Texas91Runner

Has anyone ever tried to put 6.5s in the rear doors in a second-gen 4runner?
I replaced my pioneer 6.5s in back with 6.5 mid-ranges (which sounds good as hell for rear fill) and bought a Sony two channel amp to accommodate the power needs of the mid-ranges.. So it ends up that I have two channels on my Alpine amp available and two brand-new pioneer premier 6.5s. I already have what I need up front, with a pair of Boston Acoustic SX50 component set in kick panels running off two channels of my Alpine 4ch amp and S45 4" in the dash.

Has anyone ever done this?
I don't really wanna put 2x50watts@4ohms RMS of power and Pioneer Premier TS-D602P 6.5s, which I paid $100 bucks for, to go to waste.

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

In the rear doors, if you install speakers, you don't be able to roll the window down very far. There isn't much room in the rear doors in the first place.

Can you put them in the quarter panels, behind the panels so they look good?

olharleyman

no but you can do this

Texas91Runner

wow. i'm liking the look of that picture. how about a write-up?
is that a 6.5?
did you use a spacer?

aviator

That's more or less what I was going to suggest Harley.
You could fab up some extension rings your self very easily with a little MDF some spray adhesive, a jigsaw/router, and a little vinyl.
One 2'x2' 1/2" MDF "Handy Panel" from HD will give you plenty of material to work with. Check the outer diameter of the speaker cover and have the material cut at HD into squares a little larger say 3/4" to 1" depending on how big a lip you want (at least 1/2" wich would give you a 1/4" lip as a minimum) a little more is better since the ring will be more solid the bigger it is.
Then all you do is cut out the inside according to the inst. with the speakers, next cut the outer corners off to make a ring. Measure the depth of the door from the inner edge of the window track to the face of the door trim panel and compare to the mounting depth spec of the speaker and add say 1/4 to a 1/2" to allow for movement this will tell you how many rings you will need (probably no more than 2). Spray the glue on the rings according to inst., glue the rings together (if needed), wrap and glue the vinyl and attach the ring in place to the bottom of the door with some screws.
Next just wire and install the speakers according to instructions.

olharleyman

Ya them are 6.5's I got the pod's on ebay and pulled the door panel found where I wanted to put them traced the diameter of the cardboard side of the panel and with a box knife cut the cardboard out then went to the front and cut the material in a cross pattern and folded it under through the hole and cut it into 1/16th I guess to get it to fold better and not bulk up on the outside of the pod.

I am very happy with the way it came out and the pods have an angle to them so I have them pointed upward just a bit and the sound reflection is very good I also added some dyna mat type stuff to the back side or front panel of the door just for shi*'s and grins not sure it really makes any difference or not but I did it anyway.

As for the next one my 93 4runner
6 channel amp

2 6.5 components and two 10" bass

Exact same set up as the 90 4runner but these speakers are 2 generation's newer

as you can see two Set's of 6.5 (one for the front one for the back) I will be doing it a little bit different. This time I will be making the pods out of 3/4 mdf and fiberglass a bit different but right along the lines of what AVATOR has suggested and if you don't want to make the ring's yourself their is a guy on e-bay that sells them(I may get some myself) then just build a couple 1 3/4 and 2" stanchions/pillars to give an angle and build a square base to mount it too (but leave the base uncovered so it can be removed) then cover them with material like flannel to give them a solid base for the fiberglass to adhere too.

once it drys I will remove the rear and do the final sanding and painting. Then I will remove the door panel find the sweet spot for the base and drill through the cardboard panel to fit the pod and power wires screw it all together and get the same results as the ones you seen already but this time I will not need to sacrifice the door panel and or the interior material.

Texas91Runner

Whoa. That's a pretty complicated directive. It's difficult to understand.

Texas91Runner

i found these on ebay. could i use these? i mean they're already angled and should give me enough space between the magnet and the window, right? i also have the blue vinyl i could use to re-wrap 'em :]

aviator

Not as complicated as it sounds really... would only take an afternoon to do it give or take an hour or two...
Those premade things could work, you'd have to check the measurements and see if it would fit. Your pax would loose a little legroom... and they might interfere with the fold down seats... again you'd have to check the measurements... if the ebay seller does'nt have them you could probably get them from the mfgs. website...

Texas91Runner

I'll see what I can do this weekend. Any other tips?

NYChopshop

I think you're on the right track with spacers at the bottom of the door. There isnt any way the window can tuck all the way down to the bottom of the door because of the contour to fit the wheel arch towards the rear of the door. If you don't want to do the small amount of fabrication it would take to make the spacer rings, or don't think that what you could come up with would look or function as well as what you see on ebay (or whatever), then go right ahead and buy them. I haven't put 6.5" speakers in my rear doors... yet. I am planning on getting a MB Quart 4" component set for the front and a 6.5" add-a-woofer to that setup so I can have nice 3 ways up front where I find you need all the midbass. I thought about removing the 4" speakers altogether, but when I had to replace a blown speaker on the cheap (see my thread for some minor stereo work) I saw the quality of these ported 4" speaker boxes, it totally appealed my sound engineer sensibilities, and I decided to find a 3-way component set that would let me utilize them. On the front seat doors, I'd be removing the map pockets and sliding it towards the rear of the door panels, leaving enough real estate for 6.5" drivers in the front lower corner mounting the speakers with spacers similar to what you are looking at. I'd be doing the exact same thing with pods in the rear doors, and it looks like you're on the right track. This would let me run a nice strong 4 channel amplifier to 4 6.5" diameter speakers to get some definition in the cabin. I would use the 6.5" driver mounting locations in the trunk area to mount JL audio 6" subs. I have 12" subwoofers, but they only handle the real low of the sound range. I love to listen to hard rock primarily, so my system design is largely based around giving rock that low end balls that normally fall through the cracks when people upgrade their system kinda-sorta and add a sub expecting it to take care of all of your bass frequency range. I'm glad to hear you've got midbass well sorted from the 6.5" externally amplified speakers!

I like your speaker selection. I've only put Boston speakers on any install I've done for myself or for my buddies in the last six or seven years. I love the way they handle low wattage and put out good clean sound. I'm glad you opted to keep the 4" speakers in the front, otherwise its an aweful waste of dash space and high-dollar toyota engineering! I would have thought about the kickpanel enclosure myself, but I didnt want to give up the leg room. I'm also planning on turning off the internal amplifier inside of my head unit and run my system purely off of outboard amplifiers, and I assume you use the stock rear speaker amplifier for the trunk stuff in addition to your front 4" stock location speakers all run off of your head unit's built in amplifier. You're very close to what sounds like a pretty well rounded system, but I haven't heard anything about the low end! Do you have subs or are you planning on purchasing them (or one)? You don't need anything big and boomy, but you definitely want to at least be able to hear that part of the music you listen to. Post pics of your finished 6.5" rear speaker work, not to mention your kickpanel enclosures and amp mounting location! Good luck!

aviator

interesting when you were talking about difficult I thought you were talking about my suggestion not harley's more involved idea... for some reason when I looked his post was not showing... guess it was related to the problem they recently fixed... hmmm...

in any case I was looking at another recent thread here on amp installs and I saw in the background of a pic that the rear doors are already equipped with a cutout and mounting point in the door sheet metal. So some markets must have had a rear door speaker option. If you check carefully you may be able to fit the 6.5s with only minor trimming if any, and not need to worry about rings and such.

On a related note... Harley how is the quality of those phoenix amps?

Texas91Runner

I plan on measuring the height of spacer I need this weekend, because the mounting depth for my Pioneers is about 2.5". Those low-mids up front really make good sense! I WAS running external 6x9's off my amp (before I replaced them with Pioneers and mid-ranges), which gave me some pretty good low-mids, so I thought just to stick with the kicks and 5.25" component set. The kick panels really don't take away an immense amount of space: I still have space to use my dead pedal!

I was also considering those JL 6" subs, but decided against them when I found out the mounting depth, which is excessive in the majority of cases compared to a typical 6.5" full-range 2-way woofer.

I also listen to more rock, alternative, or even thrash more often than I listen to R&B or rap, so the mids and low-mids are more significant for a clear perception of the bass guitar tones.

I fell in love with Boston Acoustics after those 4", honestly. I put a 1.2KHz high pass crossover inline of the signal wire for the 4" speakers, and that really accentuates the highs, which sound beautiful.

As for the lows, I have a shallow-mount MTX 12" on layaway at an audio shop here in town. I plan to have a custom enclosure built into the wall of my cargo area for the sub.

As far as my setup goes, I have the 4" amplified by the head unit; an Alpine MRP-F300 sends 4x50w @4ohms to a Boston component 5.25" set and to the Pioneer 6.5" 2-way; a Sony XM-ZR1252 sends 2x125w @4ohms to Kicker 6.5" mid-bass drivers. I'm purchasing a mono Alpine amp to power my MTX shallow-mount!

Texas91Runner

Oh yeah. I couldn't log on for a few days.
hmm..I'll see if I could see the spot where that may have been placed.

Yeah, harley?
I was about to purchase one of those for my mid-ranges.

aviator

Yeah BA is the shiznet but they can be pricey... I got JL which are almost as good much more affordable...

NYChopshop

JL for full range speakers are good, boston makes much better use of the wattage you put to it. Myself, I fell in love with them when I put a pair of 4x6 plates, which is just a 4" driver and separate tweeter on one plate, in the dash of my fullsize k5 blazer. Same idea. You put a bunch of power from an amp to that, and you may blow them, but you wont like the sound you get much anyhow. Good call on the in-line filter, if you get a good one. Some of them color the sound too much, so avoid the cheapest stuff out there, none of it is too pricey anyway. I loved how cheap bostons were for the quality and the specs. Spending a few less dollars up front (and I really mean scant few - you don't need top of the line bostons - go by the wattage!) you get sound you are genuinely happy living with! I had an old set of pioneers I put a screwdriver through on purpose one time because they gave me a hum I couldnt stand, but I'm a bit psycho about my sound. I wouldn't be too daunted my the mounting depth of the JL's for the trunk from what I read, but I wouldnt be putting them in my doors, thats for sure. I may have to cut the plastic grating out and make myself a spacer or even small sealed boxes for that space, but I dont have a problem with that. JL audio is absolutely staggering on the bass products they put out. Super quality lows and tight midbass from those small drivers. If I'm designing a system and want good bass for anything short of ear-shattering show-stopping levels of SpLs in bass, I always go JL. Top of the top line for thousands of watts, I'd probably take memphis car audio because of what I've seen them do before. Low end memphis is so-so, but their amps and their high end subs are absolutely a life-changing-bass kind of deal. My buddy had a 94 impala with the entire trunk converted into a speaker box, 2 15" mojos and 2 several-thousand watt memphis monoblock amps, and I couldn't breathe right during certain songs it moved so much air. Short of that, I'd go JL audio. Especially for rock on a budget. Photos photos photos!

NYChopshop

two things I forgot to mention - the 4" with the in-line filters sound good for two reasons, not only does it cut out the lower frequency notes that distort on those small speakers, but given enough power and excursion (range of motion) a small speaker can get all of the audible 20hz-20khz sound range, at least 20-20 is all that digital audio contains (cds, what radios play, pretty much anything you'd hear in a car has been digitized). Since the bostons are great when you play them with low volume, having the speakers not have to try and reproduce the lower notes means it can save all that power and excursion for the definition of the upper notes. So in summary on that, it sounds good because it doesnt distort and because the speakers sound better when you free up the speaker to concentrate on what its good at.

Secondly, for good imaging, I'd try my hardest to angle the speaker up if at all possible. Only bass notes are truly omni-directional and it doesnt matter where you sub is pointed. To hear those sounds, you want to keep the tweeters as close to the midrange as possible and aim them at the listener when if at all possible. Speakers put out a cone of sound and the sound always gets colored pretty badly when you go outside of that cone. A good way to measure by eyeball is to look at the cone of the driver itself. Clearly, the more dead on you are the better the sound, but if you had an imaginary laser-line from the speaker cone surface itself going out in all directions, that should include the ear of the listener when if at all possible. Again, cheaper good solid thinking has more to do with end result than the few dollars you spend on one speaker over the other most of the time. When the factory didnt put the speaker hole in for sound quality, they just put it in. Toyota opted out of the shallow small lower rear door speakers for the US market, I would assume, for the same reason they built those fancy schmancy ported 4" driver boxes in the dash board: we like to listen to our music and they know it. Crafty Japanese analysts, I tells ya! Anyhow, most of us got the trunk mounted speakers with roof mounted tweeters and built in amplifier because we like to pump the tunes! The speakers that would have had to fit in those back door cutouts would have been small, and pancake-flat in the cone shape in order to give a better sound to everyone in the back seats from the mounting location. I would take care to get or make an angled speaker spacer, but thats just the sound psycho talking again.

aviator

Good points on the rear cut-outs chopper... I was pointing out that the cutout would be a place to start for a location... never hurts to look who knows what you could fit in there with a little imagination. And with those folding rear seats you need to be careful how big a box you build for the door to allow space for the flip.
Good info on the filter for the 4" I think I'm going to have to look at something like that... What I have now is front feeds spliced (at the crossovers) to run the 4" full range and into the crossovers for the 6.5 components... you're saying I'll get better performance if I add a limiter on the line to the 4" (after the splice) as well? Any ideas on good brand of limiters? size is a premium they can't be too bulky.

NYChopshop

well, I assume you're running this all off of a head unit's internal amplifier. I don't use the hard wiring option myself, because my head unit has a software high pass option built in. I wouldn't expect good sound out of my front speakers without one, one way or another. If I didn't have that option, I would go to crutchfield.com and get myself a $10 pair of 600hz high pass filters, a.k.a. bass blockers, and wire them inline with the 4" speakers. I have gotten the SCOSCHE and the lightning audio brand ones before, not liking the lightning audio ones at all. Crutchfield's are well reviewed and more than you need for the 30-ish watts RMS your head unit will be putting out. Even if it says 50x4, they mean peak power, not RMS. Ever wonder why an outboard amplifier that reads 50w x 4 is so much larger than an in dash head unit that has the same number's written on the faceplate? RMS and peak power are two totally different things. Anyhow, yes. I am indeed saying that you will get much better sound out of your 4" front speakers if you add the filter, and they are just large resistors really, so mounting them behind the dash shouldnt be any type of problem room wise.

olharleyman

This 6 channel rocks it as clean as it get's I have had more then a few of them big boom rap listening system owners shut down there systems and come over to listen to my PANTERA and just sit in awe of how clean crisp and clear my system sounds at full power and at everything in between.

This is an older model (2001) but it is so nice I love how it sounds and how clean the hi's mid's and low's are one of the best amps on the market. At 50 ft. to right inside it sounds the same there is no deviation's in quality.

One of the best feature is that if it blows up there is no need to replace it for $6-$700 bucks , just box it up ship it back to Phoenix Gold in Portland Oregon and they will completely rebuild it for $135 bucks front to back inside and out then send you a request for shipping and it's back to you brand new all over again.

I have the one in my 90 4runner set at just over 1/2 power so there is plenty of room for bigger and more power handling speakers if there was only a way to let you hear how it sounds you would understand what I am talking about weather your listening to RAP , COUNTRY , ROCK or METAL (I have tried all for different people at different times and they all loved it even classical and polka sound great) so if I were to give a fair rating I would give it a minimum of 8.5 and a high of 9.5 it is worth every penny I paid for the two of them ($1400 for the pair and I can tell you two is overkill in one 4runner )

OH YA and it helps having the Phoenix Gold speakers and crossovers matched to the amp.