Car audio center channel?

Factual Questions
1

Hey, I’m pretty sure this would be the right place to post this.

Basically, In my 88 corolla, the front speakers(which i replaced with some decent kenwoods) are tiny 4", with no real way to put larger ones in, and also, are pointed at your shins, in the dash. You can really barely hear them, with the nicer speakers I have in the back, and I was thinking of getting a 100w rms x 2 channel amp to power them. Anyways, my question is, either with or without the amp, would it be a good idea to mount a 4x6 speaker that I have in an unused double-din opening in the center console, and bridge it to the front channels? Would this sound like crap, and ruin the stereo effect?(which is really barely present at the moment) or is there a better way to do it? Also considering dome tweeters mounted at the corners of the windshield. Mods, move if this is ‘mundayne’.

2

Well,
I’m no expert, just to let you know; but I remember having all kinds of speaker Q’s when I got my first car and having everyone snub their nose at me as if they were too good to answer my questions.

When I finally found a guy who had a site I picked his brain left and right, so I could make something decent happen with my car.

Also, my first car was a red 1990 Celica gtx (pretty one) toyota apparently was fond of making the standard “afterthought” 4" front speakers as my car had the exact same set-up you describe.

The guy that taught me about speakers and the like was real fond of MB QUART speakers, which I guess became my defacto choice. These speakers are german made I believe or meet German higher standardsanyway and are not very cheap although slightly more mainstream now then they were.

When I finally got myself the most powerful pre-amped head unit in my car (which at the time Sony did the best per channel) and replaced my 4’s in the front with the same only MB QUART and my 6-1/2’s in the back (also MB QUART) and then tied in the crossovers into the whole mix (which really is the workhorse with using the best freqs for the best speakers) it made real magic come out of what I initially thought was crap. Prodigy was really big at the time and that CD just rocked my whole car (no amp even!) .

I have to say now, that Celica I had was not just a better OEM handler than my present car, it also seemed to have better acoustics. Since Corollas of the same era are pretty much the same as far as layout and interior styling goes I figure your car has the same potential in it that I found in mine.

Tweeters are fine in the front, but you better match it in the back as well and you better be fond of treble as they only produces various beeps and cymbal taps, but it does add to a listeners experience. I would have to say it was the crossovers that made all the difference in my car, so you don’t necessarily have to buy “enthusiasts speaker brands” to have a fairly ok setup.

While I’m in the advice racket here, I guess I’d like the opportunity to plead you to be a responsible listener and try you best to keep your music inside your car… and as far as you amp suggestion goes, if you feel you need it then it hurts nothing, in fact most amps will help with cleaning the signal a little and keep your sound steadier (maybe a 4 channel amp though?) you can always adjust your fader in your head unit if not your amp to deposit more sound/power to your front or perhaps back speakers.

I suggest you first try one or more of my suggestions and if then you still aren’t satisfied with your sound then look online for a DIN sized center channel slide-in speaker set… this one speaker in the middle rigged-up to your fronts is probably going to be thought of as a mistake later on. A slide-in speaker set can be tried and if disliked unistalled and sold on ebay =)… I think what I’m hearing is that you just want better sound from your front and not that you are going for the “solid gold surround sound setup”. So if this is the case, give some nice crossovers a shot first.

One last thing, when I started with this car (that I so very loved except the puny 2.2L) I told myself I didn’t want to spend a fortune on my stereo system, that I just wanted a nice sounding set-up, nothing too loud…well, I did (spend alot)lol. But I kept it real low key… the nice stuff was all covered over, it looked practically stock and one of the wonderful things I loved about that Celica, was that the seat was the perfect height to fit a 10 disc CD changer under it so I could change cassettes while driving and you couldn’t tell it was there looking from above.

Anyway, I guess what you get out is what you put in, try to get used nice stuff if you can’t afford it, it’s better than new cheap stuff, heh … hope this helped out some… pay it forward or whatever heh- later

3

I would definately lean the dome tweeter route. The lower the freqency the less directional they need to be. The higher the frequency the more directional. Pretty much why you can throw subs in the far back.
Placing 1" domes (with high-pass filters) on your dash or high up on your doors will give a clean sound with little interference.
The other problem is speakers need baffles. To keep opposite sides of the speaker in their own air space (like the air inside a door vs. the air inside the car).
If you put a 4x6 in the din opening the backside of the speaker is sharing the same airspace as the front. It won’t sound very good. not to mention ruining any ‘stereo’ effect you mentioned.

4

You need to mix the left and right channels for a centre subwoofer. Bridging between the L and R channels will give an odd effect - you’ll get the stereo separation signal, which normally doesn’t contain much bass.

You can make a simple mixer for a couple of dollars, or you could use a proper subwoofer speaker, of the type that has two voice coil windings - one for L, one for R. You can then connect this directly to the outputs of your amp.

5

I was actually considering the MB quarts up front, and I guess I’ll go for that, with dome tweeters as well, I did fail to mention that i have a 760(max) watt pioneer amp in the trunk with two rockford punch classic 8" subs, which are only barely audible outside the car, but sound wonderfull within. The klh reference monitors in the back have a 4" mid driver and two smaller tweeter drivers, so the highs actually sound excellent in the back, as well, the only issue really, is the front. I’ll try the crossovers with the speakers I have for now, I suppose, anyone have a reccomendation on a set of good ones for not tooooo much money? and as for the tweeters, do I wire them in a series with the 4" fronts? thanks again!

albert

6

You know, to be honest I don’t know the answer if you’re just trying to splaice it all together without crossovers. However, WITH crossovers it’s a piece of cake because you’ve got two sets of screws and they’re labeled (one set for left and right speakers) (another set for left and right tweeters) . I personally don’t think it’s possible to correctly run tweeters withOUT crossovers.

Sounds to me like you’ve got a quite a lot of power in the back vs the front . There are other things you can purchase for sound distribution. But my guess is you’re trying your best to do this the low dollar method so that suggestion is out.

As for cheap, just keep your eyes peeled; half.com, ebay, sometimes even amazon auctions + Google’s- “Froogle” engine is worth a look as well. Best of luck.