Hey guys, I'm look for new front door speakers for my 2005 TL w/Nav. Not sure if that changes any of the audio. But I just wanted to get some opinions on speakers. I'm looking for a better overall speaker and reasonably priced obviously.

PS. My RonJon Aero kit is heading my way by the first of the year. So stoked!

Thanks!

 

Without amplification your prolly beter off with OEM. Not sure of any decent 2 ohm speakers. Spend the money on an amplifier and keep the OEM speakers if you want improved sound on a budget

 

I agree, amping the stock speakers would probably give the best results if you had to choose. Of course an amp and speakers would be best. We're pretty lucky in that with a little trimming we can fit anywhere from the stock 6.5" to a 9" like I'm running. Our doors will take a pretty deep speaker too. 3-3/4" deep should fit without a whole lot of trouble. I flush mounted my 9s and at 3"'deep they just barely cleared the windows when they roll down.

As for brands there are a ton that you would probably be happy with. It really depends on your budget and what type of sound you're looking for. There are some good budget comp sets by JBL that people seem to really like for little over $100. The JL C5 are some of my favorites but they're getting into the mid price line. Focal makes some great sounding speakers from pretty budget level to very high end. On the high end you have Dynaudio and Phass and Focal Utopia Be and a ton of others. I prefer Dynaudio because I think they come the closest the most life like sound and they will get loud. Their basic 2-way comp set will run about $800 and their top of the line Esotar 3-way will run all the way up to near $4,000. The Focal Be set will cost about the same as will most of the high end stuff. One thing about car audio is you get to the point of diminishing returns. That $4,000 set isn't 4x as good as a $1,000 set, it might be 20% better if you could actually quantify "better".

There are really too many good speakers to name. You can take a look at DIYMA.com to get some ideas. There's practically a new thread every day on which speakers or sub should I buy. If you plan to run on the stock amp forever you can take a look at Infinity. They are bright meaning the treble will probably hurt your ears but on the stock amp they're not too bad. They're fairly cheap and they fit pretty much without modification. They're 2ohm and fairly efficient so they are just a tiny bit louder than stock speakers on stock power. I figured I would mention the Infinities last because the car audio bug gets most of us and at first you just want a small upgrade then you upgrade the upgrade and so on. Might as well start off with something good. The Infinity speakers are fine if you want a stock replacement to run on the stock amp that's easy to install. They will fall short once you put some power to them.

 

My plan is to put a Kicker Comp 12" sub in the trunk with a sealed box. I was going to replace the back deck speakers but realized the pain it would be to take those out. So I figured the door speakers would give me what I am looking for. I just don't want the bass to drown out the vocals.

 

I wouldn't worry about the bass drowning out the fronts. You can turn the sub amp down as much as you need to. I have a pair of 15s and I can turn them down to the point they would match the stock speakers if I still had them. Usually it's better to have overkill in the power department and back it down if you need to. If you want the fronts to be louder you really need an amp for them. Adding power has always improved the sound quality for me. I currently have 1200w available and front speakers that can handle every bit of it but I usually listen to it at normal levels. The extra power is there so the speakers have the necessary power required on transients to sound more dynamic and life like. It also doesn't hurt for those times I want to really crank it. 1200w isn't even a lot when you consider the louder passages on a well recorded track can take 10x the average power to accurately reproduce.