I did some playing around this weekend trying to determine what was possible with regard to mounting a set of speakers on the top of the dash, and mounting a subwoofer enclosure in the dash somewhere.

I wrote up the subs in the dash in this thread. It would be easy to put a JL Audio 6W0 in the area of the glove box. Definitely worth considering if you don't use it, like myself.

I focused my attention on the corner at the base of the windshield and the A-pillar. The dash has two surfaces; a textured, padded section that is toward the passengers and a smooth hard plastic area at the base of the windshield. Both areas span the width of the car with the padded section slightly higher. I used a tweeter, a 4" mid, a 5.25" mid, a 3" dome (with a 5" mounting flange), and a 6.5" midbase for references.

I trace each driver onto a piece of graph paper and marked the center of each. I used a small mirror taped to the windshield and a flashlight to show where the reflection "line-of-sight" would be. I actually held the flashlight about 6" below the center overhead dome light (this is usually the starting point for pointing speakers) and pointed it onto the mirror. This point worked well to show that the angles work very well. The tweeter, placed on the edge between the two dash sections and close to pillar, has a straight shot up to the windshield reflection point. All of the mids place their center point a little further off line but represent from 5-15 degrees off axis. Which is fairly good for most situations.

The distance from the speakers to the windshield at the reflection point is the same for the tweeter and the 4" mid at 3.5". Only their distance from the pillar is different at 3.5" and 7" respectively. The difference between the distances from the tweeter to the listeners and the mid to the listeners is within an inch of each other. And the path lengths from the tweeter/mid to the listeners and from the stock midbass location to the listeners are within an inch of each other as well.

Playing around with each driver showed that even a 5.25" would fit without infringing on the padded section of the dash. But there are other issues. I removed the padded part of the dash (which is very easy to do) and drilled some exploratory holes in a hidden part of the smooth part. (Note that the smooth part of the dash is quite encompassing. It is the frame work for all the colored parts of the dash and supporting structure for the center console and knee bolsters.) It turns out these areas of the dash have a depth of ~0.75". This could be more, or less, but it's impossible to tell without cutting a very visible piece of plastic.

This was disappointing to discover. Everything else pointed to a great solution. So I began to investigate a few things. The depth of the dome mid is 1.5" and the 4" mid is 1.75". Which means that a 1" mounting pad could provide enough clearance. The hieght difference between the padded section and the smooth section is 0.25".

So, I've bought some 0.25" hardboard and 0.75" MDF to build a set of pads. Then I'll do some listening to really see if it'll work as well as the number would imply. If all goes well, I'll cut the plastic to mount the drivers.

I'm thinking of getting the MB Quart 3-way system. Or something similar. The drivers that I have are do-able but I'll let the listening decide which I mount. I'll post again when the pads are ready to go.

 

Wow, great work. Can you post a pic with arrows of the the locations you are talking about? Can't wait for an update on your project.

cheers

Amit

 

Nice work Any updates?

Any chance of seeing some pics?

Fabian

 

I'm embarrassed to say that I have neither. I installed a new Clarion 745MP head unit, was on vacation and have other responsibilities that have distracted me.

I should have the dash pods cut out and wrapped in vinyl this weekend.

I've decided to get the Focal 165V3 speakers since I'm not happy with the Dynaudio mid xover point (700Hz). The 4" mid in the Focals is at 300 Hz (that's more than an octave lower). I'm going to use my Vifa 4" as a mock-up as it's size is the same. The Vifa needs a 1 liter sealed enclosure and I know that the dash won't support that.

I'll make certain to take some photos of the pods and the holes when they get cut.