Looking from some community help in deciding just what I should do. To misquote Mark Twain, I apologize for the long post as I did not have enough time to type a short one

So this is a long ramble about how I ended up where I am today; with a bunch of random gear and no real clue a to how it should come together. Car audio is so much more unforgiving than home hifi - it's next to impossible to tell what it will eventually sound like when auditioning speakers/amps on the display board of the local shop.

My old car was a 1995 SAAB 900s. Stock speakers were 4" coaxial in the front dash corners pointing up and 6x9 in the back above the wheel wells pointing up. There are mounts for 6.5" speakers in the bottom front of each door that weren't filled as my 900 was a base model.

I had it worked on at a local hifi shop. Their staff and workmanship was great and I was happy to pay their hourly rate for the install but the markup on the amps and speakers was obscene.

This time I want to try and do the job myself.

I am left with the following components:

Nakamichi cd500 deck.
2 x Boston Accoustics GT-40 (each has 4 x 55W, 2x140W bridged)
Boston SX95 6x9
Boston SL60 6.5" components
Boston G510 10" sub + cheap sub box.

The amps did fit nicely in the 900, one under each front seat. One had two channels bridged for the sub (i am thinking that was underpowered?) + the other two channels for the rear 6x9s. The other GT-40 was biamping the SL60 components, one channel for each woofer and each tweeter.

My new car is very similar (2002 Saab 9-3 four door hatchback). It has a nicer trim level then the old 900 which includes the "Premium Audio Kit" which means that in addition to the same 4" coaxials in the dash and 6x9s in the back, it also has a 175w amp powering two 6.5" "subwoofers" in the front doors.

I was never really that happy with the SL60 components and they are installed well in the 900 and it would take more time to remove them then they are worth (almost) so I am thinking I will include them in the deal with my buddy who bought that car. The woofers were in the door in the OEM location and the tweeters were firing directly at the driver/passenger from the front corner of the side windows, just under the side-view mirror controls.

So to replace these I purchased Dynaudio ESOTEC 242 GT 6.5" Components online. I know Dynaudio only by reputation so this was a bit of a gamble. I am a fan of studio monitors though and I have 4 pairs of them for my home sytems (not Dynaudio, but ATC, Tannoy and Genelec). I do like a warm tweeter though and Dynaudio has a reputation for warmer highs. I am not too sure of where the correct mounting position should be for the tweeter - firing across the dash, straight at the driver/passenger, maybe in the spot where the OEM 4" is firing up?

The 9-3 has power seats so the amps will not fit under the front seats as they did in the 900 so I picked up a JL Audio 500/5 (2x100w, 2x25w, 1x250w) used locally at a good price. It will just fit in the hatch in the back hind quarter, on end, though not perfectly.

But now I am thinking this whole plan is not much of a plan at all and I am left with questions - many questions.

Should I forget about the 6x9s entirely, sell the GT-40s and use the 500/5 for the sub and to biamp the components?

Should I forget the 500/5 and use one Gt-40 bridged (140w) and drive the 242GTs with their passive crossovers?

Should I try and use both GT-40s, one to biamp the 242GTs (is 55w per driver enough?), the other bridged for the sub (140w enough?) leaving two channels for the 6x9s? Using both will require some *creative* mounting - maybe more creative than I am am...

Sub placement is a problem. The cheap sub box is kinda ugly and the only option I can see for placement is in one of the rear corners of the hatch.

Maybe I should get a different single channel amp for the sub? 600w digital amp maybe?

Maybe I should get a couple 8" drivers and try and make boxes for them in the OEM 6x9 mounting location, doing away with the sub entirely? Would make for a cleaner install and maybe a tighter sound?

As you can see I'm at a bit of a frayed end.

The Dynaudios arrive in the next couple of days so I could be installing this weekend, but first I need a plan.

Any and all advice greatly appreciated!

 

whoa!....I'd sell off the JL amp, what you had is fine, you'll have more power using the 4 channel amp bridged to the dyns, as for the tweeters buy a set you like and play around with the placement for a couple weeks, you'll know the sweet spot when you hit it. not to many Saab drivers to be able to tell you what tweet placement worked for them.
I'd also ditch 6x9's and leave the holes bare so more sub sound comes into the cabin this way you may not need to upgrade the sub amp.

then with all the money you saved and got for the JL amp get someone to build you a fiberglass encloser for your sub in the corner.

 

Thanks for the wise words MTT.

I like the idea of going simpler and ditching hte 6x9s but I found in the old car that the 6x9s did really help in the midbase department. Maybe the woofers of the sl60 components were underpowered at 55w each or their placement in the OEM position on the bottom front of the doors was just not good. Maybe damping the heck out of the door will make that placement better when I install the Dyns?

Or maybe if I was finding that the 6x9s were necessary for midbase then the sub was setup incorrectly?

 

I think with the new larger better mids with way more power, with the subs firing better into the cabin, you might find that there's no real need for the 6x9's, but it wont hurt to try them both ways...with the setup you have laid out and deadening the doors, I dont see you lacking midbass whatsoever...but everyones taste is different.

 

So I found some time to work on this install recently and so far so bad.

My new component speakers (2-way Dynaudio 242GT 6.5" via Boston GT40 bridged (140w-190w per side) sound *horrible*. So bad that at first I thought maybe I had bought counterfeits (yes, I bought them on ebay, but from a seller with >9000 sales and 100% positive feedback).

But I think it may just be a particular frequency (or frequency range) that gets super excited and just gets way too loud and flabby, almost in a positive feedback loop or something. It generates some strange pressure system that makes my ears feel like I'm going up a mountain or diving under water - big pressure shift.

What I don't understand is that if there is something in the car (car door most likely) that gets super excited and amplifies a particular frequency range, I would have expected it to happen no matter what driver i had in the door. it didn't happen in my old car (same model) with some boston 65SL components and it didn't in this car with the stock 6" woofers in the door.

Anyway, not too sure how to proceed. Fiddling with the base/mid/treble controls allows me to minimize its effects (-6 on the base) but at the cost of most of the base response so maybe I need an equalizer so that I can really fine tune the frequency adjustments?

Any tips greatly appreciated.

Note: If I had the extra funds right now I would take this to the experts, but it's just not in the budget. I have a few hours a weekend to chip away at it so that's what I'll have to do. *Good* Professional installers have all my respect - this game isn't easy!

 

Was the door properly deadened? what kind of baffle do you have going on?....and wow, I've never seen anyone so disappointed in dyns, did you in fact verify they aren't the fakes Dyns?
anyway, there has to be a reason for this.....have you tried obvious thigs like turning the gains down?

 

Thanks for the quick reply MTT - I am thinking I must be screwing something up here too, cause right now I would hands down choose the stock OEM stereo to this.

I guess I am assuming that since the 12vkings have just under 10,000 deals and 100% positive feedback on ebay that they are not in the business of selling fakes. They certainly look authentic and have little hologram stickers on them, came in proper packageing with all sorts of glossy documentation etc.

I guess maybe I should contact Dyn and see how to *really* verify.

With gains at bottom setting (5v) effect is the same. I am running at about 3.5V, or a quarter up (or is it down? i always get that mixed up). Gain is only 1/5 of what it could be anyway.

Door is not deadened, yet. I have been working under the assumption that it should sound at least as good as the old setup that was in this car or the upgraded setup I had in the old car of the same model. My assumptions have been wrong before though ...

I am not too sure what you mean by baffle?

 

by baffle I mean what are they mounted to that connects them to the door, and no, they wont necessarily sound better than stock right out of the box, stock speakers are designed for the door they are installed in, the Dyn's probably not, I'll probably get in shiznit for linking another forum, but check out HERE for a good write up on door treaments, this is the first thing I'd do.

 

I just googled car speaker baffle and now I see what you mean.

The car came with big plastic mounts for the 6" speakers and I am using those. They have a fairly large semi-circular cutout on the bottom at the back where the speaker cables go through.

One of my first thoughts was to ditch this plastic and try and make some mounts out of mdf or something. I guess if I did that then i should buy some baffles like I just saw on the crutchfield site to guard against water damage.

 

those aren't the baffles I meant, I just meant and MDF or whatever ring that is mounted on the door that the speaker gets mounted to, in your case the baffle is the plastic ring...click that link in my last post and read those few pages VERY good advice to help you get the most out of those expensive speakers.
Something most speaker companies don't tell you is "Do not buy this product unless you are prepared to do A LOT of preparations to make them sound as they should"