Hey guys.. so don't hate me, but I'm a complete noob with car audio. The good news is that I'm willing to change that, but I want to do it gradually. For starters, the only thing I've done is install an old Pioneer DEH-6800mp HU, which while I'm sure technology has made leaps beyond this, its served it's purpose well. My listening habits include loading up songs from spotify on my phone, and plugging right into my HU. I don't want to do anything super fancy or for show, but am just really looking to improve the sound over my MY03 OEM setup. Since my current HU hasn't given me any issues, I'm not sure how essential it will be to replace it with my goals.

Peak Power Output 50 watts x 4 channels
RMS Power Output 22 watts x 4 channels
Preamp RCA Outputs N/A
Preamp Voltage 2.2 volts
Built-In Equalizer 7 Band -- Easy EQ
CD Signal-to-Noise 94 dB
^^
whatever that means.

I've read quite a bit on these forums, and a lot of what is used as a guideline was posted back when my HU was still in production. Before I explain my initial goal, let me first explain my end goal. I have removed my soft top and have a full time Mugen style hardtop. I've been looking at that cavity where the soft top try is and have been wondering what I can shove in its place. I've seen one person on these boards craft a sub tray, and that's exactly what I intend to do as well, except that I want a sub in the middle, and 2 "regular" speakers on either side so that I have my rear sound fixed up.

So that in mind, my first goal is to upgrade the stock speakers. While I am a DIY'er, I'm not really wanting to cut my door apart to fit some uber speakers. I want it to be very plug and play. Is my safe bet to surf crutchfield and get whatever supposedly fits my car? Will the stock wiring suffice, or should I take advantage of the the unused outputs HU and re-wire?

I've seen the Alpine tweeter DIY thread and that's the sort of thing I'm looking to do (not sure if those tweeters are still considered to be worthy, of if they were good to begin with).

I realize that with soft top tray idea that I'm likely going to need to purchase an amp and get a lot more involved, but what do you figure is a good starting point for me that will also prevent me from having buyers remorse once I do get a bit more involved with sound?

I plan on laying down some sound deadening material this weekend since its a 4 day weekend for me, so I wouldn't mind swapping out speakers while I'm at it.

 

Welcome to the world of mobile electronics! Your front door speakers are standard 6.5". It sound like you're looking to replace the speaker in the door and the tweeter as well. If so, I would recommend looking into a set of 6.5" component speakers for the front, (tweeter, mid-range sub, and crossover). As far as the enclosure in the soft top well/tray, are you planning on building a box and mounting it to the well? If so, you may want to make sure the clips holding the tray down can handle the weight of your enclosure.

 

Oh and to add new speakers... you might as well add a small amp, because taking fairly good speakers and powering them off a HU (22 watts RMS is HIGHLY unlikely BTW that's just what they put on the box... which is a lie incase you're wondering) is not really going to help your cause. All you've done is duplicated exactly what you had with the stock set up only with different gear.

With car audio... you either do it right once or plan on doing it a couple of times and wasting money (not that I have a problem with that.. I'm on my 5th setup. But I was changing mine all the time for the show circuit)... until it's right it's that simple.

Its funny though, you talk about keeping it simple and then in the next line you want to build a fully custom soft top tray sub enclosure............ nothing about that is plug and play..... nothing. Or cheap for that matter, I would plan on spending roughly $750-2000 bucks to have a nice box built to fit in that space.

I think you really need to decide what your goals are, then put a plan in place to meet those goals and then execute that plan.

 

Thanks for the input. I just figured that the stock speakers were crap, even compared to my old 01 civic. Being that I'm basically clueless to audio jargon, or electronic jargon for that matter, I wanted to start off with something easy just to get my feet wet and say "there, I did it." I think it would be counter productive for me if I just jumped into building a sub enclosure and buying a thousand bucks worth of audio equipment with no clue how to use it.

HOPEFULLY I got on the right track, because I picked up a set of Alpine SPS-610c component speakers as well as a bulk box of hushmat that I got a decent discount on. I'll be sure that my next purchase is an amp.

 

I had an 8" Kick Solobaric L7 mounted under the rear tray with a 0.30 cu ft box. The rear tray had the ribs shaved where the speaker box went. The speaker pointed up through an opening in the tray. I covered the opening with a cheap 10" pyramid grill (held down with standard screws then carpeted the whole tray over that. The box was mounted to the tray with screws and to the floor of the spare tire area with liquid nail. I used a small in size Memphis MC500D amp that mounted to the box and it all hid under the spare tire cover. It was a cool, stealth setup, but I found I could never turn the volume up too high without getting too many unwanted noises from the car.
The solobaric was too boomy of a sub for the application. My reasoning at the time was since I am limited to an 8", I'd use the loudest one I could get.
Btw, I still have this whole setup (except still using the amp). I never took the time to sell it.

I ended up putting a 12" in the tool well. This car is no longer my primary vehicle so I don't need the trunk space.

 

I had a long weekend of gutting the interior and doing a lot of guess work and googling. I can't say if it's the new speakers or the hushmat installed, but the new components sound amazing! I was able to use the factory wires (i just removed the wires from the plastic clips and they slid right on the woofer terminals) which I'm sure isn't ideal, but I don't plan on re-wiring to RCA until there is an amp involved.