A Pillar Speaker Pods

[dewoof01]

Ok so I will be posting in a couple to few months my extremely extensive audio build. I decided to do a "budget" (for me) build to show that time and quality in installation can beat out spending high dollars on components any day of the week. Installation quality and thought is #1 in car audio. I decided to go with a full range 3.5" driver instead of my tweets. These are a sneak peak at my new custom fiberglass speaker pods in the a pillar to mount the mid's. They are angled at the moonroof as I decided that was the best place for imaging in the car. They are fiberglass only as of now, bondo and putty to go on next to shape them and smooth them, then texture and paint! My google drive isn't cooperating right now so I will post pics as soon as they upload!

Ok so by now most of you are thinking I created an ugly buggle on my a pillar, well i guess i did but its hard to see which way it installs in the pictures. Sorry I will post one of it mounted in the car soon.

So i have 3 coats of resin and 2 layers of cloth on the outside. then i poured fiberglass resin on the inside in order to seal up air gaps. Keep in mind while the exterior is to blend in with the shape of the panel, it has another purpose as well. The is the inside is an actual box like a subwoofer for the 3" midrange speaker. It is right around the recommended .5 liter enclosure size the speaker prefers.

After sealing up the inside with a coat of fiberglass resin I went on to bondo. I did 2 thick layers of bondo over the sanded down fiberglass. Then came some heavy sanding with a dremel tool in order to shape the bondo somewhat. Then block sanded with 80 grit to shape. After that i did one coats of evercoat plastic glazing putty to smooth out the pits and dips and featheredge into the a pillar plastic. Then i sanded that down with 80 grit.

I am done for right now I will post more pics in a few days. I still have to prime and texture the entire panel. Then i will be spraying the paint in colorcoat grey. My interior is all black however everything above the dash/seats is BMW grey including the headliner.

 

[97GSTwa]

Wont look to bad after painting, are you putting in any mid bass upfront also??? Most go with the kickpanel speakers, but those a pillar speakers look good.

 

[dewoof01]

Wont look to bad after painting, are you putting in any mid bass upfront also??? Most go with the kickpanel speakers, but those a pillar speakers look good.

Yes i have door mounted midbass. Wanted to go with 7's or 8's in the door but it just was too impractical and ran the risk of having to hack up the door panel and fiberglass there and I really don't like the look of that. I am putting in Image Dynamics 6.5 in the doors. I will be running active. The midbass will be getting around 100w rms and the midranges will be seeing around 50 w or so. They are 8 ohm so there is a loss there because of that, but they don't require much power to get going.

Its hard to tell how they look by pictures. Once i finish priming texturing and painting and mounting the mid ranges in the pods I will hold it up in the car so people can really see what they look like. The "bugle" look won't be visible in the car as it is really against the dash and windshield I have a set of Image dynamic tweeters I was considering adding, however 3 way active is very difficult to tune as well as would require a 3rd amp and that is not something I want to do. But if I ever do want to in the future i can add a tweet up above the midbass, just have to go through all of this again.

Right now speakers are being coated with high build primer. Then a little more sanding and spot putty, another coat of primer then paint time. Hopefully will be able to show you the final results this weekend.

 

[97GSTwa]

Get pictures up when they are done, It would be nice to see. I would also like to hear how it sounds, the vocals would be right in front, what are you going to run for rear fill and subs.

 

[dewoof01]

Get pictures up when they are done, It would be nice to see. I would also like to hear how it sounds, the vocals would be right in front, what are you going to run for rear fill and subs.

Well my opinion on rear fill is... its pointless. It is so hard to blend rear fill and even if you do get it to blend you are bandpassing it with a crazy small range. So no rear fill in this car, that is for sure. I have some fill in my truck and after 2 years of trying to blend it i decided it was only hurting me so i took it out.

I will hpoefully hav epictures up this weekend

I will be going with two 10's in a custom false floor enclosure. Don't want to give away too many surprises right now, you'll have to wait. This is a total SQ build so if you are wanting to learn how to get big bass this will not be the build for you. I am going 2 10's because I have never liked the sound of 12's and I have had several different subs. 10's have always seemed punchier to me and better musically. The subs and the amps are not ordred yet and may change but i have a very good idea of what i am getting.

Keep in mind i have had the big bass systems. everything from 4 10" JL 10w3v3's with 2 1000/1 amps going to them in my 350z to 2 12" Type r's with 1000-1500w rms going to them. I know big bass and its pointless. Subs help greatly however front stage is more important than anything else. Also i have never done much sound deadening besides the doors. I have over $600 of Raammat in this car so far so we will see how it all goes!

 

[97GSTwa]

Sounds like you should have a nice sounding system. Right now I dont have anything in my Eclipse just a headunit, and its running 2 way fronts and 2 way 6x9s, but when I feel like it I am going to put a nice little system in it and everything.

 

[spyderdrifter]

Not a big fan of additional audio equipment adding more weight, but not a bad job. Not criticising work, but I agree it'll look a lot better/ more complete once you paint it. Are you planning on adding some sort of texture effect so the composite materials match the stock plastic?

 

[dewoof01]

Yes I will be adding some texture. I am priming first. There isn't much available to do the exact texture that is not extremely difficult. I will be using a texture that will at least give it some look before I paint. Had to work about 14 hours today and the next few days as well probably so I probably won't get much done at night. This is after a second coat of high build primer. I might have some more spot putty to apply to some rough areas. Actually the next most important thing is taking them to the care and making sure they fit! I actually haven't done that yet haha. Well I put the speaker in real quick and held the a pillar up at somewhat the angle it will sit in in the car.

 

[phunny]

I love fiberglass/carbon fiber work. Looks good man, curious to see what it will look like in the car. Could go either way in my opinion.

 

[Tyeler18]

Why did you choose to aim it at the moonroof rather than aiming at the opposite passengers ear? I spent extensive time researching and discussing audio install (mainly tweets) with a very well educated audio installer. He and everyone else agreed for the best highs ideally you want the driver tweeter to aim at the passengers ear and vice versa. Just wondering why you chose the route you did?

 

[dewoof01]

Why did you choose to aim it at the moonroof rather than aiming at the opposite passengers ear? I spent extensive time researching and discussing audio install (mainly tweets) with a very well educated audio installer. He and everyone else agreed for the best highs ideally you want the driver tweeter to aim at the passengers ear and vice versa. Just wondering why you chose the route you did?

Well there are multiple schools of thought. I just went with the one that made the most sense for me. There is 1 seat sound and 2 seat sound. One seat would be everything angled at the driver, and 2 seat would be generally more aimed in the middle or at whatever angle would benefit 2 people sitting in the car equally. While i don't really care about my passenger I do care however about reflections. When you have 1 pair of tweeters in your car playing you are actually hearing 8 tweeters playing!!! This sound crazy but the reflections that happen from the windshield, side windows, and other reflective areas really screw up the timing alignment of the tweeters. I read some writings of people who have done research on aiming the tweeters or mids at the dome light area. This actually will reduce the reflections of the tweeters. Now is my way the best way? Maybe, maybe not. Everyones opinion is different. Now most people will aim mid/tweeter at the driver, this is probably the most popular setup and it makes complete sense. However it bothers me having the speakers pointing at two different angles because of the way it looks, so that was not an option.

Now some people like the tweeters pointed "off axis" much like the door speakers. Problem is the cancelation that happens when the two are pointed at each other as well as reflection issues. Worst area IMO is the stock location in the dash in our cars. Your tweet or mid plays and after 4 inches hits the windshield and completely ruins your imaging.

Now these discussions can get very technical and in all honesty are way above my head at a certain point. The biggest thing this build I am doing is to show that buying a $500 set of components and bolting them to the sheetmetal in the door will net you WORSE results than a $150 set of components mounted to a custom wood baffle, sounded deadened and sealed door. There is a point in car audio where spending money does not give you the gain that a proper and thought out installation can.

I love fiberglass/carbon fiber work. Looks good man, curious to see what it will look like in the car. Could go either way in my opinion.

Thanks. To me the "look" of how it looks in the car is meaningless. There was going to be a 3" mid in that a pillar no matter what. Honestly its going to look like crap having a speaker there, I am just trying to make it look as good as it can. I would say if something were wanting to do this strictly for the "look" they are nutz it doesn't look good. However if they are doing it for a gain in the sound quality department, well then they are very wise.

 

[DROOPY209]

What head unit are you using to run active? Or are you using an active electronic 3 way crossover? What frequency are you going to HP the 3" speaker at? I would recommend that you do a 3 way active setup using the 3" speaker, a 5.25" or 4" midrange in the door above the midbass and a 6.5" or 7" midbass, that way you cover the whole spectrum without any gaps.

 

[dewoof01]

I will be running a 80prs. I was considering going 3 way active however the cost is terrifying to do so. Well i have bad new. Also I this 3" mid i am using is perfect for midrange. Putting a midrange in the door would be horrible for the imagine and would a bad idea.
The 3" mids just will not fit in the a pillar. I COULD get them to fit higher up, however they will be blocking too much of the windshield view and will be terrible. So I am back to putting the tweets in the a pillar oh well but the 3" mid would have to be just way to high up in the midpillar to work. I did get them finish and when i retested fitment the whole speaker ring would have to be at least an inch up as well as amost an inch to the right and an inch farther toward the driver than the current placement. Sucks because it fit up until bondo, but I just can't live with where i woudl have to put the 3" mid in the a pillar and moving to the door is not an option as the imaging would be ruined. I will update with pics this week once the tweeter pod is all done. I am just using modeling clay for the enclosure for the tweeter pod then texturing and painting.

 

[dewoof01]

Ok so now for the tweeter pods. Here was the process:

1. Mount the ID supplied angle mounts to apillar with hot glue.
2. Apply modeling clay.
3. Sand modeling clay with 80 grit
4. Apply evercoat putty
5. Sand putty
6. Apply more putty
7. Sand Putty
8. Apply rubberized undercoating for texture, 3 coats to get it just right and blend into the rest of the apillar
9. Paint with SEM color coat
10. Drill hole for speaker wires.

They turned out pretty good the texture was hard to get right however turned out looking awesome. The pod looks much more sleek with the Image Dynamics ring around the tweeter and really tied it all in. Lemme know what you think.

 

[DROOPY209]

I will be running a 80prs. I was considering going 3 way active however the cost is terrifying to do so.

Actually, not quite. I have some experience with those head units and iirc, you can also use the head units speaker outputs and HP at 1250hz. That way, you would use your amp to power your midrange and midbass while using your 80PRS to power your tweeters.

 

[dewoof01]

Actually, not quite. I have some experience with those head units and iirc, you can also use the head units speaker outputs and HP at 1250hz. That way, you would use your amp to power your midrange and midbass while using your 80PRS to power your tweeters.

Except that I wouldn't be passing them that low. The was the whole problem is that no matter what the 80prs wouldn't work for it as 1000-1500 was the highest hp i could have on the tweet and I would be running them much higher as the mids I was going to use were going to rock it from about 250-5000 so i didn't want the tweets that low.

Ok so i know its been a while since i start this. Finally was able to install them into the car. I adapted the supplied mount for the tweeter so while these are pointed on axis they have about 15 degrees of adjustment for positioning. I would say right now they are both pointed to right between the seats and slightly above my head. I can adjust them enough that they would be pointed straight at either seat or point up to the rear view mirror so they have a nice amount of adjustability.

Heres some pics.