I recently put rears in as well as an Alpine 9813. The rears are Kenwood Xceleon 501s

Specs:

Angle-mounted 1" HyperNyl dome tweeter

 

Still looking for some insight here - thought are appreciated!

 

Stock MY03 fronts are ~6.5", high efficiency speakers.

 

I have the same setup except I replaced the stock fronts with Alpines.

I don't have rattling in the 501's. I don't know why yours would. Maybe a metal ring would help?????

As for the Bass, one thing you can do with the 9813's is to adjust the crossovers. If one is clipping before the other in the low end then the overall system is impacted.

I am playing with my Xover's now because I put in the RSX sub this past weekend.

But I found that buy playing with the front and rear Xovers the sound can really be impacted (positively and negatively).

It won't add more bass but will help you balance the sound better.

 

One more thing, changing the polarity on a stereo pair will kill the phasing and your stereo imaging will be screwed up (I think)

 

Kinda why I tried switching it in the first place because I thought it might have been reversed at the harness so I switched it...didn't notice a diff really.

I didn't know that the stocks were 6.5s...

 

When you said you swapped polarity, did you swap both rears or just one?

You need to make sure both rears are in phase with each other, AND make sure they are in phase with the fronts.

You can do this by listening to very bass-heavy music, maybe even turn the bass way up and the treble down. With both rears disconnected listen and get a feel for how much bass there is from the fronts, then connect ONE rear speaker. The apparrent bass should increase, even if only slightly. This works best in a closed car. If it seems to diminish in the least the wires need to be reversed on that speaker. Whichever way provides the most bass is how both rears should be connected.

The other problem is that the stock speakers are very efficient (loud with low input power) and have been designed to sound like they have a lot of bass by boosting the mid-bass response. This makes them sound "bassy" at first listen (in the showroom), but many listeners get tired of no real low end and put better speakers in. So by comparison even good speakers may at first sound like they have less bass.

The final problem is that you have 5 1/4 speakers in the back, and despite what Kenwood publishes in the "specs", you're not going to get decent bass out of a 5 1/4" driver. I don't remember the model numbers, but I tried a set of 6" Excellons in my doors and took them back. They had good frequency response spec's too, but when I checked the X-max spec it said "0.9mm" which is NOT suitable for a bass driver. If your speakers have an X-max of at least 3mm, they are good drivers (for 5 1/4) and should at least augment the bass from the fronts.

By comparison, a GOOD 8" driver in a well-designed cabinet (a real cabinet) is lucky to achieve the 40 Hz response listed for your Kenwoods. Kenwood gets away with saying 40Hz because at 40 Hz they do make some sound. You'll notice they weren't stupid enought to say "40-30khz + or - 20dB" which is what they would have to list if they were totally honest.

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by AustinS2k2003
[B]I am getting much deeper and better sounding Base from the stock fronts than I am from the Kenwood rears.

 

I don't know, but I just hooked up my MB Quart reference 5 1/4" rear speakers and the bass/mid-bass kicks pretty good, I can feel it though the back of the seat. I'm using an after market head unit with a lot more power than the stock head unit though.