Bang for buck stereo upgrades

[GeeWhizBang]

I have just bought a nice silver 5-door 2006 Mazda 3. I love the car even more than my former Ford Focus, but I have mixed feelings about the stereo.

The Focus had really gritty sounding top end, but at least the bass was tight.

The main beef with the Mazda is that the door panels buzz really badly. Since I build home speakers from time to time, I know all about box buzz and how it sounds and this is about as bad as it can get. It is really irritating, especially since the high end sounds so much better and the Mazda is so quiet on the road noise compared to the Focus.

Another (but lesser) irritation is that the nice sounding tweeter sounds are coming from such a distinctly different location than the door speakers.

So I am considering building a small box to contain the back radiation from the door speakers. I may design it so it sticks out about one inch further to get the necessary box volume.

I am also interested in upgrading the speakers, and will probably buy some drivers from PartsExpress.com. I may just do a good 5 inch driver with a whizzer cone so I don't have to crossover to a midrange AND find a place to put it. Since I plan to add a sub, I don't need big drivers for the doors.

While I'm at it, I am considering mounting the following tweeter to the edge of the box..

Which I have already used to great effect on a home speaker (sounds really good for $5.00). I don't know if it will hold up in the extreme conditions of a car, but it really sounds great and is so small you can put it almost anywhere.

I would like to know what I am getting into when I open up the doors. Do I pry that round ring off to get to the speakers, or do I have to take off the whole panel? I don't have the Bose speakers BTW if this makes a difference in how they are installed.

I would love to hear some tips on how I can isolate the door vibration without having to resort to the box. I am a good fabricator, and whatever I do it will look fine, but if it really isn't necessary ...

Finally why does the CD stack cost $400? I am too tall to put up with a headroom reducing sunroof in order to get the bundled 6 cd unit. I suspect that it is just a slightly modified item from one of the major manufacturers, so it really shouldn't cost more than about $100. Its just a big gouge to ask $400 for it. But I really don't want to replace the stock head, it looks good and sounds fine.

 

[Zero Cool]

See my post in the how to section, i did a whole write up on replacing the stock speakers. and yes, the doors rattle and buzz badly. major work to dissasemble them as there is an inner panel that needs to be removed to gain access.


Zc

 

[GeeWhizBang]

I knew this site was kewl from the moment I found it. The only problem is that there is so much stuff here I didn't know where to look.

Your pictures and text were very well done.

 

[tsunami]

new speakers and sound deadening are what you need sounds like you are on the right path... good luck

 

[Zero Cool]

I knew this site was kewl from the moment I found it. The only problem is that there is so much stuff here I didn't know where to look.

Your pictures and text were very well done.

Thanks, the door rattling is going to be your major proble to deal with. i still havent found the source of the rattle in my passanger side door. I think the outer door skin rattles against the support bars even though there is caulk between them!

I bought a set of door panel and i want to modify them to remove the lower storage compartment and have some enclosures made that will fill that area and extend into the door compartment. this will enclose the woofer into a proper cabinet of sorts.

Best of luck, keep us posted on what you discover!


Zc

 

[GeeWhizBang]

From what I can tell from the pictures, there is almost no hope of deadening rattles if you let the back radiation from the driver escape into the door panel.

However, if you have a spare panel to practice on, I have considered using plastic baggies, spray-can foam insulation, and acrylic adhesive caulk.

You should probably experiment first with a couple of pieces of scrap wood separated by a gap similar to the ones in the doors, to get an idea of how much foam to squirt into each bag.

Then fill each bag where there is a gap, tape them shut with duct tape, duct tape them to the panel and to each other and perhaps add a dot or two of acrylic caulk to panel side of the the baggies. Don't use too much caulk or you will be gluing the panel to the door, not good! The caulk will take some time to dry, so the baggies will be free to move a bit as the foam expands.

The foam dries in just a few minutes, so you don't have a lot of time to be fussy about this. The idea is to get all of the bags attached at once (you may want to have an operating-room-style assistant to make it go faster) then put the door panel on right away so that the foam expands to fill the gaps. It would add only a half pound of weight, but would work very well.

Wear gloves btw.

The only problem is if you overfill any of the bags, you could have a lot of foam in a bad place, preventing the windows from opening, for example. But if you get too skimpy with the foam, you are wasting your time. The fact that you already have new door panels mitigates this quite a bit.

********
So I think I am NOT going to take the door panel off. Instead I'm going to make a hardwood frame that I screw and glue (probably with gorilla glue) to the door panel, then use a utility knife to cut out the panel to the inside edge of the hardwood frame. I am then going to build a box enclosure for the driver, covered with pleather that matches the doors. It is ever so nice that they are black, so I should be able to get a good match.

If I remove the foam plastic woofer hole from the frame, it should open up more room for the box. I may have to get a bit clever with fiberglass bondo and carefully cut out pieces of plywood to make the box extend into the speaker hole as far as possible.

I have not yet decided which drivers I am going to try. Parts Express sells some very affordable no-name-brand coaxial speakers that sound really good, and save the hassles of crossover and come with nice looking grilles.

On the other hand, the crossovers in most car speakers (including most name brands) amount to a single (usually electrolytic) filter cap. I prefer to build a more complex crossover without any electrolytics. I have a really nice free Excel spreadsheet that can model the crossover and drivers VERY well. Most woofers have a discontinuity in their response very close to the crossover area, so adding a couple of small caps, coils and resistors to tune these out really smooths things out a lot.

 

[djltoronto]

I have just bought a nice silver 5-door 2006 Mazda 3.
I would love to hear some tips on how I can isolate the door vibration without having to resort to the box. I am a good fabricator, and whatever I do it will look fine, but if it really isn't necessary ...

This won't eliminate your problems, but it might reduced them.

How to reduce rattles from doors in only minutes... for free

 

[GeeWhizBang]

Here's a mockup in CorelDraw of the speakers I just bought, installed in the door. I had some doubts about the rather complex looking grilles, but they look ok in this mockup.

The open grille frame would be more sonically transparent than the usual metal / plastic grilles, which was one of the reasons (plus the 92db! efficiency rating) why I picked these.

They only cost about $56 including shipping. They are not quite new, but are reconditioned with a factory warranty.

This covers up the entire lower door area and pocket with a panel. I think I will use some plastic panels I have leftover from a shower installation, attached to curved hardwood ribs. The panel will probably have to have a slight curvature to look good.

A frame around the edges, also in hardwood, will be routered create a soft edge.

It should be lightweight and buzz free. It would be covered with matching pleather or cloth so it will look almost factory.

I haven't yet figured out how I will attach it. I would like to avoid any visible screws. It also has to be easily removed and reattached so that service people could fix a broken power window, for example.

The existing door panel will be cut away underneath this. I will be gluing and perhaps pop-riveting other stuff to any openings in the door, and will install a plastic cup where the factory speaker used to be.

 

[chuyler1]

It sounds like you have quite a bit to learn about car audio. It is very different from home audio but many of the principals are the same.

First: If you put a speaker into a very small sealed enclosure you will suffocate it. You will get nasty peaks in upper midbass and non existant lower midbass (and absolutely no sub bass). Please just trust me when I say it will sound much worse than your stock speakers.

The professionals always use the door itself as an enclosure when dealing with full-range or midbass speakers. To prepare the door for bass (and limit the amount of rattles) you should add at least one layer of sound deadening material such as raammat. Add it to the outer skin, inner skin, and any non-moving parts of the door but do not block the holes on the bottom of the door which are for drainage. Allso add it to the back side of the door panel. The panel is what vibrates the most and your little box that you are planning would not reduce these rattles and buzzing noises. When applying sound deadener, it is good to fill in any holes or gaps in the door panel. This will maximize your bass output by turning the inside of the door into a pseudo enclosure.

You should also mount the woofer directly to the door (or to a baffle that is mounted directly to the door). The rigid frame of the door helps with midbass and subbass. If you mount the speaker to the door panel, you will loose alot of low end engery from the panel vibrating. Only if you stiffen the panel with fiberglass (or alternative materials) and sound deadening will this work out for you.

If you want to show off the cool grill for your speakers instead of hiding them behind the stock panels this requires additional work. Its not as easy as you think because like I stated above, it is best to mount the speaker to the door instead. BigWoofer on this forum did a nice write up on the door panels he made. You should read through it before attempting anything custom...
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123616380

 

[2006Mica3]

mmmk fellaz Ive actually done something to my car this time...

First I went to Rogers Steroe and got ym stuff that I needed. I got a 12 Inch MTX thunder 7500 for around $230.00 a Ported box for $60 and a nice Little 800 watt Hart amp for $150, and a kit by Streetwires for amp installation.

Well First I started the install with taking out the seat. Its really kinda self explanitory if you dont have electric seats. Then I ripped up the carpet and laid down my wiring after finding a nice hole in the firewall under drivers side. Then I put down sound deadener over all my wairing and a lil farthe just to hold it in place and give it a nice smooth look under the carpet. Ok heres the fun and quite Tedious part. I took everything out of my trunk like the spare and jack and all. Sound deaden the whole thing. I got my sound deadener at wal-mart for about 12.00 for 10 ft. This will take a while. Maybe not thatlong ofr you but im slow

after this I put velcrow on my sound deadener in 4 places and on the carpet for the trunk as well. Since I am Not bolting the box down i want to keep the carpet in place. Mout the amp to the back seat on the left side looking into your trunk. You wont hit anything worth messing up if you use 1 Inch screews. Run wires to the sub and you should be good. More details to come on how to wire it to the stock deck. and a lot of pics. dig camera out of batt right now.

 

[El Ropo]

For anyone who is having door rattles, you need to deaden your doors. I'm running super loud comps off of 125 watts rms, and zero door rattles after a thorough deadening job.

This should be done on any vehicle for improved sq and less unwanted vibrations.