Mazda Protege ES

Airplay355

I have a Mazda protege ES with a 6 speaker stereo cd head unit and a tape deck underneath it. If I wanted to change the head unit how would I go about doing this? Do I need to buy a headunit that can power 6 speakers? Does the ohm ratting allow me to wire 4 of them in series or parallel? Do I need to get an amp? Or do I need to just not use a pair of the speakers? I'd like to change out the cd player not because it sounds bad, but because it skips easily when going over bumps and can't handle cds that aren't perfectly clean and scratch free. Plus I'd like mp3 capability because I listen to mixes that are longer then the 80 minutes of regular cds. Sooooo what do I do?

neomagus00

well, you're not going to find a 6-speaker aftermarket HU, so that's out... you could just choose your 4 favorite speakers and power them. you could rip out the factory speakers and get aftermarket ones. these you can power with the HU or with an amp (preferable, obviously). basically it's all up to budget...

Airplay355

Do you think the stock head unit is actually powering 4 speakers? Or do you think that 2 pairs of them are wired together possibly in series or in parallel based on what the ohm rating of the driver is?

neomagus00

it depends... if you have, say, a mid/tweet up front and a fullrange in back, then the HU could be pushing only 4 channels, with an external xover for the mid/tweet... if all 6 drivers are identical, i'd find it unlikely that the HU has 4 channels to push them all... perhaps you can pull the HU and find out?

Airplay355

I think that's what I'm going to have to do. Though, I'm not great with what all of the wires in back mean and usually they aren't consistant with other harnesses and different cars so I'm going to be doing alot of guess work. I should see 12 wires together though right? A +/- for each of the 6 speakers, plus a ground, plus power, and 1 other wire that I can't remember maybe? So I should be looking for 15 wires?

MacLeod

I pretty sure speakers #5 and 6 are tweeters. I dont see where or why youd put a third pair of speakers.

Check with your local shop first but Id say you could stick any old aftermarket h/u in there and it would work just fine.

Airplay355

why would they put tweeters on the doors? there are two speakers in the front, 2 in the back, and 2 by the back window....aren't tweeters usually at ear level? doesn't make sense to put them by your feet.

MacLeod

OK, if you actually see 3 different sets of speakers then you do indeed have 6 speakers.

I was thinking it was maybe a pair of mids in the front door, a pair of tweeters in the front door and a pair of mids in the back door. A lot of car companies do this. A layman will think a 14 speaker system will sound better than a 3 speaker system.

neomagus00

Airplay355 wrote:

aren't tweeters usually at ear level? doesn't make sense to put them by your feet.

actually, a lot of high-performance installs have the tweets in the floor... i've personally never gotten this to work to my satisfaction, but there's something to be said for giving it a shot...

MacLeod

Theres a difference though betwen putting them in the floor in kicks and aiming them properly and stuffing them in the door and firing them into your leg.

neomagus00

bah! who cares about the details...

MacLeod

Im thinking about going with kick panels myself and mounting the tweeters there as well. While these super sweet SR tweeters are doing a great job, I just prefer them not be firing off the glass.

My MM6 tweets sounded great on the mirror sails but the imaging was horrible. Very side biased.

exalted512

mark my words, get kicks and your sound stage will be below your chest
-Cody

MacLeod

Yes but I prefer my tweeters to not be bouncing off the windshield.

I go back and forth actually. I like having my stage up near eye level but every once in a while Ill catch a tinge of reflection off the glass and want to go kicks.

Besides, there are several SQ competitors that have speakers in the kicks only and dont seem to have a problem.

I dunno. Maybe Ill run into some dudes with full size rigs running kicks only at a competition sometime and get a chance to listen to it.

neomagus00

that'd be a good idea, yep... the stage was exactly my problem, every time i try them in the kicks, it fails... 'they' say that an extra set of tweets, xovered at something crazy like 12kHz, up in the dash, can really help pull the stage off the floor whilst not messing with anything else too much...

MacLeod

Yeah that will help especially if you attenuate them some too.

I dont know, I really like having my stage at eye level. Im wondering if I were to figure out how to aim the tweeters so that theyre not firing into the windshield. Im sure I can figure something out if it ever drops below 173 freaking degrees outside!!! :mad:

neomagus00

i know, isn't summer fun? perhaps try resting the tweeters on top of the dash aimed right at your head... if that works out, perhaps you could glass them into that position right on the dash?