<Pre-update waffle!>
Just a quick re-cap...after a few years running with the stock 4" dualcones with Sony tweeters (a setup which worked very well indeed for what it was!), I decided to upgrade. I obtained a pair of Rockford Fosgate mid drivers (more on them later), and fitted them in place of the 4" dualcones. A huge improvement, mainly comprising of significantly more bass. At this point I ditched my 2x 10" subs from the boot!
However, I'm a bit of an audiohpile, and the vocal range was being spoiled by overlap between the drivers (no high-frequency filtering of the 4" drivers), so I bought a pair of JBL GTO-505ce components from everyone's favourite auction site. This is the setup I was running for the Gaydon meet. With a list price of £100, they were pretty disappointing - mainly because of pretty 'brutal' top end, but for the money I paid for them, I couldn't complain.
I sold the JBLs for what I paid for them, and they're now happily installed in a 2CV, where the angle at which the tweeters are installed counteracts their natural harshness. I then went in search of their replacements, and decided to go for the models my housemate has installed in his Rover 100 - props to the Chad for demo-ing (and letting my fiddle with) his speakers!
</Pre-update waffle!>
I bought myself a set of Alpine SPR-136As - 13cm / 5 1/4" 2-way components. They are generally considered to be one of the only products to look at unless you're spending silly money. They have a list price of £150, but I managed to get a much better deal than that! The main improvements over the JBLs are much chunkier drivers (the motor structure is flipping huge!), adjustable tweeter level (essential to allow a range of tweeter mounting locations), and soft-dome tweeters (generally smoother sounding than metallic-dome ones). Here is a piccy...
(It shouldn't take a genius to work out where I bought them from now that I've posted that, so I'll offset the irritation of using their image against giving them a free advert!)
The first step was to chop a larger hole in the door card to accomodate those huge magnets (purists may find this image distressing...)
The second step was to make the mounting pods. I decided to both follow the profile of the door card, and to bring the 'excess' out to be semi-flush with the grille. Piccy...
With the mid driver fitted...
And finally painted, and in the door...
They'll be carpetted eventually, and pending me obtaining another spare door card, there's just the one side in for now....but you get the idea
This obviously frees up my spare 5" speaker mountings, and the Rockford Fosgate drivers. I'm not sure if I will keep the RFs or not (they're nice drivers, especially given their lack of bulk!), but the mounting rings might as well go to a good home. They're a trick piece of kit because you can use them to fit 5" speakers (with small-ish motor structures) to the standard speaker location - they even use the standard screw holes!
Look out for a post in 'Offer' on those! Anyhow, they've taken me a lot of time, and after a little EQ, I'm proud of the results. Demos will be given at the next meet for anyone who is interested!
cheers
James
