivocal win for the front doors. I may well leave this car alone as it is.

Electrically, jury is still out on how well the 4x40 OE amp likes 4-ohm in the doors. Ask me if it still works in May.

I did verify the OE grilles fit over them. I like the look of the aftermarkets better.

[bob850]

Where did you buy the Pioneer TS-E1302i speakers? Might try this myself.

[kcodyjr]

I ordered them from http://www.dynamicsounds.co.uk

They also stock the SAK-3204, SAK-3205, SAK-3213, but I don't believe they have the SAK-3211 dash adapter.

Note I've still only heard them in the front doors. I do note, on closer inspection, that the rear doors are in fact a bass-reflex design; that "oem bucket thing" is actually a Helmholtz resonator. That means the OE speaker isn't so much tuned for the door, as for that bucket. I recommend NOT using it with any aftermarket speaker; the resonance frequency will certainly be wrong and probably quite detrimental. I'll be trying the Pioneers with the SAK-3205 in my rear door shortly.


Edit: I realized quite belatedly, the front doors were four-ohm to start with, making these an electrical match.

After driving around with them a few days, I'm not sure I want to hear what it's like in the back seat. They're warm, open, and a pleasure to listen to. The bass contribution from the rear doors makes the whole setup very good for rock-n-roll; classical is still muddled at the bottom end, which is to be expected.

Once I swap out the rear doors, I'll know if the tire-mounted subwoofer will be necessary for wagons.

Note, I'm singing these things' praises when driven by an SC-815 and 4x40 OE amp. These speakers do have the precision to expose reception issues, especially when the radio is turned up loud enough to drown out 200K miles worth of squeaks. I suspect that's more of a radio propagation problem than a radio hardware problem.