Upgrading speakers -- advice please!

Before you spend time and money upgrading the speakers, try disconnecting the center dashboard speaker. You might be surprised just how much of an inprovement there will be when you can just hear the other eight speakers. Lift the speaker up from the side facing the interior of the car first. After you lift up the speaker you can disengage the tabs on the windshield side and remove the whole assembly. There is a connector on the speaker wire; I just disconnected it and then put the speaker back where it was. I found that adjusting the fade to two or three clicks to the rear of centered gave the best balance of sound.

 

See my sig for recommendations. Yes, you should replace the stock speakers immediately.

 

These questions are all frequently addressed in this forum, and you can find more complete and helpful information simply by search the archives, but succiently:

1) yes
2) 2 pairs of Infinity Kappa 60.7cs
3) yes
4) yes, Kenwood KSC-SW1 in the spare tire area
5) No, with varying definitions of 'enough'
6) No. Use the included crossovers from Infinity in the rear (only).
7) Do it whenever. Do it yourself if you're compulsive about getting it right (you're on this forum, so give it up, you are)

The B-Quiet is taking me many weeks to finish, putting in a hour or two here and there in the rare instances when I have time to work on it.

 

There's a good chance you may be satisfied with a good sub, such as the Kenwood that Datavortex suggested, or a bazooka.

Replacing the JBL amp without replacing the head unit is not an option. The amp is also the preamp. It can't be 'reconfigured' other than what controls you get through the MFD: volume, balance, fade, bass, mid, treble. The rear speakers get full range audio with a passive crossover between the full-range door speaker and the tweeter (really a high pass capacitor). The front speakers are fed with an active crossover using filtering integrated in the amp.

 

A good sub and crossover network will do wonders for the sound. Not only will you get bass extension, but the bass on the satellite speakers will be relieved, thereby making the midrange sound much cleaner, more open and transparent.

http://sasbazooka.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2578

 

Car audio subwoofers with built-in amps are by definition not "good". The whole point of them is to trade off sound quality and output level for ease of installation and small size.

If you want "good", you need a separate amp and subwoofer, installed in a properly sized enclosure.

 

The Bazooka BTA6100 is also supposed to work.

 

In your last post, and your PM to me, you indicate that you like how the soundsystem sounds, so I probably woundn't mess with the stock speakers, as installation and configuration can be a pain. Just add the sub, using the rear speakers as a source.

If you do decide to replace the stock speakers, keep a note of the following:
The front speakers are actively crossed over within the amp. So, in other words, the lower front speakers don't get any highs, and the tweeters don't get any lows. The rear speakers have a passive crossover by connecting the tweeters to the rear output through a capacitor.
So, if you got a 2 way co-axial speaker set in the front as opposed to component speakers, the tweeter in the set would be wasted as it would get no highs.
The 2 way co-axial would work in the rear, but since highs are very directional, those in the front probably wouldn't hear the highs from them, and probably the rear passengers wouldn't hear the highs from them either unless they had ears on their legs.

Just go with the sub, and if you're still not happy, then try new speakers.

 

Speaking of speakers:
What size speakers are in the front door panels? I've got a couple 5 1/4" I'm not using.
Thanks,
olcorral.

 

The front doors use 6 1/2" or 6 3/4" speakers. You could probably make some adapters out of MDF in order to use the 5 1/4" speakers.