Dear Station Wagon Lovers, My family heirloom 65 Buick Special Wagon came with first rate entertainment - an AM radio. Somehow I lived with this until 1995 or so when I put in a Custom Autosound custom fit stereo. At the time, I put in two little speakers to replace the original speaker. At the time that seemed good enough. Hey, I was about to leap into the world of FM and cassette!! Fast forward 15+ years and I'm planning to replace that stereo with another Custom Autosound unit. As long as I am livin' it up, I thought I would also upgrade to the new Custom Autosound kick-panels and Pioneer speakers. These new kick-panels have "fish-gill" vents so that you can have speakers without looking your fresh-air vents on a 65 Buick - always nice to have. So I could do one of two things: Switch exclusively to the kick-panel speakers and abandon the in-dash speaker position. Alternatively, I could be greedy and have 2 groups of speakers: the kick-panel speakers and another pair in the original dash location. The greedy solution is complex and more expensive. However, it keeps sound coming from the OEM location. It also avoids what could be a "headphone syndrome." If you listen to music with headphones, there is a tendency to experience the music as sharply divided into halves with a "hole" in the middle. Obviously, I'd prefer the simpler solution, but I would like to have nice rich sound in the front. Can anybody who has kick-panel speakers tell me how it sounds in the front. Just to make the question even more complex, I'm mostly a classical/jazz music listener. I sure would like to avoid ruining the experience of a symphony orchestra because the kick-panel speakers don't provide a good stereo effect. Anyone have some good advice on this question? Thanks in advance for all pearls of wisdom!! Cheers, Edouard P.S. The car will have a sound bar like this for the rear speakers.
I have had minitrucks and cars with both, kick panel speakers work well and are out of the way, but I think door speakers give a more stereophonic sound quality, but I can understand completely not wanting to hack up a vintage door panel or possibly compromising the look with a door speaker. Kick panel speakers can often be slightly angeled toward the driver which improves the stereophonic sound considerably. The largest advantage to kick panel speakers is they can be made almost invisible and the sound set up you are going for it would give symphony music a very "full" sound. I like your idea of a vintage wagon with all the modern comforts and technically advanced electronics. Hope this helps in some way. Dewey.
i had the custom autosound speakers and stuff and i used to remember how my moms am radio in her wagon when i was a kid sounded about as the custom autosound stuff in mine.i used their kickpanels and put in some better speakers and added some in the back for a much better sound . just an fyi lots of new stereo's have remotes and you can use an usb thumb drive to store hundreds of songs to play in the car
I've never used the kick panel speakers, just to get that out of the way. The other question is, are there any surface screws on your door panels. Ones used to hold things onto the door, I mean. On the arm rests, or what have you. If so, you may be able to adapt the surface mounted front door speakers from one of the 80s/90s Buicks, or even the 90/91 Crown Vic/Grand Marquis. By surface mounting, using existing screw holes, you get the modern sound without damaging the original panels. Don't forget to put a good pair of speakers in the rear, too. Again, you may have to adapt surface mounts to the existing panels, but it can be done. I guess this is where I'm lucky. Cars from the 70s tended to have these things available, even if not installed, so it is easier to upgrade and keep the stock look.
Ed...the only 2 bits I'll throw in is this.. you can get these nifty lil foam covers that fit over the back of the speaker.....they accomplish 2 things....1 they give the speaker an 'enclosure'....which in turn gives them a 'fuller' sound....and 2...they ensure that the speaker will not get 'weather' on them. well worth the few extra bucks !
I am using kicker panel speaker for the middle range and on the the dashboard panel two little tweeter. The high Frequenz are better located in the "near" of the ear. And i never ever would cut my door panels for speakers.....and i wish all the guys pre owend my cars had thought that way !!!
Thanks for the speaker thoughts! Dear Dewey, 59 wagon man, MikeT1961, the Rev, capricestation and station wagon audiophiles, Thanks for all the interesting thoughts on speakers in the front. I'm struggling a bit to decide how much effort to put into this. If there are only one or two passengers in the car, then the rear speaker bar is very pleasant and provides stereo sound as originally intended. So I don't know how much effort to put into the sound in the front. Amazingly the original door panels are in really great shape, so I really would prefer to leave them alone. On the other hand the kick-panels are showing their age, so replacing them wouldn't be so bad. The Custom Autosound panels look reasonably nice: I was planning to go with the Pioneer speaker upgrades so that the sound would be decent. Actually, I've got a remote that controls a dedicated iPod Classic that I keep the in glove compartment. Since I've been using Mac's since 1988 and iTunes since it was first released, I would prefer to use that to manage the car music. I just checked. Alas, the available screws are too few and far between to secure speakers. Okay, that's a good idea! I'll add that to the project! Hmm, that sounds more like the proposal to have kick-panel speakers and a speaker in the original dashboard position. I'm having problems trying to find a way to adjust the volume between the two-pairs, but that certainly looks like the most complete solution. I've got to keep looking for some way to "trim" the volume between two pairs of speakers. Thanks for all the feedback everyone!! Cheers, Edouard
When I go to a 6 speaker system in Bertha, I plan on using 2 amps. A 4 channel for the front, and a 2 channel for the back. The fader control of the head unit will control the levels front to back between the two. The controls on the amps will be used to set the balance between the 2 sets of front speakers. Once that is set, hopefully it can be left alone. Just a suggestion for what you may think of for the 4 front channels.
How do you make 2 amps work with a car stereo? Hi Mike and Station Wagon Audiophiles, I did a little research on trying to do something like this and ran into some snags: First, amplifiers that have some sort of gain control don't seem very common. At least at Crutchfield (the only place I looked,) I only see some JBL amplifiers that have some sort of full audio spectrum gain control. Here is one as an example: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_109GTO504E/JBL-GTO-504EZ.html?tp=35782 Am I missing something here? Second, all the 4 channel amps I've seen expect 4 channels of input, instead of just the 2 front channels. Where you just planning to make yourself a connector that takes one channel (left or right) from the stereo and fed it into both the front and rear inputs (of left or right) of the amplifier? It is certainly easy enough to splice the cables, but I wasn't sure if that would have any impedance or other issues. I couldn't easily find any manufactured connectors for this purpose. Third and this is just my ignorance, why do you need a second 2-channel amplifier for the rear speakers? If the stereo you have chosen produces enough power, could you use it to power just the rear-speakers directly? I'm planning to use the Custom Autosound 630 that has 60 Watts per channel, that should be sufficient power for the speaker bar. What I don't know if is you can use some of the pre-amp outputs and not the others. Of course the Custom Autosound manual doesn't any anything about the use of the pre-amp outputs at all. Once more pardon my ignorance, this is way more than I've ever attempted in a car stereo step-up! Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this! Cheers, Edouard
The reason for the rear, 2 channel amp is simple. I will be using JBL 6-8 ohm resistance speakers, and they are power hungry. The 4 channel at the front will be somewhat more difficult, but I got the idea from an audiophile who knows his electronics. Both will be JBL, to be compatible with the speakers I'll be using. I only wish I could get a new 6 channel similar to the one JBL supplied to Ford for the 89 Grand Marquis with the High Level Sounds Package. That is where these speakers came from, and 25 years later, they still sound better than most new speakers on the market now. Everyone goes for initial bass response. I prefer a speaker that has great bass sustain, and the new lower resistance speakers just don't cut it for me. By the same token, I will not be using a sub-woofer. I don't like that there is a gap in the coverage with one. The JBLs have plenty of bass for me.
