Front Center Speaker Replacement
 

I wanted to know if anyone has replaced their front center speaker in the TL? The dealer claims the entire dash has to be torn apart but looking at the schematics on Acura it seems the speaker cover is on there with clips. THe speaker is $44USD which I think is not bad. I would rather doing it myself because it seems everytime I got to the dealer something goes wrong lately. I appreciate your input and thanks in advance. :thumbsup:

I would not ever return to that dealer! they are completely clueless. grill cover pops off with clips. r&r speaker in a few minutes. look in the BM for someone selling the other speaker from the pair that they purchased when they upgraded the center speaker.

It's very easy to do the center. If you go with a 3.5", simply remove the grill. If you go with something larger like a 6.5", remove the clock display which requires either long fingernails or a butter knife and slide the speaker in from the bottom. If going larger than the stock size you can do it without any mods or cutting on the car but it will have to be pretty shallow to fit past the AC ducting.

I upgraded because I was using the MS8 processor at the time which relied heavily on the center channel and it needed to keep up with the doors (or close to it) in midbass output. The shallow 6.5s fit easily.

I still have my Alpine Type S 5.25" speakers that I bought for the center, one was used for a month, the other has never been out of the box. I'll let them go cheap.

With that said, I do not recommend spending money on replacing the center unless you listen to DVD-A or have a processor that uses the center channel. About the only thing you're going to notice an improvement on by upgrading the center is the navi voice prompts. It is used VERY little for normal for the radio and CDs.

Listen to this man.He knows what he's talking about.

Yup. And those clips love to come off and drop into the bowels of the dash board too ! I know this from personal experience. I stayed with a 3.5" driver back in 2006 when I did mine and it was pretty simple although not a direct fit. I needed to cut away a bit of the underside of stock grill.

Agreed. While the stock HU does redirect a bit of regular stereo tracks to the center it's minor.

How big (depth) speaker do you think could be installed though the display? 2.5"? Please?

Very unlikely. I had a hell of a time getting my 5.25" Type S in there and that was 2-1/8 total depth. Once you're past the HVAC ducting you have near unlimited depth but for a 2.5" you would have to remove the ducting, install the speaker, and reinstall ducting.

You've crushed my dream. I'm not sure if I can trust anything anymore.

Attachment 108441

So...anyways, is the opening you're talking about this one (from niebur3)?
https://i851.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_2502.jpg

Reference post

That's the one. It will be a little work but you can remove the ducts and reinstall. How are you going to run the center?

I'm thinking of purchasing an MS8. I'm probably also going to get the Massive Audio SK6 or SX6 you mention in other threads. Unfortunately, it's hard to find reliable reviews on slim speakers.

I'm glad you mentioned the MS8 and the SK-6 speakers. My opinion:

The MS8 is a really neat processor. It's great as a beginners entry into sound quality. It has also won competitions. I do not think it's worth getting unless you're going to exploit its unique benefits which include center and sides/rear. The MS8 does not use the rears as fill. It sends the out of phase information to the rears and steers the sound stage into a much deeper and wider stage than is possible except in the best 2 channel cars. It's really neat. Having a center also means you can get a center image for the passenger and driver at the same time. It will also allow you to optimize for each seat. Really cool stuff that no other processor offers.

On the downside it's very sensitive to phase. I learned this the hard way. This is not just making sure each speaker has the positive to positive and negative to negative. They have to be in acoustical phase which can sometimes mean flipping polarity or even somewhere in the middle. You can't tweak levels or time alignment once a tune is done bit you do have EQ and bass, sub, treble, and midrange. You can flip the tune for each seat or a compromise for all.

I think a lot of people miss having full adjustability of the sound with other processors. Mine sounds better now with my PS8 but it took a while to get it to sound better and I wasn't running rears. I was definitely able to get a better center image and overall sound stage with the PS8 in a 2-channel vs 2-channel competition and I would even say it stages better with the PS8 vs MS8 using a center.

Do not get the SK-6. They are probably the worst sounding speakers I've heard including stock. I had them Klippeled on DIYMA if you would like to see the tests and the data backed up what I heard. I believe the guy testing them said they were the worst he had ever tested. They had something like 1mm of linear excursion with a super high Qts that won't even work IB. They were peaky and just sounded bad. I would go with a smaller but better speaker over those. Even a stock door speaker should fit in that location and would sound better..... seriously. You might try a stock door speaker just to get an idea of what the center is like.

Andy W who had a large part in the MS8's design said your highest quality speaker should be the center channel if using the MS8. If you commit to the MS8 I highly suggest getting something nice for this position. Jerry (Niebur3) on here used the Dyn 430 midrange in the center and I think he had good results. This would be an excellent center because even though it's just a 3.5" it has a lot of excursion and is one of the best midranges in the world. If you go with a lower end speaker you should definitely go bigger.