Installing speakers in 356

As a car stereo installer in a far distant past life, let me take a stab at it:

1. The speakers pointing towards floor aren't ideal - but still plenty of space to push out the tunes..

True, but unless the speakers are in some sort of an enclosure (a speaker box) all of your mid-range and Bass is lost, so you only get highs and THAT sounds like a laptop speaker.

2. 350 watt, 4 way speakers should be pushing some serious music. Maybe the installers could have failed to hook it up properly? like when your headphone jack doesn't go all the way into your music device?

Don't know without seeing it.  I'm wondering if you have set up the equalizer in the radio - is "Loudness" turned on?  Are you boosting the Mid-range?  If not, they will sound tinny.  You may have pre-set equalizer curves.  If so, select "POP".  typical 350-watt speakers are rated at that for instantaneous peaks.  They should be rated around 50 watts "nominal" which is fine for most cars.

3. Will adding a second set of these speakers (in door) help? or will that overload something, or demand an amp? (don't really want to do anything complex)

Most Pioneer radio heads will handle 4 speakers OK, but they usually run around 30 watts per speaker.  If it were my car, I would move the speakers you have to the lower front corner of the doors (the door will act like a speaker enclosure and give you back the Mids and Bass) and if you want all four add two more speakers to the back seat area but beware; you can't just cut a hole and hang them in the body back there.  You'll need a pair of buckets on the back side to enclose them.  Check the Crutchfield site for examples of auto speaker enclosures.

4. Where do other 356 guys place their speakers?

I have my 2 in the door as noted above.  Not the best sound in the world, but OK Mids and Bass for what they are - 8" round 3-ways.  Great highs, though.  

5. Any specific speakers geared for this car (look period correct). Was looking at this set - not period - but the horizontal grills look pretty badass.

Anything "period correct", other than one big speaker grill in the center of the dash will look very much like chrome speaker grills from the 1950's.  Yuck.  Either get black plastic grills and live with them or paint them with plastic-friendly paint to match your interior.

Good luck!   (and find another car stereo installer....)

I have a 6 1/2" mid-range speaker and a 1" tweeter in my doors and most everyone that puts in a stereo adds speakers to the door. Take off the door card and see what is behind it for fitment purposes, trim the door card, and add the speakers. Your stereo guy was probably just trying to keep the speakers out of sight for "period correctness".

Like Gordon said your speakers are probably just sitting in open air and have no enclosure to trap air. All speakers are designed to have a certain amount of air trapped behind them to achieve the proper sound. The doors are the most popular place as well as the wall in the luggage shelf area. I've seen many people install round speakers in that wall towards the part of the curve under the pivot point for the top. But, that void is open behind the wall and a baffle should be installed. 

https://www.crutchfield.com/sh..._cups.html?&pg=1

Lastly, the power ratings for stereo head units is nothing short of inaccurate. I won't go into detail about peak power, RMS ratings, or anything like that. In order for a speaker to sound it's best it needs power, real power, not the power rating of your stereo's head unit. You most certainly will need an external amplifier for your speakers to sound their best.

If you don't want a large amp installed some of our members have installed mini-amps and they have reported a significant improvement in the sound coming from their speakers.

https://www.speedsterowners.com...upgrade-via-mini-amp

Do a quick search of the website using the search function (the magnifying glass looking thing) just to the left of your name and avatar at the top right side of the page.

Robert M posted:

Like Gordon said your speakers are probably just sitting in open air and have no enclosure to trap air. All speakers are designed to have a certain amount of air trapped behind them to achieve the proper sound.

Do you have any idea why home stereo speakers have "tuned" ports in their cabinets?

Those speaker backs on Crutchfield would not allow any air to travel. I do not understand autosound and I know it's tricky to get it right.

I have a UE MEGABOOM speaker attached under my dash. I love it as I have always felt an aftermarket radio and speakers in the Speedsters appear foreign. Its charge lasts 10 hours or so, and I was shocked by the sound the little speaker produces (along with the bass). No wires, no electric, no holes in our cars. And it's completely hidden. 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ue...9545.p?skuId=8749545

I understand you have already purchased speakers and a head unit, but it you were to do it all again, the wireless bluetooth is my recommendation. 

I also used a wireless Bluetooth speaker. Sound was great but 10 hour charge was the downside for me. Always had to had the phone on charge otherwise ut zapped the battery.

In the end l fitted speakers in the front wheel arch. I made a fibreglass pod to fit the speakers then fitted them into the arch.

[URL=http://s176.photobucket.com/user/mdmax72/media/9cfaf28f.jpg.html][IMG]http://i176.photobucket.com/al...mdmax72/9cfaf28f.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s176.photobucket.com/user/mdmax72/media/97565a9f.jpg.html][IMG]http://i176.photobucket.com/al...mdmax72/97565a9f.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s176.photobucket.com/user/mdmax72/media/96506101.jpg.html][IMG]http://i176.photobucket.com/al...mdmax72/96506101.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s176.photobucket.com/user/mdmax72/media/99d1df5e.jpg.html][IMG]http://i176.photobucket.com/al...mdmax72/99d1df5e.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Hope this helps

Rusty S posted:

Robert M posted:

Like Gordon said your speakers are probably just sitting in open air and have no enclosure to trap air. All speakers are designed to have a certain amount of air trapped behind them to achieve the proper sound.

Do you have any idea why home stereo speakers have "tuned" ports in their cabinets?

Those speaker backs on Crutchfield would not allow any air to travel. I do not understand autosound and I know it's tricky to get it right.

Here's a good article on Sealed Enclosures vs Ported Enclosures:

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-...ofer-enclosures.html

Mid range and tweeters with crossover in doors. Doors are fully dynamat lined. Pioneer head unit mounted in under dash box with compatible iPhone direct (not bluetooth) connection for best fidelity and charging. iPhone is mounted on an adjustable neck for easy access. 250 RMS amp in the trunk and powered sub woofer under the dash. It will produce enough sound pressure to listen with decent fidelity and no distortion for top down driving to about 65mph. Bluetooth lacks in high end frequency and can lead to premature distortion. A sub is a must or you will get no bass whatsoever. Premature distortion not as bad as the other type you might be thinking of. 

Robert:   So glad you found that article on sealed vs ported enclosures.  If I had explained it, I probably would have run into tens of pages!

(You can never use too many words, right?)

My daughter in law is up on all that stuff - she used to work for Bose.  I just ask her what to buy and get out my credit card.  I do remember, though, the old Bose 901 direct-reflected speakers.  They didn't start sounding "bright" until you hit them with more than 200 watts - they were really happy around 500 per side.

Gordon, I use to like the 901's but they were so bass heavy that I went with Powered Advent at the time.   I now have Planar Martin Logan speakers that also need lots of power but the mid range and highs are wonderful to my ears. :0   ... singing

Gordon Nichols posted:

Robert:   So glad you found that article on sealed vs ported enclosures.  If I had explained it, I probably would have run into tens of pages!

(You can never use too many words, right?)

My daughter in law is up on all that stuff - she used to work for Bose.  I just ask her what to buy and get out my credit card.  I do remember, though, the old Bose 901 direct-reflected speakers.  They didn't start sounding "bright" until you hit them with more than 200 watts - they were really happy around 500 per side.

Sometimes it just has to be said with a link and not one's own words. 

Here is something a little different just for fun.

600 watt amp with 4 speakers + separate tweeter and sub-woofer tube box.  Even with loud pipes has great sound.

Bill

That thing looks sweet, Bill!

OK you ancient automotive audiophiles.....  I was installing car stereos (and alarms, too) back in 1970 as a Co-Op job between semesters at Northeastern, Univ.  That was when I first started dating my wife!!

State of the art back then was a "high end" Pioneer 8-Track system (about $300 IIRC) or, if you were budget conscious, the Harmony or Titan 8-Track player for about $90 bucks (we were buying them for $28-$30 each).  Inside, the player was the same for both.

We also sold the Ampex Cassette Deck (also about $300), a HUGE deck compared to the 8-track versions (it had to mount under the dash - looked like an A/C unit), but the Ampex also ran Dolby noise reduction.  Both 8-track and cassette decks had a really bad habit of eating tapes.  Towards the end of my stint we started selling Quadrophonic 8-track systems.  I installed one in a Cadillac el Dorado - Grabbed a Pink Floyd Quad tape to try it out - Sounded frickin awesome!! 

Speaker wire then was just 12 ga zip cord (nothing shielded) and we often got a lot of Alternator noise so we sold a LOT of alternator chokes to kill the noise.  Now that Radio Shack is gone around here, Alt chokes are on-line only items.  IIRC, it took about 90 minutes to get a 4-speaker system installed...often less.

Speakers we sold were exclusively Pioneer - we bought them 40 per carton and went through a carton in a few days.  They were OK.  Better than some, not as good as a KLH (at 4X the price of Pioneer).

I think that in the time I was there, we maybe installed 1 or 2 cars with additional amps.  Probably not so, today.  

Well after I left the place and had gone back to school, I was visited at school by an investigator for the Worcester, MA, police.  Seems the owner of the place and his general manager were both arrested for money laundering for the Mob.......Ahhhh!  The good old days!

SF-Speedster posted:

I have a UE MEGABOOM speaker attached under my dash. I love it as I have always felt an aftermarket radio and speakers in the Speedsters appear foreign. Its charge lasts 10 hours or so, and I was shocked by the sound the little speaker produces (along with the bass). No wires, no electric, no holes in our cars. And it's completely hidden. 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ue...9545.p?skuId=8749545

I understand you have already purchased speakers and a head unit, but it you were to do it all again, the wireless bluetooth is my recommendation. 

How's the volume output? Can you still hear the music once at freeway speeds with the top down?

"OK you ancient automotive audiophiles.....  I was installing car stereos (and alarms, too) back in 1970 as a Co-Op job between semesters at Northeastern, Univ. "

Oh, another has been just kidding I remember ... 8 track Kraco system in a 69 bug... then Pioneer cassette head those were the days... "Schools out for summer" 

Rusty S posted:

Robert M posted:

Like Gordon said your speakers are probably just sitting in open air and have no enclosure to trap air. All speakers are designed to have a certain amount of air trapped behind them to achieve the proper sound.

Do you have any idea why home stereo speakers have "tuned" ports in their cabinets?

Those speaker backs on Crutchfield would not allow any air to travel. I do not understand autosound and I know it's tricky to get it right.

That Crutchfield subwoofer link is sort of OK in the sense that a ported enclosure takes less power to produce the same decibels, but it's really not right. 

Back when I was in high school, I built several sets of speakers for myself and friends, some ported and some not, and we tested them against high-end stuff (Bang & Olufsen; Dahlquist DQ-10's; DCM Time Windows, etc.) at an audio shop owned by a friend. The key to a ported speaker is tuning the depth of the tube and width of the hole to match the woofer and the enclosure so it resonates at the frequency you're trying to boost. There's a whole bunch of math to this. These days you can buy a program designed to help you design woofer enclosures. I read a book Radio Shack put out back in the 70s, bought their woofers (10 and 8 inch), and built the boxes to make the volumes those cones wanted—either with a port or not.

The first ones we made were 10-inch 3-way floor speakers with three-inch ports and they really worked in the low and mid range, holding their own against $1,000+ stuff. But we made the mistake of going with horn tweeters that gave a really harsh tone up high. The next set (8-inch 3-way, dome tweeters, unported) weren't quite as efficient in the bass but were much more even-tempered. I used them until a few years ago when my wife and I combined all our stuff and culled the speaker collection.

I installed this one under the dash on the passenger side, its a wood box so you can easily build brackets and "screw" the box in. It perfectly fit under the beck's dash and you can hear it LOUD on the highway with the top down while keeping the clean look.

https://www.pepboys.com/product/details/751845/00237

JC

Krusty posted:

I installed this one under the dash on the passenger side, its a wood box so you can easily build brackets and "screw" the box in. It perfectly fit under the beck's dash and you can hear it LOUD on the highway with the top down while keeping the clean look.

 

https://www.pepboys.com/product/details/751845/00237

 

JC

Cool - how does it effect the passengers feet / legroom? Tied into the electrical I assume?

BTW - Today I asked mechanic why he didn't install in door - he replied that too many times rain gets down the door and kills the speakers.

Dunno, I live in Asia, with a very long monsoon season and downpours that can happen randomly. My car does have a wide open space in doors (not sealed properly) so I can believe it.. (shrug)

Put the baffle in the door and it should help reduce the chance of that happening.

Robert M posted:

Put the baffle in the door and it should help reduce the chance of that happening.

For sure, but my doors are a wreck... a couple of beat up, scratched up plexiglass windows that rattle around in a cavernous space... the 'leather' the interior guy installed is done so lousy that the doors don't perfectly align anymore. and 30% of the time i'll be driving down the road and take a turn - and one of the doors will swing open (talk about hair turning gray) because the locking mechanism doesn't work properly.

in fact - to make them lock at all - u have to remember to push back down the lever (inside)...

so rain baffles are low on my list for the doors currently.

Krusty posted:

I installed this one under the dash on the passenger side, its a wood box so you can easily build brackets and "screw" the box in. It perfectly fit under the beck's dash and you can hear it LOUD on the highway with the top down while keeping the clean look.

https://www.pepboys.com/product/details/751845/00237 

Can you share some photos of that @Krusty? I'm having trouble understanding the size in relation to our little cars.

I too use bluetooth speakers. I currently have a UE Roll under the dash, but that's only because my louder Owelee Stealth360 is being repaired. I looked at the UE Megaboom like @Kevin - Bay Area too. I'm curious which is louder. I am not quite satisfied with my volume at top-down highway speeds. But anything below highway is fine for me.

Ryan in NorCal posted:

Krusty posted:

I installed this one under the dash on the passenger side, its a wood box so you can easily build brackets and "screw" the box in. It perfectly fit under the beck's dash and you can hear it LOUD on the highway with the top down while keeping the clean look.

https://www.pepboys.com/product/details/751845/00237 

Can you share some photos of that @Krusty? I'm having trouble understanding the size in relation to our little cars.

I too use bluetooth speakers. I currently have a UE Roll under the dash, but that's only because my louder Owelee Stealth360 is being repaired. I looked at the UE Megaboom like @Kevin - Bay Area too. I'm curious which is louder. I am not quite satisfied with my volume at top-down highway speeds. But anything below highway is fine for me.

I've been researching bluetooth speaker systems lately... hard to pick the right one that will produce loud volumes with the top down at highway speeds... 

These are what I used for speakers. They are 1/4" thick panels with a thing on the back that makes them vibrate. I think they were originally intended for RVs. I put two small ones under the dash and the big one behind the rear seat. They are mounted in picture frames. I still have an unused big one.

Love the idea of the bluetooth speakers, but for me would have to be hardwired into the car, don't want to pull it out to re-charge every few days. sure it has amazing sound though.

The UE MEGABOOM that I have is effective. At 70-75 mph, it can be heard. That said, if there's quieter moments of the song, you won't hear them. And it's definitely not going to bust out your ear drums because it's so loud while playing on the highway. 

But when you exit the highway you're forced to lower the volume quite quickly. 

As far as charging, I have the charger connected to a long extension cord in my garage. When I park, I plug it in. 

As much as I love music, it actually wouldn't upset me not to have a radio. I do love the sound from an air cooled motor. Much like if I had a Colombo v12, I wouldn't be in a huge rush to drown out that tone either. 

-kW

I tried a bluetooth speaker under the dash and posted about it here.

Basically, I don't need a radio in the car and just wanted something for occasional use.

I like the sound of the Sony speaker I used - nice balance between highs, midrange, and bass, and the sound - especially the bass - gets a big boost from being in the cavity under the dash. But It looks like the UE Megaboom might be louder than the Sony (at twice the price, it should be), so I might try it and see.

I don't get the charging issues, though. Doesn't the Megaboom charge from a usb mini port? That's how my Sony works, and I installed a 12v power port under the dash and leave the speaker's charging cable plugged into that. The speaker runs off of its internal battery, but that is charging whenever the car is running.

BlackRice posted:

Love the idea of the bluetooth speakers, but for me would have to be hardwired into the car, don't want to pull it out to re-charge every few days. sure it has amazing sound though.

That's how I have it. One of the USB ports I have wired to the ignition is dedicated to the speaker. The other to my iPhone. Only runs when I have the engine running, keeps it charged near 100%.

I know some of you do not run a radio or anything but I find that music does make the atmosphere quite nice especially if you have the right kind of music ... YOU LIKE!

Sometimes driving at highway speeds top down may bring some challenges to hear your tunes but with a good sound system built in IMO I enjoy it not to mention Iphone compatibility for telephone as well... Just saying.  

Sorry for the late reply, here are some pictures. You can't see it from standing outside of the car but as you reach in you see the speaker sticking out from under the dash. Their is not much leg room lost (maybe 1-1.5 inches). The good thing is that this model was designed to be hardwired to a car with a molex plug which has 12VDC +/- and ignition(wired to accessories). I installed the IR receiver on the speaker itself, the remote work just by aiming under the dash and also extended the radio antenna to get a better reception. 

Please ignore the wiring mess it is being cleaned out as we speak :->

jc

I was watching Rod Emory's live video today on Instagram. He was talking about a few cars that he brought to the show. A 356 coupe that was there had a pretty cool speaker solution tied down with luggage straps on the rear shelf. 

http://theboomcase.com

I have not heard the sound, and they definitely seem a little pricey. Emory said they use one in the shop, and take it with them when they go out on a ride  

Well that is pretty cool, and it just shows how one could approach his own stereo system using a hidden system and simply putting a suitcase in the back seat.  Doit yourself as well...   Strap it in with a seat belt or Watch out for incoming ......  on the bck of your head  

I saw this in classic car tv show Have not use it but seems to be all contained in one. 

http://www.classicpartsusa.com...SRHX6DRoCAH0QAvD_BwE

Tomorrow I am going to a stereo shop to see about them fiberglassing in some pods for 6 inch speakers into my kick panels. 

Ive done some preliminary measurements. And I think my idea would work. 

Ill let you all all know what they say

kent

Geeh I thought this thread was dead... but it can be done on both sides of the rear seat as well.

@IaM-Ray this is a great subject. Picture would be nice nice to see where people install their speaker. Any in the headrest since topless helps?

If the guy is good he could fiberglass then in the sides. 

I did see a Porsche headrest once with dual tweeters in the headrest but I never saw them in the flesh @calmotion so I can't share anything on that one but I have thought about it myself.  It was that or hearing aids.... oh I already have those.