will 6x9's fit on a B14...

UnderDog · Dec 26th, 2002, 06:03 PM

... without major modification? I was given a set of Kenwood KFC's (6x9's for the back and 6.5's for the front) for Christmas. Like clothes and computer hardware, I'd rather pick it out myself but I liked these before they were bought for me but anyway... The holes in the doors are barely too big for the 6.5's which were probably made for 6.75's. Can I get an adapter at say, Circuit City to fit the 6.5's into the bigger hole?

Also, I forgot to tell the person that bought these that 6x9's won't "fit right in" on the rear deck and they take the same size as the front. Is it too much work to get 6x9's to fit back there or should I return them for 6.5's? I was gonna do this already but I figured I'd ask first.

Also, I know that the fronts are where the real sound should come from and the rears are just for fill, but doesn't having the exact same kind (read: frequency range and power) of speaker in the front and the back defeat the purpose of the rears being just low/midrange fill? My fronts are two-component 6.5's and I was going to return the three-component 6x9's for another set of 6.5's. What should I get in return and which end of the car should I put them to get the best sound with what I already have?

By the way, I haven't bought an amp yet. I'm just running a 45x4 Pioneer deck right now.

Lots of questions, but I'm a curious guy. I hang in the performance forum and I'm not really an audio guru so I thought you guys could help me.

NissanTuner · Dec 27th, 2002, 10:09 AM

I have 6x9 xplods on my rear deck, they dont seat down completely but i cut holes in the back deck to display the speakers anyhow. If you mount them like I did by punching holes in the back deck you should make a wood gasket to fill in the raised edge, on mine the front side of the speakers seats flush but the rear side projects up about a centimeter. just cut out an oval wedge and bolt the speakers into it to maintain your sound quality. You could also use tin snips and cut the housing out larger then just drill custom mounting holes into the back deck but the torsion bars in the trunk *MAY* interfere with the speaker magnet (i.e. collide with it and prevent the trunk from opening period and damaging your speakers at the same time)

as for your front speakers providing the mainstream of sound this is only in cases of a poorly designed speaker set up, you should fade and balance the front to the rear to hit the sweet spot in the driver side front seat. The only reason the fronts would provide more sound is simply because they are closer to your ears. When the speakers are balanced and faded properly all 4 speakers should be working together to provide an equal amount of sound, you dont want one set overpowering the other.

UnderDog · Dec 27th, 2002, 05:23 PM

Sounds all right. I really don't want to cut up the rear deck because I might sell this car and I want to sell it stock, so I swapped the 6x9's for 6.5" like the front. I had trouble getting them to fit as I didn't have any adapters to make the 6.5" screw holes fit the 6.75" diameter screw hole pattern. On the fronts I had to bend down little pieces of the edge of the speaker and drill through it directly into the door to mount them up.

I'm totally stumped about the rears, because I can't get a drill back there because of the window and drilling up through the bottom doesn't seem like a great idea. Same problem as the front except I just can't drill holes straight down into the frame through the tabs I made on the speaker.

I have one other problem. My right front speaker doesn't sound like it's producing much bass and it pops when it tries to play bass notes at semi-high volumes. If I push the balance all the way to the left speaker it plays fine, producing the right amount of bass for a speaker that size, but if I put the balance in the middle to play both speakers they both pop at the same volume. I had to rig the speaker wire because of that nissan plug in the old speaker. I cut it off and stripped it back and wrapped it around the contact and taped it off. I did this for both sides. If I accidentally reversed the polarity of the wires, will that cause it to pop? If not, what did I do wrong? I'm slightly frustrated with nissan at the moment.

[edit] I fixed the popping problem... part of the speaker was touching the door. I guess that's what the rubber is for, hey? I pulled it off and stuck some rubber behind the tab I made and screwed it back in and it works nice. But I still have a problem with the back speakers. What do I do about that? [/edit]

[edit2] I had another revelation while I was driving my sister's Eclipse around trying to figure out what to do with my poor Sentra in pieces at home. I'll just get little triangular prizm shaped speaker boxes for the 6x9's and mount them onto the rear deck... will that work well or do the rear speakers rely on the space in the trunk to produce bass (like a huge speaker box)... If the speaker box is ported maybe that won't be a problem, hey?

UnderDog · Dec 28th, 2002, 01:18 PM

AND NOW MY DOORS VIBRATE!

God... I've installed stereo equipment before in friends cars and they sounded beautiful, but never had I had this much trouble installing speakers except on my own car. Why me?