Time for a speaker upgrade!

[ronmanfredi]

As I continue to customize our 2006 Conv to our liking, the next change I wanted to make was with the Audio speakers.  From the factory, the car came with the Shaker 500 system, which included a 6 changer CD/AM/FM radio, along with two 6x8” co-axial speakers and two 8” subwoofers at the bottom of the door panels plus two 6x8” co-axial Speakers in the rear side panels.  The subwoofers each have their own amplifier to power them as well.  Research revealed that the radio only puts out about 20 watts per channel to the speakers and the amps pump up the signal for the subwoofers.  So, when one looks for speakers to work with the radio, you want to get speakers that are close in range to what the radio puts out.  In other words, you don’t want to buy speakers with an RMS rating of 100 watts when the radio only puts out 20 watts.  The other thing that you want to look for is the sensitivity rating.  With a low powered signal coming from the radio, you want the speakers to have the highest sensitivity rating possible.  A rating of 93 is about the highest you’ll find.  Anything in the 80’s isn’t good for a stock radio.  The last thing you want if you like base sound like I do, is to get a speaker with the lowest possible frequency response “low” Hz number. The average 5x7” or 6x8” co-axial speaker runs 60-25,000Hz.  60 is base, 25,000 is the highest pitch sound the speaker can process.  The speaker that I chose, has a range of 40-24,000Hz which has the best base sound possible, a sensitivity rating of 93 which is great, it is the JL Audio C1-570x.  I’ve used JL Audio speakers in other vehicles with good success.  The only thing that I dislike about them is the trademark yellow color but for the sound, I’ll live with it. Lastly, there is a need for a grille for the speaker and I found the Morel 210MESH57 fit the bill nicely.  (everything came from Crutchfield)

Now I want to take you through the installation of the door speakers and subwoofer enhancements.  (I also replaced the rear panel speakers) For the subwoofers, you’ll need to get some speaker poly fill.  Poly fill placed loosely in the subwoofer “box” smooths out the low base sounds a lot and is definitely worth doing.  Now, the door panels need to come off and there are a lot of u-tube videos on how to do this on a 2006-7 Ford Mustang so I’ll skip that part. If you buy the speakers from Crutchfield, they will send easy to read instructions on how to replace the front and back speakers.

Picture 1 below shows the new speakers and the grille.  The base of the grille goes between the speaker and the factory speaker mount, then the speaker is attached with screws through the grille base.  To start with, you have to remove the factory speaker mounts off the door.  Each mount has a marking that says left/right and Top to help you when reinstalling. 

Picture 2 shows the factory speaker mount with a Dremel tool next to it and the 4 places that the “ears” need to be removed from the mount.  I use the Dremel tool, you can use whatever works for you, you just have to remove the 4 ears and leave a level surface for the speaker grill base to mount.

Picture 3 shows the “ears” removed and the grille base.

Picture 4 shows the speaker mount reinstalled on the door.  Note that the speaker lead wire is installed between the mount and the door body.  You have to do it this way in order to connect it to the speaker and car wiring harness.

Picture 5 shows the speaker grille base and speaker mounted to the factory speaker mount.

Picture 6 shows the speaker grille installed.

Picture 7 shows the back of the door panel with the subwoofer panel removed and the poly fill laid into the sound channel.  The panel, which is above it, is also recessed but you don’t want to fill it.  The poly fill isn’t supposed to be packed in the area, just loosely set in, so doing half of the area is sufficient.

Picture 8 shows the other door panel and the red silicon adhesive that I used to seal off the subwoofer channel from the rest of the door panel. 

Picture 9 shows the subwoofer panel reinstalled.

Picture 10 shows the ½” x ½” foam gasket that I used to fill in the area between the speaker grille and the door panel.  What I didn’t show was that the door panel had an extra plastic edge there that I removed where the gasket is now.  I was afraid it would hit the speaker grille so I pulled the leather back and trimmed it off and reglued the leather back around it. 

Picture 11 shows the door panel on and the foam gasket.

Picture 12 shows the completed job and the sound is absolutely great.  The subwoofer sound is much louder, smoother and the speaker sound is much better than stock. Sitting in the car, I can’t really see the yellow color because of the grille which is good also.  Hope you liked this!

[aardvark]

Nice. work Ron.