Wow guys thanks for all of this great information. It's great having a place with knowledgable folk like yourselves.

I think I worded my original post poorly, however. I didn't blow both my door speakers. I blew my passenger door speakers (tweeter and mid (low?)) and my driver's side sail speaker. These are the two that will first need replacing.

I'm not sure what specifications these speakers need to meet other than their dimensions. If I were to go to a tweeter, circuit city, best buy, or some such store, would kind of criteria would need to be met for the speaker to sound good when simply plopped into my car having done no rewiring or head unit replacement?

 

Nothing special....just know first if you want coaxials or components (coaxials will require some modification to the wiring you may not be willing to do). You wouldn't have to ask for "4 Ohm speakers" since most will have 4 ohm impedances. They will sound fine, and it will be an improvement over stock - even run off of the factory amp. And in the future, should you choose to, 4 ohm speakers will run nicely off of your HU. You may not want to purchase through a store either...as their prices are generally higher.

As far as other specs, depends on what you want to pay. I'd say try to get speakers with a sensitivity between 90dB and 92dB (higher is better, more efficient in short). Maybe a power rating of at least 35 watts RMS for coaxials, higher for components.....or whatever - just make sure you don't see high peak powers and mistake them as being "better".... RMS/continuous power ratings are more useful, and generally what you should be looking at.

 

Thanks, what would you say a good RMS rating would be for my situation: a lazy high school student who only wants something slightly better than stock

 

I wouldn't worry about it, they should all fulfill that requirement. Just stay away from any really cheap stuff you may find - keep the RMS values above 30.

Also, there is a lot more that goes into speakers than continuous power...another more important figure overlooked often is sensitivity, as mentioned above.

You should decide if you want coaxials or components though...

If you go with coaxials, stay away from 3way speakers, etc... Stick with the standard 2-ways.

 

I really dont have the time nor the expertise to fiddle about with changing a component setup to a coaxial setup so I'll just stick with a component. Is there really that big an advantage from component to coax? I always thought it was just personal preference.

 

Yes...GENERALLY components are better sounding (assuming equal quality in construction). However, unlike the stock setup, the tweeter will most likely not be mounted directly on the midrange component...so you would have to mess around with where you want that -- that's the reason I suggested coaxials as well....but if you can, and don't mind the little extra money, a set of components would be better for a couple reasons.

The personal preference comes in on where you want the tweeter for the best imaging in your opinion. In theory, you would want the midrange and tweeter components as close to each other as possible (and then turning/angling the tweeter for imaging).

 

Not sure why one would want to power speakers off the deck, when they'd be getting at most 20w RMS, as opposed to the amp, which I believe puts out a good bit more than that. I'd prefer to mess with the Monsoon wiring a bit rather than run a set of components off deck power.

 

Just to clarify...on the Firebird the door tweeter is separately mounted above and slightly rearward of the mid - only the Camaro has the tweeter mounted inside the mid. So Gallstaff would be looking to replace separate components in the door of his T/A.

The sail panels are a whole different story. On the T/A they are dual voice coil midbass subs which receive only a low-pass filtered signal from the amp. So, unless you want to rewire, there's no point in putting any kind of mid or tweeter back there (including coax). There are a number of midbass components available but a recent write-up by fredmr39 about installing the Elemental Designs EU-700 sub really caught my attention. These are great speakers available in 4-ohm DVC to exactly match the factory setup. They take a little work to install but I would think the results are well worth it. I'm considering doing that myself. The thread is here.

 

Yes I agree maybe with components that may be the best solution -- do you guys think the power difference would be THAT different with the impedances taken into account as well?

 

Components sound like the way to go then....

Why don't any of my friends have Firebirds I can work on? Then I wouldn't be so stupid!

 

I don't know the impdeance requirements for the Monsoon amp, nor for the stock speakers...never had to work on an f-body before. If the Monsoon amp is expected to be used with 2 ohm speakers, swapping to 4 ohm components could drastically lower the power output of the amp. However, I don't imagine it would be less than the 18w RMS standard for head units, and it's likely that it would be more than that.

 

Monsoon systems use an odd mix of 2-ohm and 4-ohm speaker elements. They are used differently between Camaros and Firebirds as well. For example, Camaros have 2-ohm SVC subs in the sail panels, Firebirds have 4-ohm DVC subs there. All of the tweeters as well as the hatch mids are 4-ohm in both models. The door mids are 2-ohm. Experience has shown that the factory speakers are so inefficient that replacing them with more efficient (90dB or better) 4-ohm aftermarket speakers will make the loss of power hardly noticeable.

 

50 watts to the hatch
150 for the doors
300 for the "subs"

--at least that's a reasonably logic assumption...

150 for the doors / 2 = 75 watts peak (MAYBE...probably less) per door

If we guess (75 watts)(.5) for a very rough RMS value....we would get 37.5 watts RMS per door.

Now lets COMPLETELY guess that 4 ohm impedance speakers would only get 65% of that power, meaning 24.375 wrms.

I know that is all me guessing entirely, but that's just how I've always kinda assumed it without doing any actual testing... In the example above, I don't think it would make TOO much a difference either way (say HU puts out 22wrms - difference of 2.275wrms), I had always just thought the factory amp put out more distortion than an aftermarket HU, so I thought HU would be better. Also, I probably gave the factory amp more credit than it deserves..but I guess it isn't too unrealistic to assume that as far as power, the stock amp would give 4 ohm impedances anywhere from 17wrms-27wrms...

 

Haha damn you guys are on a roll with this - I think I have all the information I need except for one final thing.

I'm not really sure if I want to go through the process of replacing my mids as outlined in fredmr39's excellent writeup. As easy as that may be for someone who actually knows what he's doing, is there any simpler method, perhaps with a different speaker, that would allow me to easily replace these sail speakers with something aftermarket that doesn't require heavy modification or rewiring?

 

Not really anything better IMO as far as quality, price, performance, etc.... As I understand, Firebirds have 4 Ohm DVC subs in the rear sails - the subs I used in the write-up were 4-Ohm DVC -- so you would use the same subs. The only thing that would be different, is that it would actually be more straight forward to replace yours. The orientation would be the same as stock, so with a wiring diagram (or just by looking at wire colors USUALLY) you should be able to easily find the 2 positive and 2 negative wires.

The write up is essentially as simple as: "Buy these subs, make a spacer to allow them room to mount, wire the voice coils in parallel, and screw it in carefully."

-so, the hardest part would probably be making the spacer. There are some Rockford Fosgate subs (older) that are 6.5" you may be able to find....however, I believe they are single voice coil 4 ohms....so stay away from them preferably -- they don't need a spacer though.

-another option (only place I know of so far is ebay) are also single voice-coil subs made by Digital Audio (DA) which is essentially Audiobahn
I believe. These are 3-Ohm subs, so would still perform better than a 4 ohm impedance, but not AS ideal as 2 ohm impedances. These also do not require a spacer of any sort...but still are not going to work well for your application since they only have one voice coil.


**I do not know how well suited those other 2 are for free-air/infinite baffle applications.....usually 6.5" subs are designed to operate free air though. The Digital Audio subs appear to look like they can perform in the sails.

-If you are just looking for midbass, you can always fill with parts of component sets.....just be sure you wont overpower them (or run off of HU power)

EDIT: Couldn't find and Digital Audio's on ebay right now...did run across some Pyramids (stay away from them), and these http://cgi.ebay.com/KICKER-SSMB6-6-5...QQcmdZViewItem
--The second link doesn't look bad, but stay away from them as well since they only have one voice coil (and 4 ohm impedance), and you would want a Dual voice coil sub that easily replaces factory and can run at it's full potential.

===================

So in summary....Elemental Designs eu700s are basically the only replacement best suited for you, they just need a spacer. Just wanted to show you your other options (that I know of) and why they aren't the best.

If you or nobody you know has the materials/tools to make a spacer, Elemental Designs can custom fabricate one http://www.edesignaudio.com/edv2/index.php?cPath=1_43
(they have a separate custom ring building page there...but dont really get the options you would need -- you would have to email them and tell them specifically what you want...shouldn't be a problem)

OR

http://www.able-audio.com/
also custom fabricates rings/spacers....I'm sure many others do as well.

--Sorry I do not have exact dimensions because the outer diameter is not a perfect circle.

--Spacers do not have to be MDF also... I looked around at the Home Depot and a good choice seemed to be .5" foam in building materials....but that was a HUGE piece and too expensive (under $20...but still). Harder foams would be nice because it would be easier to fit since it gives a little, and you would be able to cut it to size with a razor. I thought about sheet rubber or thick rubber matting (like that used as weight lifting flooring). Another specific type of foam I have seen used as spacers before is foam core. http://www.matcutter.com/catalog.php?catid=2&styleid=1
or
http://www.framingsupplies.com/MatBo.../FoamBoard.htm
or
http://www.pearlpaint.com/shop_searc...foam&Submit=Go
or
any arts and crafts store probably - just make sure it's .2-.5" thick.

alright that's all...I'm out of bookmarked links!

 

Yes, that's the beauty of your solution - it works well for both models. Thanks for the excellent installation write-up.

The wire colors in the Firebird sail panels are:
Left side dual voice coils:
- dark blue with white (+), light green with black (-)
- tan (+), white (-)
Right side dual voice coils:
- dark green (+), light blue with black (-)
- red (+), tan (-)

 

After re-reading that, it does seem like something I could do with maybe a bit of help from a friend. However, I'm a bit lost on the fabrication and installation of the spacer - could you perhaps go into a bit more detail about it?

Oh and also, drilling the 1 in. diameter hole - what's the purpose of this?

 

There is a port on the back of these subs that allows them to breathe/perform - if you look at the thread, the picture explaining wiring for CAMAROS shows the port, with a cyan arrow pointing at it. You may be able to get away with using a .5" spacer.

To fabricate a spacer, first cut a hole out of some material to a size that the speaker will fit in. Fit the speaker in, then trace the outer portion of th speaker once it's in the hole, and that is the minimum size you should make the distance from the inner radius. Or, you can look in the car where it will be mounted and kinda eye it, see if it fits nicely, trim it down more...etc. I will try to explain the process better later if there is still confusion.

Spacer should have a depth of .25"(min) - .5" (max)

 

Oh I understand now, I didn't see that before. So what would happen if you didn't cut that hole, how would that affect the speaker perforamance?

 

SO I'm about to install a set of the Alpine 6.5" Type R components. How easily does the tweeter mount? I haven't pulled any grills of yet, so I just figured I'd ask since people seem to have them used in quite a few cars. They'll be amped, and I'm running a sepaerate HU. You can look for the thread of my whole Set-up, possibly install later since I'm still waiting on some parts.