2010 3 Speakers

digitall

Member
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2006 Mazda 3s GT
I currently have an '06 3 that I replaced all the speakers on (went to JL) because the Bose system kind of sucked. I am getting a '10 3 on Wednesday (I like new cars), GT like my current one with the Bose/Moonroof package, and was wondering if anyone knows the speaker sizes in this one yet. I talked to a guy at Crutchfield and he said all speakers on it are custom so it'd be hard to replace any of it.

Any help would be much appreciated!
 
honestly, it doesnt really matter unless you go to big. I've swaped the speakers in every car I've had and have had to make door plates for everyone of them. Get some 1/4 MDF and make some speakers rings to fit what ever you want. Get some 6 1/2 3-way seperates and fiberglass kick panels for the 6 1/2. Then mount the 4 and tweat in the door. Or, mount everything in the kicks (sounds better for sound stage) and get rid of the door stuff for good.
 
honestly, it doesnt really matter unless you go to big. I've swaped the speakers in every car I've had and have had to make door plates for everyone of them. Get some 1/4 MDF and make some speakers rings to fit what ever you want. Get some 6 1/2 3-way seperates and fiberglass kick panels for the 6 1/2. Then mount the 4 and tweat in the door. Or, mount everything in the kicks (sounds better for sound stage) and get rid of the door stuff for good.

I'm not sure I quite follow you...and I definitely wouldn't know how to make speaker rings (very car illiterate unfortunately). What are some good brands for fiberglass panels and what is MDF?
 
many times speakers will come with outlines or guides to make a type of speaker ring. but usually it's just a buffer for the speaker to be able to fit in the hole if it's not deep enough, etc. i believe that's what he's getting at. MDF = medium density fiberboard. it's what they make speaker boxes out of and such.
 
You are correct. MDF is Medium density fiberboard. You can get it at any home depot or such....

Take your door panel off, remove the stock speaker housing. Put it face down on a piece of board and trace. Then use a jig saw to cut it out. Then take your new speaker template and trace/ cut it out. BAM! easy speaker plate to fit what ever speaker you bought. When you mount it, just make sure you have clearance between the door panel and speaker for it to move. If not (rare) then you would have to flush the speaker and that gets tricky. But dont worry about that part.

Fiberglass---typically you can buy enough matterials at a Sears or Home depot to make two panels for aout $30. You need MKCP (nasty glue to harden the fiberglass), the fiber glass sheets themselves, and the carpet for design. There is a multistage process to make them that would be quite lengthy but I could explain if you want. Making fiberglass kick panels is how competition car audio cars are built. I've made them a few times as I used to compete in IASCA. Let me know if you want more information on this. Once you've made/heard speakers in kick panels, you'll never go back to the doors.

I could make them for anyone who wants kick panels using my 2010 as a template. But I gotta be honest, materials is $30-40 then probably 4 hours of work or more not including all the dry time.. I could make them for $175 probably. Most good car audio shops charge $300+ easy
 
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Thanks everyone for the help. I might have to explore your (speedster00) offer a bit because I am definitely not good with building things in general.

I just got my car Wednesday night (about to post pics on the welcome thread they have on here) and found out my dual 12's won't fit in the trunk (pissed). I guess the dimensions of the opening changed from the 06 3's. So now I get to outfit everything and sell the old set.

After talking to someone else at Crutchfield who actually knew what she was doing I have speaker sizes and am posting them below for the benefit of everyone with the Bose/Moonroof package:

Dash/Rear Deck: 3 1/2", 1.38"D, 3.6 ohms
Rear Deck: 8" Woofer (cursory glance says no depth limitations), 1.2 ohms
Doors: 6"x8", 3.33"D 3.5 ohms
Front Door Tweeter: 1.98"D, 3.5 ohms

Hopefully that helps someone out!
 
I wouldn't bother being the test dummy on this one.
From that list of speakers, the car is likely to have some pretty heavy customized sound controls in the head unit (the radio).
This customized sound (DSP digital sound processing) is not something you can bypass or even adjust. It is specifically intended for those factory speakers in those locations playing those frequencies. So when you start replacing the speakers the result is that it often becomes worse. Sometimes a lot worse

In my 06 mazda 6 this was no big deal as that processing was in the amplifier. So all I had to do is bypass it. However this meant I had to buy amplifiers to power all of the speakers in the car, not just subwoofers. Now my xterra had the DSP in the head unit and its been an expensive pain in the ass. There was no way for me to keep the factory head unit and get good sound as that head unit would massively boost the low end and high end at low volumes and then cut them at higher volume. So as I turned up the music my subs didn't get any louder, my tweeters didn't get any louder and the mids ended up screaming. TO fight this you have to spend about $200 on something like a JL audio clean sweep and then you cant use the factory volume controls any more. Once I replaced the door speakers I found out that they were SO friggen low (off axis) that even my $800 component speakers sounded like crap. THis is even after removing every peice of factory equipment. The speaker position is simply unusable for a full range speaker.

In my opinion a lot of people over simply car audio installations on forums. Where you don't know what MDF is and are unlikely to even have the tools to work on it, I would suggest going to a well reviewed car audio shop in your area and let them deal with it. Just do yourself a favor and treat it like an interview and come back here and post what they told you. Several folks on here can tell you if the shop is legit from there discussion with you or not.

To even install a new head unit and have it sound good these days it could take up to $300 of extra parts and then you still have lost some of the cars factory features like steering wheel controls. Or you keep the factory radio but you can't use its volume knob anymore.

So what does this all mean.....Be sure you really dislike the factory sound before doing anything other then perhaps adding subwoofer. This is still relatively easy. Which I am guessing that your subs fit fine, its your box that does not.
Also if you do decide to jump into the new speakers, find out if this car requires that you really address it as a complete system install and not just speakers.
Even 5 years ago working as an installer people would come in all the time and change out there factory equipment for new speakers that sounded much worse when combined with the factory radio, amplifier, and processing.

Remember that the easy answer is often the wrong one in a complected environment like a car of today.
 
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1sty is right. Judging by thesize/loads on the factory speakers you listed above, mazda has done quite a bit of tweaking. I would first want to find out if the speakers in the car are full range or not. Obviously they are seperates but what is the cut off? As 1sty mentions, replacing them with speakers that have equal OHM might make it sound worse. llthough at 3.5 ohms for the doors/tweats you could probably swap them out for a good pair of seperates keeping the range the same and end up with better sound quality. Someone needs to take the car apart. I want to know if mazda just used caps and cut off the freq at the speaker level or if its actually in the head.
 
I wouldn't bother being the test dummy on this one.
From that list of speakers, the car is likely to have some pretty heavy customized sound controls in the head unit (the radio).
This customized sound (DSP digital sound processing) is not something you can bypass or even adjust. It is specifically intended for those factory speakers in those locations playing those frequencies. So when you start replacing the speakers the result is that it often becomes worse. Sometimes a lot worse

In my 06 mazda 6 this was no big deal as that processing was in the amplifier. So all I had to do is bypass it. However this meant I had to buy amplifiers to power all of the speakers in the car, not just subwoofers. Now my xterra had the DSP in the head unit and its been an expensive pain in the ass. There was no way for me to keep the factory head unit and get good sound as that head unit would massively boost the low end and high end at low volumes and then cut them at higher volume. So as I turned up the music my subs didn't get any louder, my tweeters didn't get any louder and the mids ended up screaming. TO fight this you have to spend about $200 on something like a JL audio clean sweep and then you cant use the factory volume controls any more. Once I replaced the door speakers I found out that they were SO friggen low (off axis) that even my $800 component speakers sounded like crap. THis is even after removing every peice of factory equipment. The speaker position is simply unusable for a full range speaker.

In my opinion a lot of people over simply car audio installations on forums. Where you don't know what MDF is and are unlikely to even have the tools to work on it, I would suggest going to a well reviewed car audio shop in your area and let them deal with it. Just do yourself a favor and treat it like an interview and come back here and post what they told you. Several folks on here can tell you if the shop is legit from there discussion with you or not.

To even install a new head unit and have it sound good these days it could take up to $300 of extra parts and then you still have lost some of the cars factory features like steering wheel controls. Or you keep the factory radio but you can't use its volume knob anymore.

So what does this all mean.....Be sure you really dislike the factory sound before doing anything other then perhaps adding subwoofer. This is still relatively easy. Which I am guessing that your subs fit fine, its your box that does not.
Also if you do decide to jump into the new speakers, find out if this car requires that you really address it as a complete system install and not just speakers.
Even 5 years ago working as an installer people would come in all the time and change out there factory equipment for new speakers that sounded much worse when combined with the factory radio, amplifier, and processing.

Remember that the easy answer is often the wrong one in a complected environment like a car of today.

1sty is right. Judging by thesize/loads on the factory speakers you listed above, mazda has done quite a bit of tweaking. I would first want to find out if the speakers in the car are full range or not. Obviously they are seperates but what is the cut off? As 1sty mentions, replacing them with speakers that have equal OHM might make it sound worse. llthough at 3.5 ohms for the doors/tweats you could probably swap them out for a good pair of seperates keeping the range the same and end up with better sound quality. Someone needs to take the car apart. I want to know if mazda just used caps and cut off the freq at the speaker level or if its actually in the head.

Wow, OK. I know in my 06 replacing the Bose with JL's made a huge difference, but that could also have been related to the subs as well. I think I might have had that setup for a tad too long so now I can't tell if the Bose just kind of sucks or if adding the added low-end (virtually known currently compared to what I had) will be enough. How can I find out where the DSP is at in this system? Would that just require asking a local shop (who will more than likely do a lot of the work involved here anyway - then I can yell at them if they break anything).

I have to admit, I didn't even think about trying to take the subs out of the box. The set is this one from Polk so I'm not certain I can take them out or not. My guess is no though since it's already been stated that I'm not overly good at such things.

As for taking the car apart, I've got some friends who might be able to help me with some of that. I just need to know what to look for. Would pics suffice or is there something specific I should look for?
 
A really good shop can tell you where the DSP is by either experience o by RTA-ing the car. This allows someone to see what parts of the signal are artificially boosted or cut. You test it at the head unit outputs and then at the amp outputs.
I could tell as well if someone wants to bring there car to me to dissect.

For your subs I would just buy a prefab sealed box that fits your trunk and swap them. They wont be as loud as they were in the ported box but they will louder then they are right now, not even being hooked up.

Sometimes car audio is just about luck too. You just try something and its sounds great or it sucks. Yes there is plenty of science that can be done before hand to at least estimate the results however now and again that estimating can be so overly complex to even figure out...its better and a s*** load quicker to just try it.
So if you have the time and the speakers toss them in and see what you think. If you don't like it as much, swap them back out.
As you don't have a trained ear, you may like it. Guys like me...would probably hate it.
 
A really good shop can tell you where the DSP is by either experience o by RTA-ing the car. This allows someone to see what parts of the signal are artificially boosted or cut. You test it at the head unit outputs and then at the amp outputs.
I could tell as well if someone wants to bring there car to me to dissect.

For your subs I would just buy a prefab sealed box that fits your trunk and swap them. They wont be as loud as they were in the ported box but they will louder then they are right now, not even being hooked up.

Sometimes car audio is just about luck too. You just try something and its sounds great or it sucks. Yes there is plenty of science that can be done before hand to at least estimate the results however now and again that estimating can be so overly complex to even figure out...its better and a s*** load quicker to just try it.
So if you have the time and the speakers toss them in and see what you think. If you don't like it as much, swap them back out.
As you don't have a trained ear, you may like it. Guys like me...would probably hate it.

I am having dual JL 12" W0's installed currently (sealed box with my "old" Infinity 611A to run them). I have also requested they check for where the DSP is located so as soon as they tell me I'll get it posed on here.
 
They say it's under the right front passenger seat. That's good news for me because the JL's are incredible but potentially a tad too good - they drown out the already pathetic Bose system even when set to -3 bass.

Sounds like it is time to research new speakers...
 
Dual 12's in a hatch like ours is crazy...unless your trying to compete for SPL. I would cut that in half, or go with one good 10. I have a Kicker 12" comp VR out of my 6 it was more than enough. If I put a sub in my 2010, it will more than likely be a 10 fiberglassed into that small notch on the right hand side when you open the rear. I did notice that the door pockets seem quite large even though I havent taken the doors apart. I wonder if a pair of JL 6.5 subs would fit. If done right, putting those in the rear doors would be as good as one 10. And you wouldnt even see them.
 
Dual 12's in a hatch like ours is crazy...unless your trying to compete for SPL. I would cut that in half, or go with one good 10. I have a Kicker 12" comp VR out of my 6 it was more than enough. If I put a sub in my 2010, it will more than likely be a 10 fiberglassed into that small notch on the right hand side when you open the rear. I did notice that the door pockets seem quite large even though I havent taken the doors apart. I wonder if a pair of JL 6.5 subs would fit. If done right, putting those in the rear doors would be as good as one 10. And you wouldnt even see them.

Damn man, why didn't you respond sooner lol? I'll admit, the bass is killer now and I do have a lot less trunk space. Luckily it doesn't really affect me since the only trips I make I can put stuff in the back seat.

I had dual 12's in the '06 3 and, while trunk space was limited, it wasn't bad. I opted to stick with that just because I didn't want to lose anything from what I had before with the old set that didn't fit. Next time I guess I'll research it a bit better!
 
Damn man, why didn't you respond sooner lol? I'll admit, the bass is killer now and I do have a lot less trunk space. Luckily it doesn't really affect me since the only trips I make I can put stuff in the back seat.

I had dual 12's in the '06 3 and, while trunk space was limited, it wasn't bad. I opted to stick with that just because I didn't want to lose anything from what I had before with the old set that didn't fit. Next time I guess I'll research it a bit better!

haha....I want to save as much trunk space as possible. Between my gym bag and computer bag there isnt a ton of room left. either a 10 fiber glassed in the side with the amp mounted next to it against the wall would only move the side out about 4". Or, you could build a false floor and flush the sub/amp in it so when you open the hatch the floor is raised but everything is clean.

A properly tuned 10 will very easyily overpower the stock system. If your 2 12's were done right, you shold have been in the low 140's on DB's. In my old maxima, I compete in IASCA advanced with 2 Eclipse aluminum 12's run off a XTANT 1001 and hit 144 DB's in a show. And I think I could have got more. Thats loud enough to make you stomach upset with the right note. Years ago I had 2 JL 8" sub in a full size chevy truck and hit 138. While thats not hugely impressive, its enough to vibrate the crap out of your mirrors and seat.

Im not in the position to set up a system right now as Im spent too much on my other hobbies. But I would be willing to help someone else out. That kicker comp Vr 12 I have I wont be using. So if any one wants it let me know. I'll sell it pretty cheap.
 
this probably sounds dumb, but what's an easy way to test how much i can get out of the setup? now that everything is tuned down it sounds much better (the bose actually doesn't sound like hell anymore - although it should be far better) but i know i could really crank things if i wanted too and hardly tap the full power behind my amp
 

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