Fitting speakers in doors

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Alan W
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Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

In my quest to improve the sound system l'm thinking of fitting small but powerful mid range speakers in the door cards (and fit new tweeters whilst l'm at it and replace footwell speakers with proper woofers).

I am understandably very cautious about cutting my pristine door cards so l have just sourced a secondhand one to experiment with. I'm planning on taking the car to a local car audio specialist to see whether fitting speakers in the door cards is possible as l understand that space is tight.

Has anyone previously done / tried to do this?

Also can anyone provide a good photo of the door with the door card removed so l can show the audio guy so he doesn't have to pop the door card off to look?
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BladeRunner919
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by BladeRunner919 »

There's no room in the door for the speakers to be set into, so they'd have to be 'surface mounted' - I guess you could use the door pocket as a space to accommodate them or you'd have to build an enclosure that mounts to the door card.
bertiejaffa
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by bertiejaffa »

fitting speakers directly to the door card is difficult because of the space you need behind the speaker. If you are doing this you need to buy some additional padding to bulk up the front of your door.

My M has this fitted:

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You can see the bottom has speakers and is protruded out and there is another smaller speaker (might be a large tweeter) further up near the top of the door handle. There was a pair of these on ebay last week for £350 including the speakers
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Yes l saw those bertiejaffa and l also read that with them fitted you can't get to the seat position control with the door closed. I'm thinking of trying the ultra thin speakers that you can buy now, some of them are only 1.3" deep. I'm thinking... do away with factory amp, use a two way crossover for the front channel running to a proper 5.25" woofer in the footwell and a better tweeter, and running the slimline speakers from the rear channel so l can use the fader to adjust the power to them hoping they'll give a little bit of 'ambience'. I hope that all makes sense!!
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by gookah »

why would your seat squab want to listen to the music? unless you want to listen from outside with the doors open .... :D
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bertiejaffa
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by bertiejaffa »

ha ha.... Pete...

Yes Alan, the forward / back switch is not very accessible with the doors shut - I must admit there has always been a "perfection" part of me that is annoyed by it but then the rational part of me reminds me that only I drive the car and my legs don't change length between drives so whats the issue - after all, I never need to move the seat once I've set it the first time and driven it.

With regards you comments on crossovers, I think I understand, only because I am on the verge of striping out the interior in my M and one of the jobs on my list is a new headunit and remove the massive aftermarket amp that is in the boot.....(the CD unit and hump has already gone completely)

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As part of this I am considering what to do with my existing speakers, finding out what range(?) they are and understanding what else I need so I have been on google to understand crossovers etc....
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

These are the proper woofers l fancy using in the footwells, price shown is for each:

http://www.electromarket.co.uk/qtx-soun ... 0wod8zwF0Q
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bertiejaffa
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by bertiejaffa »

Alan W wrote:These are the proper woofers l fancy using in the footwells, price shown is for each:

http://www.electromarket.co.uk/qtx-soun ... 0wod8zwF0Q
should be good - would be interesting to compare these to the rig that Zedonist has in his Z3 - I havent seen it personally but he thinks he has the perfect set up now after much tinkering. He seems to have disappeared completely from all the forums but the post he put on is here:
https://zroadster.org/threads/zedonist- ... etup.5334/
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siwilson
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by siwilson »

I have seen a few guys with these. Jay had some on his S54 and they sounded pretty amazing.
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Southernboy
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

I fitted speakers into my doors... I made the mesh covers and the metal trim I had laser cut specifically to fit. The speakers weren't any "special" slim fit type, but I did have to cut a small "U" shaped bit out the bottom of the inner door skin to allow the speaker magnet to fit as low down as possible.

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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Thanks Barry, that's exactly what I want to do!! Have you got any photof of the door with the door card removed so l can have some sort of idea as to what's lurking behind? Also do you know what size diameter speakers yours were? Thanks Alan
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Southernboy
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

Hi Alan
I don't have a pick behind the door card, but if you have a look at your door, you will find there's a large "window" to access the window lifting mechanism. At the bottom of that "window" there's a small (50 - 70mm) lip. you will need to cut a "U" shape section out to allow the magnet to pass through that area without touching the door metal. If you go the route I went, you can see I mounted the speaker directly to the inside of the door card, with the bolts going through from the outside trim I had specially laser cut for the purpose. The speakers I fitted were 4 1/2" round ( not oval ). They fitted without any difficulty, but they were "door speakers" if that makes some difference. Hugely powerful with large magnets. The mesh is stainless steel I picked up at a scrappy. I used a section of steel pipe, a copper toilet ball valve, and a gas torch to heat the mesh... I placed the mesh on top of the pipe, heated it red hot with the gas torch, then used the copper ball to press the heated mesh into the open end of the pipe... this made it bend ideally to the shape I wanted... I used a square section of mesh, and once it was bent, I trimmed it to fit and be the edge hidden behind the laser cut trim piece... sprayed it all black and fitted it onto the door card. Wired it in to the back of the head unit which has slots for extra speakers... not a difficult task. BTW - I found the copper ball valve at the scrappy too... so all in all it was a cheap job other than the speakers. If you want, I can email you a CAD drawing of the laser cut trim which will fit accurately to any round speaker - I mean the 4 bolt holes are at exactly 90 degrees to each other, so the diameter of a round speaker of 4 1/2 inches will allow the respective holes in the speaker to line up. You can take the drawing to any metal laser cutter and they can easily replicate the item for you. I did mine in 3mm mild steel so it would be rigid enough not to bend when I tightened up the 4 bolts. Aluminium will be too soft for the job, and anyhow, steel is cheaper than ally. I also used self lock nuts as you can see - that's so the nuts won't vibrate loose inside the door card. 4mm nuts and bolts are adequate, and once you have them tightened, simply cut the ends off so all is as neat and tidy inside as it can be. I used a power drill with a 4mm drill bit to drill a series of small holes along the line I marked to cut the "U" shape out the inner door skin, then a large half round file to tidy up after I removed the waste piece. I painted the bared metal of the door where I'd cut to prevent any rust possibility. Hope this helps... B.

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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Cheers Barry, thanks for that: alanwhite1957@hotmail.com

How do they sound in your car?
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Southernboy
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

Makes the sound absolutely good... my ears are closer to the door cards than the speakers in the foot :D well...
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Perfect.. exactly what I thought!!

Did you do away with the footwell speakers, tweeters and rears or are they all still part of it?
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Southernboy
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

I left all the rest as is.. :wink:
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Cheers thanks Barry..
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

I'm just waiting on my laser cutting guy to send me a copy of the dwg. As soon as I get it I'll email it to you...
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Double cheers!!
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bertiejaffa
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by bertiejaffa »

Well I was going to create my own thread to ask the question but this seems to fit here without being a hijack.

How do you know what kind of speaker you have? I have a number of speakers inherited in my doors and I want to look at them and understand whether they are Woofer, Mid, Tweeters or what. Does it go off power, or wattage ? I am assuming there is a standard range for each type and the speakers will have something on them that puts them in one of the specified ranges?
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

Music / sound is produced at different frequencies which are measures in Hz (pronounced Hertz)

The speakers in your car may have their Hz ranges on the back, usual a label or printed directly on to the magnet

Courtesy of Wikipedia...

A tweeter or treble speaker is a special type of loudspeaker (top of door card behind grill in our case) that is designed to produce high audio frequencies, typically from around 2,000 Hz to 20,000 Hz (generally considered to be the upper limit of human hearing). Specialty tweeters can deliver high frequencies up to 100 kHz. The name is derived from the high pitched sounds made by some birds, especially in contrast to the low woofs made by many dogs, after which low-frequency drivers are named (woofers).

A mid-range speaker is a loudspeaker driver that reproduces sound in the frequency range from 250 to 2000 Hz. A mid-range driver is called upon to handle the most significant part of the audible sound spectrum, the region where the most fundamentals emitted by musical instruments and, most importantly, the human voice, lie. This region contains most sounds which are the most familiar to the human ear, and where discrepancies from faithful reproduction are most easily observed. It is therefore paramount that a mid-range driver of good quality be capable of low-distortion reproduction.

A woofer is a technical term for loudspeaker driver designed to produce low frequency sounds, typically from 60 Hz up to 250 Hz. The most common design for a woofer is the electrodynamic driver, which typically uses a stiff paper cone, driven by a voice coil which is surrounded by a magnetic field. The voice coil is attached by adhesives to the back of the speaker cone. The voice coil and magnet form a linear electric motor. When current flows through the voice coil, the coil moves in relation to the frame according to Fleming's left hand rule, causing the coil to push or pull on the driver cone in a piston-like way. The resulting motion of the cone creates sound waves as it moves in and out. At ordinary sound pressure levels (SPL), most humans can hear down to about 20 Hz.[1] Woofers are generally used to cover the lowest octaves of a loudspeaker's frequency range. In two-way loudspeaker systems, the drivers handling the lower frequencies are also obliged to cover a substantial part of the midrange, often as high as 2000 to 5000 Hz; such drivers are commonly termed mid woofers. Since the 1990s, a type of woofer (termed subwoofer), which is designed for very low frequencies only, has come to be commonly used in home theater systems and PA systems to augment the bass response; they usually handle the very lowest two or three octaves (i.e., from as low as 20 to perhaps 80 or 120 Hz).

So in laymans terms no one speaker can cover the whole frequency range, however some speakers are made as a combination of a mid range woofer with a little tweeter stuck on the front and I think most of us would recognise one of those. My everyday driver has these and I'm happy with the sound and this is due to where they are situated. However I think that because of the crap acoustics in a Z3 (due to the position of the factory speakers) I think that the best sound would come from 'splitting' the audio signal into high middle and low frequencies using a crossover network, and then having a proper woofer in the footwell, a mid range in the door and a tweeter upgrade.

Hope that makes sense
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Captain
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Captain »

I have the same setup as Barry, it makes a great improvement to the overall sound. Well worth doing.
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

.... Can't recall Hilton - did I supply you the bits??
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Captain
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Captain »

Southernboy wrote:.... Can't recall Hilton - did I supply you the bits??
Yes you did :D
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by BladeRunner919 »

Southernboy wrote:.... Can't recall Hilton - did I supply you the bits??
Getting forgetful in your old age, Barry? :D
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

...... hahaha... I guess I might be. I do so many things, and it was a couple of years ago...so I can't say I'm concerned about my memory just yet... I've always considered memory a hinderance to a happy life... :lol:
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bertiejaffa
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by bertiejaffa »

HI Alan - thats great information - you wouldnt know that I sed to play Bass in a band would you!??! I am one of those that just twiddles with the knobs till it sounds good (and loud). Using this information I can make sure that my new set up in my Zed is correct.

Just a quick question - I am probably going to follow your lead by having separate good quality speakers of specific ranges in the correct key places and invest in a good 3 way cross over to correctly direct the right sounds to the right speakers. My final question (for now) is the article says the Midrange speakers require a driver. Am I right to assume that any drivers will be covered with the headunit/speaker or crossover tech I buy and as such isn't another piece of kit I need to buy separately?

Interested to see which components you buy as well.
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by BladeRunner919 »

bertiejaffa wrote:HI Alan - thats great information - you wouldnt know that I sed to play Bass in a band would you!??! I am one of those that just twiddles with the knobs till it sounds good (and loud). Using this information I can make sure that my new set up in my Zed is correct.

Just a quick question - I am probably going to follow your lead by having separate good quality speakers of specific ranges in the correct key places and invest in a good 3 way cross over to correctly direct the right sounds to the right speakers. My final question (for now) is the article says the Midrange speakers require a driver. Am I right to assume that any drivers will be covered with the headunit/speaker or crossover tech I buy and as such isn't another piece of kit I need to buy separately?

Interested to see which components you buy as well.
The words speaker and driver are interchangeable - the article is slightly confusing by using both, but they both refer to what most of us call a speaker, and not any additional hardware.
bertiejaffa
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by bertiejaffa »

BladeRunner919 wrote:
bertiejaffa wrote:HI Alan - thats great information - you wouldnt know that I sed to play Bass in a band would you!??! I am one of those that just twiddles with the knobs till it sounds good (and loud). Using this information I can make sure that my new set up in my Zed is correct.

Just a quick question - I am probably going to follow your lead by having separate good quality speakers of specific ranges in the correct key places and invest in a good 3 way cross over to correctly direct the right sounds to the right speakers. My final question (for now) is the article says the Midrange speakers require a driver. Am I right to assume that any drivers will be covered with the headunit/speaker or crossover tech I buy and as such isn't another piece of kit I need to buy separately?

Interested to see which components you buy as well.
The words speaker and driver are interchangeable - the article is slightly confusing by using both, but they both refer to what most of us call a speaker, and not any additional hardware.
Thanks BR - at least I now have 90% more information than I had at the start of the week.
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Alan W
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Alan W »

The set up l'm thinking of is along these lines.

I have an Alpine head unit which l think chucks out 4 X 50watts.. (2 channels front and 2 channels rear)..

The front channel feeds the foot well speakers and the door tweeters via a crossover that is built into the factory amp

I will firstly remove and throw away the factory amp and then install aftermarket crossovers which will likewise feed the new woofer I will install in the foot well and the replacement tweeter I will install in top of door..

With the front channel sorted I will then disconnect the rear speakers (which are fed by the 2 rear channels) and divert the wiring to new speakers fitted into the door cards below the armrests.

I can then adjust the balance between the front channel (foot well and tweeter) and the rear channel (new lower door card speakers) by using the front/rear fader control.

The only thing I have reservations about is the quality of the sound I will get from the foot well woofers because of the poor acoustic effectiveness of the void they sit it although I may experiment with some acoustic felt.

Are there any audio experts on here who have an opinion on this set up?
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Southernboy
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Re: Fitting speakers in doors

Post by Southernboy »

You might consider filling the void behind the foot well speakers with foam rubber / sponge material so that the sound is obliged to exit the speaker rather than have much of it lost in that void. As you can see in the pics below, I used "builders flashing" to create an enclosed space in that void to achieve the same result...

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