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I have good mid-bass speakers in the doors, but they produce zero bass. I have the same speakers in the sail panels, and they produce decent mid-bass.
I put Noico deadening material non the sail panels yesterday, and I am moving to the doors today. So, my question: Will I see any difference if I put a rigid layer, like Dynamat Dynaplate, on the cabin side of the door before I put the Noico on it?
I know that the Dynaplate will not flex as much as the Noico, but is it worth an extra $300?
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
When you say the door speakers produce zero bass... do you actually mean zero or just not enough? If you get zero bass, you probably connected them to the tweeter channels from the Monsoon amp which is high pass filtered. Try switching to the other pair of wires. Besides, with mid-bass in the sail panels and sub(s) in the rear, why would you need any more bass at the front? Those should be full range speakers to give well rounded sound.
When you say the door speakers produce zero bass... do you actually mean zero or just not enough? If you get zero bass, you probably connected them to the tweeter channels from the Monsoon amp which is high pass filtered. Try switching to the other pair of wires. Besides, with mid-bass in the sail panels and sub(s) in the rear, why would you need any more bass at the front? Those should be full range speakers to give well rounded sound.
This guy is an expert, listen to him. I was also wondering that same thing, you said you have installed the same speakers in the doors and the sails. The door speakers should be full range, the sails should be mid bass. I again suggest reading the sticky, if you haven't yet.
Last edited by Tyler Dietzenbach; Jul 15, 2019 at 10:54 AM.
When you say the door speakers produce zero bass... do you actually mean zero or just not enough? If you get zero bass, you probably connected them to the tweeter channels from the Monsoon amp which is high pass filtered. Try switching to the other pair of wires. Besides, with mid-bass in the sail panels and sub(s) in the rear, why would you need any more bass at the front? Those should be full range speakers to give well rounded sound.
Not enough low-mids (like 80-150hz). Basically, these speakers sound like they are on stands in the middle of my living room.
Pioneer M650PRO 6.5" mids and Kicker tweets in the doors, with passive crossovers (for now).
I am trying to get the best sound that I can out of the M650PRO speakers in the doors.
I am in middle of overhauling entire audio system. You didn't mention amp. If you are using factory amp it has built in crossovers and will NOT send low range to front or mid/high to sails (rear seats). The sails are designed as the subwoofers in monsoon system even though they are only 6 1/2". You would have to bypass the amplifier to change the frequency ranges the speakers get.
I am in middle of overhauling entire audio system. You didn't mention amp. If you are using factory amp it has built in crossovers and will NOT send low range to front or mid/high to sails (rear seats). The sails are designed as the subwoofers in monsoon system even though they are only 6 1/2". You would have to bypass the amplifier to change the frequency ranges the speakers get.
Not using any factory anything. Right now just Kenwood X998, Kicker passive crossovers, Kicker tweets, and Pioneer M650PRO.
All I want to know is if there is a product other than standard 80mil sound deadener to try to improve the sound production from door speakers in a 4th Gen F Body.
Got it. So if you just replaced head unit and speakers and you have the monsoon system you are unfortunately using the factory amp (I'm assuming this is monsoon system). The wiring harness behind the radio goes to the amp first and then from the amp back to your speakers. Unfortunately the amp has built in crossovers controlling what frequency range goes to what speakers so regardless of deadening material your speakers wont produce more bass because they aren't getting the signal. Your amp is a black box behind spare tire. You have the following options:
Embrace the OEM design and just put the full ranges up front, one way in sails for bass, and 4 inch and tweeters in rear hatch (keeping original amp)
Buy new amp...send RCA outputs from radio to new amp in back, then connect your new amps audio outputs to OEM harness for factory amp - to factory speakers
Send new speaker wires from your headunit to each speaker directly from new headunit ( a lot of carpet and under plastic panel routing but doable)
Last edited by Kitt2002; Jul 15, 2019 at 02:09 PM.
I forgot to mention...even in door speakers that tweeter pod has its own channel the crossover is NOT in the door. So you would need to get door speakers with separate 1 inch tweeter. They sell 6 1/2 component speaker pairs that come like that.
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
I'm not sure that sound deadening is the answer. Those speakers have pretty big magnets and great efficiency for a mid-bass so they should produce decent mid-bass even if they were open air mounted. Are you sure there isn't some sort of filtering going on at the amp? Any possibility you have the two doors phase reversed? That would cause sound cancellation and make them sound hollow.
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
Originally Posted by Kitt2002
Got it. So if you just replaced head unit and speakers and you have the monsoon system you are unfortunately using the factory amp (I'm assuming this is monsoon system). The wiring harness behind the radio goes to the amp first and then from the amp back to your speakers. Unfortunately the amp has built in crossovers controlling what frequency range goes to what speakers. Your amp is a black box behind spare tire. You have the following options:
Embrace the OEM design and just put the full ranges up front, one way in sails for bass, and 4 inch and tweeters in rear hatch (keeping original amp)
Buy new amp...send RCA outputs from radio to new amp in back, then connect your new amps audio outputs to OEM harness for factory amp - to factory speakers
Send new speaker wires from your headunit to each speaker directly from new headunit ( a lot of carpet and under plastic panel routing but doable)
He already mentioned that it's not a Monsoon setup. BTW, your second suggestion is very ghetto... if you're going to set up a nice aftermarket head unit and amp system, the last thing you want to do is use the tiny (and old) factory speaker wires for any of it.
I think the best solution is to use components, powered by an amp. I also chose to sound deaden the door and use a foam baffle for the speaker. I have not tuned the system or driven the car yet, but am hopeful it will have a decent front stage.
You know what they say about opinions....everyone has them. Just trying to give friendly advice for consideration doesn't have to be followed. But IMHO its not a ghetto solution. Its a very common solution to use built in factory wiring for speakers. The copper 16 gauge speaker wire from factory is more than fine for the frequencies and power I am concerned about in my cars audio setup. A typical copper 20AWG cable has a resistance of about 1 ohm per 100 foot length and factory is 16 and you are talking lengths of about 10 feet. It has zero audible impact. Just stuff audio people tell you to buy their high end speaker wire. Also we are talking 6 1/2 inch speakers here.
Another question, do users on this forum normally attack other users simply trying to contribute and provide advice? I am new here, just joined two days ago, I was expecting friendly advice back and forth between other fans of this car.
I'm not sure that sound deadening is the answer. Those speakers have pretty big magnets and great efficiency for a mid-bass so they should produce decent mid-bass even if they were open air mounted. Are you sure there isn't some sort of filtering going on at the amp? Any possibility you have the two doors phase reversed? That would cause sound cancellation and make them sound hollow.
I don't have an amp yet. Just going off the 22w RMS (probably closer to 16) from the headunit. The only filtering is the head unit crossover set to high-pass 60hz (The speakers are 50 to 18k). The exact same set up in the sails sounds pretty good considering the power level.
I may have had a brain-fart and wired the speakers backward. I will have to double check when I wire everything back together.
I think the best solution is to use components, powered by an amp. I also chose to sound deaden the door and use a foam baffle for the speaker. I have not tuned the system or driven the car yet, but am hopeful it will have a decent front stage.
Yup, that is what I finished up last night. Reaching the middle of the door through the speaker hole was fun!!
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
Originally Posted by Kitt2002
Ahh didn't see that it wasn't monsoon my bad.
You know what they say about opinions....everyone has them. Just trying to give friendly advice for consideration doesn't have to be followed. But IMHO its not a ghetto solution. Its a very common solution to use built in factory wiring for speakers. The copper 16 gauge speaker wire from factory is more than fine for the frequencies and power I am concerned about in my cars audio setup. A typical copper 20AWG cable has a resistance of about 1 ohm per 100 foot length and factory is 16 and you are talking lengths of about 10 feet. It has zero audible impact. Just stuff audio people tell you to buy their high end speaker wire. Also we are talking 6 1/2 inch speakers here.
Another question, do users on this forum normally attack other users simply trying to contribute and provide advice? I am new here, just joined two days ago, I was expecting friendly advice back and forth between other fans of this car.
I'm afraid you're wrong... the factory wiring is 18 gauge for the sail panel subs and 20 gauge for all other speakers. And it's 17-21 years old at this point so the insulation is getting brittle. You could be setting yourself up for gremlins that would be hard to diagnose. Not to mention you are severely limiting your power options. So I stand by my statement - it's ghetto (shade tree mechanic, amateur, shoddy, jury-rigged... whatever adjective you care to use) and although you have every right to wire your own car that way, it's not something I would suggest to others unless the question was "what is the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way to just get this thing wired up?" Generally when people here ask for advice, they want to do it right so we try to give the best advice possible. In this case, if you're going to do the work of installing an aftermarket head unit, amp and the necessary RCA cabling then take the time and do the speaker wiring the right way. Otherwise it's like getting nice wheels and putting cheap used tires on them.
This is not an attack on you - I don't even know you It's a strong condemnation of techniques which should be avoided when trying to build a quality sound system. Disagreements, even strong ones, are not attacks.
"The factory wiring is 18 gauge for the sail panel subs and 20 gauge for all other speakers. And it's 17-21 years old at this point so the insulation is getting brittle. You could be setting yourself up for gremlins that would be hard to diagnose. Not to mention you are severely limiting your power options." … There you go a nice response providing your opinion without calling another solution ghetto - aka providing a "harsh condemnation". Its all about how we say things that make people feel attacked or their contributions unwelcome.
I guess we just disagree bud but do appreciate your knowledge in this system and audio. Your opinion isn't invalid, I just feel I will be fine and 20 gauge still meets my needs. But yea if I have issues I will end up needing to rewire the speakers but I really didn't want to do that. if I do have to rewire I will post it (for everyone's benefit) and you will get to give me an I told you so.
One of my goals of building a harness to bypass amp was to keep changes to a minimum and reversible -- easily reverse changes by unplugging my amps harness and plugging in original. I can literally switch between using new and old amp on a dime ( I did connect head unit fully using harness but it defaults to RCA outputs when they are connected). Hopefully I don't have wiring issues because rewiring all the speakers - especially the door ones would suck.
I could still use your help in finding a male harness that connects into that 64 ( I think) pin amp harness?? Does this even exist?
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Improving mid-bass from door speakers 
