garyabc

Looking for some great sounding speakers that will fit behind my front door grills.

My 84 NA 944 has the original sorry sounding speakers. I've searched the forums but many of the listed speakers are no longer available (Alpine 460A, for example) Other postings list brands but no model numbers (Infinity, Polk, Boston), other posts list conflicting information for the same manufacturer (fits perfectly, fits but grill is spaced from the door, had to send them back, etc.) Crutchfield has nothing.

I really want to keep the factory look. The rear speakers and small subs are easy, but the front doors are a problem. If you've installed something that sounds good and keeps the factory grills (with or without modification), please post the brand AND model number.

Thanks,
Gary

J Berk

If you go to the Crutchfield website you can plug in your make/model/year and it will list the speakers that fit.

I gave up on front grills. I got a nice, inexpensive set of pioneer speakers that protrude slightly farther out than stock and left them 'grill-less'.

You can also find info on what speaker depths fit at clark's garage...he's got a whole list (go to the shop manual and under STEREO you will find a chart)

http://www.clarks-garage.com/

garyabc

I'm afraid Crutchfield doesn't list any speakers which fit the front doors.

Anything listed on Clark's Garage list as both fitting and sounding good has been discontinued.

Arominus

The front openings are so shallow that anything that even comes close to sounding ok wont mount. You might go with some 4x6 plates but either way nothing will sound "great". The polks i had were about 1/4" to deep and i could never shim them enough before one of them died due to the frame of the speaker bending and locking up the voicecoil. You will need to make a spacer for any decent 4x6 or do something like i did. I ended up getting q-forms and some 5 1/4's up there without cutting the door or the door panel (just 3 holes in the panel for the machine screws), on the late dash this won't work so well with the q-forms unless you place them perfectly and lose the front section of the door cubby. You could also look for some of the "10 speaker" door panels.

Edit: I had the polk db 461's and they are just barely to deep, and they sounded ok. Youll need to make a spacer to mount them though. The stock grills will not clear any 2 way speaker except for a plate style speaker.

The polks i had

These polk plates are the shallowest i could find (1 13/16's for a top mount) I generally like silk dome speakers as they are not so tinny or harsh, hence the polk recommendation. Your stock grill covers might fit over them, maybe.
Polk Plates

Kevsporsche944

I think alpine makes a pair. I have some Sony 4x6 speakers that I picked up at Walmart. and under $40.

yellowline

I had Alpine SPS-460s in my car. They updated them and renamed them, but I know that they fit under the stock grills.

Unfortunately, 4x6s don't sound good in general. To go with something else would require a lot of work, though.

garyabc

Arominus,

Thanks for posting that picture. I will have to do that if I can't find something to fit. I'm curious about the Polks. Do you think they could fit if I spaced the whole door panel out by adding spacers on the bottom and leading edges of the interior door panel, dremeled the ridges off the inside of the speaker grill, and perhaps trimmed the speaker mounting plates? I'd be looking at the Polk db461P, I don't know if that's what you had.

http://www.polkaudio.com/caraudio/pr.../sr/db/db461p/

The entire car looks original inside and out and I was hoping to keep it that way.

Kev, Alpine has discontinued the pair that fits. On the current Alpine the tweeter sticks out too far. I've checked our local WalMart and they don't have anything that fits, but there is a much bigger WalMart in a nearby town. I'll have to drive over there and check.

Arominus

I did not have the plates, i had the normal style ones. The depth problem is from the window track/support at the back of the speaker mount. I would say making a plastic/plexiglass spacer would be a better and easier idea to get the extra mounting depth.

garyabc

I see that the current Polk coaxials are 1/4" deeper, but they seem to change them every few years. Hmmmm...what to do?

Anybody else have speakers that fit?

T_Glass_27

not sure what the difference between early and late speakers are if any. I have Sony door speakers that the PO had installed and they cost around $300 for the pair and they sound amazing. I also have a DVD/Navigation headunit that helps some to. They are very very very loud and are crystal clear. They sound better than my 2005 chevy suburban with the upraded bose system. I will see if i can dig up the reciept and tell you what model they are.

garyabc

Thanks, T. That would be a help.

CurtP

I know of two speakers that will fit behind the stock grills. One is a drop-in, the other requires some modification. The drop-in sound ok, the modified one sounds better, but you'll be hard pressed to find any 4x6 speaker that sounds "great". IMO, these speakers are used for mid-high fill, not full range. What makes it even more difficult is the speakers have to be unusually shallow - <1.8", IIRC.

The drop-in speakers are Jensen J146FR which are $10/pr. Interesting thing about these speakers is that they're made in the USA! These are paper cones with a foam surround and a "whizzer" cone in the middle. They sound ok for what they are, but don't expect a miracle out of these.

The ones that can be modified to fit behind factory grills are Blaupunkt ODx462 Overdrive which run $30/pr. Get them while you can, because from what I understand, these have been out of production for a while and the overdrive series is out of production. But these, just like 99.9% of the other speakers out there, are made in China. Out of the box, these suffer the same problem as all the other speakers - the tweeter sits too high and there's a rubber edge that sticks up too high. Both of these issues keeps the speaker grill from sitting flat. The solution is to take a razor to the rubber edge to trim it flush with the mounting tabs and to pry the plastic trim off the tweeter. The plastic trim on the tweeter doesn't do anything anyway and it functions perfectly without it. These speakers have a woven fiberglass cone and a polypropylene semi-dome tweeter. They sound pretty good, but are not what I'd consider "great".

I currently have the Blaupunkt speakers in my car, but they're coming out soon. I'm replacing my door panels with newer ones that have the speakers mounted where the map pocket goes. I can't remember for sure, but I may have had to use a hammer to tap the top and bottom of the speaker opening to get them to fit. I didn't have to smash it, just make a slight adjustment. But I can't remember if I had to do that for these speakers or the old Pioneer speakers that were in there prior to these.

Charlie

Boston Acoustic plates will fit. There is a pair of BA 746 on ebay for $80 with free shipping. These speakers are good for mid and high frequency sound. For a small amount of bass you need to remove the rear speakers and install 6.5" speakers or for more bass put in subs.

TNelson

I couldn't find anything that really worked, so I wound up getting a pair of MB Quart (100.kx? -- discontinued, this was prolly 10 year ago) 5.25" round ones and making a mounting plate out of 1/4" MDF. Cut a hole for the speaker, slapped some vinyl over it and mounted it in the door. Doesn't stick out too much, and sounds so much better than the stock speakers. If sound is really important to you, you might want to reconsider the size. Or if appearance is really important to you, just ignore what I said! (My speakers don't look bad, but you can't miss a big black circle on a burgundy door panel.)

catamax944

I remember that someone here on rennlist (don't remember who) was saying that these http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...+462.9cfp.html will fit and they sound very good.