I have been thinking about how to get the best combination of good sound at speed with the top down and tooling around with the top up. The S-Pods may be overbearing at slower speeds if you are concerned about imaging and such, but I had an idea. Lucid rears would be the best option in a closed cabin, but are quickly overpowered with the top down on the road. How about this:

Lucid type rears and S-Pods wired to an impedance matching speaker selector box under the dash wired to a mono amp?

This way you could have a 250 watt or more amp wired up to drive a pair of 4ohm speakers in wired in series (8 ohm load, 4 ohms seen by amp in bridged mode). Hooking all 4 speaks to a selector box would allow you to turn off the S-Pods while tooling around but turn them on as soon as you hit the freeway. The selector box would handle the impedance matching (just 2 speaks, 4 ohms; all 4 speaks, still 4 ohms seen by the amp) and by running all 4 in mono, the stereo image would come from the front.

What do you guys think? As I do not have experience with speakers right behind my head, I am making the assumption that they may be overbearing at low speeds. I realize you can adjust the fader, but it might be nice to have "on/off" for behind the head but always have rears for fill down low.

 

Many people assume that speakers so close to your head will be overbearing, but they really aren't...at any speed. I was concerned about the same thing before I installed the first set of S-Pods in my car. Believe me, I was happy/relieved when the fader did it's job.

If you are worried about speakers in S-Pods overpowering you, I'd be willing to refund your purchase price if you were un-happy. Worse case: you'ld be out $20 for shipping them back and forth across the country.

I think your idea has merit, but have to wonder how simply fadeing each set of rears independently would work. More fade up top, and less on the bottom to overcome the seatbacks.

This is the point where an audiophile usually chimes in to say that music sounds best when heard from the front only. Personally, I like to be surrounded by music. Why sit back in the cheap seats when you can sit on the stage with the musicians?

 

Sounds like a cool solution but a waste of money to me. I have lucid rears, they're ok but I'd like s-pods. If you think s-pods will be too overbearing you could fade the sound toward the front speakers...

 

One more thing...I know someone who switched from Lucid rears to S-Pods. I'll ask him which he prefers with the top up, I know he prefers the S-Pods top-down.