Novice (me!) needs help...

mberry

Folks, I am setting up a system in my wife's brand new 2003 Dodge....Minivan. Now, stop laughing, and help a guy out!

I've got a Fosgate 25W x channel 4 channel Amp. Fosgate supposedly underrates the power of its amps (or at least is does not inflate it like some others), so I’m hoping I have sufficient power.

The minivan has 5 1/2" speaker in the grill, 6x9 in the door, and a 6x9 in the rear sides with, interestingly enough, an empty tweeter mount nearby. So, here's what I bought:

2 Polk Component EX2560 for the rear side panels. (I'll mount the 6" round in the 6x9 hole, and the tweeter in the tweeter mount.)
2 Polk DX9 6x9 in the front doors.
2 Polk EX502a in the dash.

I considered putting the component set in the door, but it doesn't have a tweeter mount, and I wanted to keep an OEM look, so it'll go in the rear and use the available tweeter hole.

So, does this sound right (pardon the pun)?
Any advice to tweak? Please feel free to move things around.

And how would you set the amp's crossovers? For the record, the factory wiring harness for the Caravan sends the front channel to both the dash and door. I have no idea whether it is done in parallel or series. I was planning on sending the full signal to the fronts and rears, and just using the passive crossover for the component set, but let me know if I should be employing crossovers on the front or rears.

Thanks in advance for any help. Any keep your eye out for the rockin’ soccer mom.:cool:

perfdrug

maybe you forgot to list this but, what about the 4 MM12's to thump the little kiddies as they ride to school

mberry

4 12"s?

That's a 12" for each of my kids!

But seriously, apparently Dodge in its wisdom put a 8" subwoofer mount in the right rear panel, despite the fact they do not offer a subwoofer in any of the factory stereo options. I guess it there if they need it, or they threw a bone to the aftermarket upgrader. I've yet to pull the panel to confirm this, but if it's there, I might add an amp and subwoofer in the rear panel. I realize that would probably affect my crossover configuration choices for the other speakers.

But for now, I wanted to see how things sound without the rear amp/subwoofer; if their is sufficient bass, go without the subwoofer. My wife claims to not want to bass thump down the road...

PoweredByDodge

<-- points at user name....

i am a dodge junkie.

lol...

the 2k3 minivans are nice -- for a minivan (acts all manly to compensate for saying he liked a minivan)...

anywho.. friend i do not suggest that you run 6 speakers... its a waste of money and time and it will mess up your front stage (soundstage).

I think you should run the 6x9's in the front doors... run the comps in the rear, and then return the grille speakers you got and see if polk will sell you just a set of component tweeters with the tweet / woof crossover.

run the rears normal, and then run the fronts like such...

Left and Right channels of front output go to crossover --- 6x9's are hooked to the "woofer" portion of x-over... tweets to "tweet" portion of x-over.

I have done this myself on and off in a few difft cars and it sounds quite good.. . the 6x9's give more midbass and more extension that the component woofer alone would do. also, the presence of a mid / tweet on the 6x9 means a more smooth crossover slope blending.

either that or just go easy on yourself and bring back the 6x9's and the plates and do components up front too... i mean its easy as cake to mount the tweeter pod on top of the dash up against the pillar side post. it sounds about 150 times better than a coaxial in the door.

if you run all 6 speakers your talkingabout, you will run into a few problems.. first.. your amp is 4 channel.. not 6 channel.. so that means you will have to run one channel at 2 ohms instead of 4.. this will increase distortion and only give you like 17 - 20 watts per speaker instead of the 35-ish you will probably get to each by just running 4 (a 25x4 rockford is probably 35x4 out of hte box).

also.. having more speakers in front will muddle up your soundstage... polk comps and coax are designed to creat specific directed sound... mounting plates in teh grilles that fire up at the window is going to sound like crap on a stick...

if anything.. if you REALLY wanna stick OEM.. try this.. *(brain juice flowing)*
do the comps in back, and then get 1 set of comps for the front -- woofer in the door and then make a little plastic plate so you can mount the tweeter under the dash grille thing where the oem speakers are. (aint i a genius). i think this will sound quite nice and enjoyable. a nice audiophile setup.

if you ever want to do a subwoofer.. do NOT put it in a stock location or a piece of sheetmetal framing... thats a definate no no... for what you're running for highs, fi you ever want a sub... get one of those pre-made momo's that are in teh lexan box (tiny box and it looks nice).. the 10 will do you fine off a 400 watt amp, of which rockford makes a few nice ones.

mberry

Awesome suggestion--I'm going to try it. Since my post, I added the 6x9's to the door (which sound GREAT), and the components in the rear. I tried dash speakers using the OEM parallel hookup. The biggest probelm was the dash speaker, bouncing off the glass, overpowered the door speakers, and screwed up the soundstage. I was looking to get lower efficiency dash speakers to equalize the volume between door & dash, but suspected it really wouldn't improve things much.

I actually considered mounting a component tweeter on the pillars, but the pillars actually face each other across the dash (instead of facing the driver) if I flush mount the tweeter. I think Polk makes a rotational tweeter than can be used to direct the tweeter ... that may be the answer.

I'll let you know how this works.