I just finished all the mods I am planning to make to my sound system in the TSX, it has turned out quite good.

Mods:

6x9s are Polk DB690s
6.5"s are Kenwood Dual Mag Excelons
12" Rockford Punch XL sub and Punch amp (from my old 1.7EL).


I'd like to thank elduderino and Bass Mechanic for the time they spent giving advice on the site, I got the 6.5" based on their advice (neodymium speakers) and they sound fantanstic. The mounting depth is identical to the factory Pioneers, so very straight forward install (and cheap for me because I had it installed).

I had the installers use sound deadening (scosche) in the front doors, and it has made a tremendous difference in sound and outside noise.

Also for people like me who need to do this on a budget, this really worked out well. I got the 6x9s and the 6.5" off ebay for around $100 USD combined in excellent shape (the 6x9s were actually brand new)

 

Congrats!!

 

How much for the installation?
How much better does it sound? Like going from an "7" to a "9" or how would you describe the differences?
TIA...I love home audio systems and the TSX is not bad at all, but improvement is always good

 

where's the 12" sub? Does it block the rear seats from folding down? or is it off to the side?

 

The polk DB's fit with no modification ?????

 

The DB690s require no mods, I got the old 6x9s out and the new ones in within 30 minutes, its just unclipping the grill, removing 4 screws, and putting the new ones in. The screws line up, and your done. You will need a harness or cut the factory wire to get them to work though.

The sound is SIGNIFICANTLY better, the sound is very clean to a volume of 40, and no audible distortion until about 30. I think it would be completely clear to the top if I had replaced the speakers in the rear door and the tweeters. I listen to a lot of bass heavy rap music, so the lack of distortion is very noticable. The power handling capacity of the 6x9s is 100 RMS, and its very high for the 6.5"s as well, so with the 20-25 watts RMS the factory amp puts out, the speakers can comfortably accomodate this. One thing I should point out as well, is the sensitivity of the new speakers is quite high as well (one indication of efficiency??) . The 6x9s are 93dB, the 6.5s 92dB. Someone mentioned on a scale of 10 how has the sound improved. If the factory speakers are 3/10, the new system with the sub would be an 8, especially with the sound deadening material in the front doors.

My sub is mounted in the trunk behind the rear seats, and the box goes right across from one side of the rear seats to the other, and is bolted into place, rendering the fold down capability of the seats useless.

As for install costs, the rears cost me about $2 for the parts, and the fronts were more.
install for the fronts was $45 cdn. sound deadening and install was another $45. No fabrication costs because the speakers are no deeper than factory. There are some excellent links on this site if you want to install the speakers yourself and save the money. I just didnt have the time, and im no professional, so I know it would take me awhile.

I should also mention that if you can only get either the front or rear done, go for the front speakers. It makes such a huge difference in sound. What was distorted and rattled sound before becomes crisp and clear.

Hope this helps

 

Great detailed post...Thanks!

 

You know what? If the speakers can handle 100W RMS and the amp puts out 30W before distortion sets in, the distortion you hear is your amp losing it - FYI.

Most distortion, and most blown speakers, come NOT from overpowered speakers, but from underpowered speakers connected to clipping amps.

 

Great Detailed Reply Keg1997!
One more question if you dont mind, if you installed the 12in subwoofer, wouldn't that render the 6x9's practically useless? Because, the 6x9 wire is spliced into the 12inch sub right? Im not trying to criticize but that is just what i heard from another forum earlier. Also, thanks for the post I might consider doing going for those speakers myself =)

 

Thanks for the tip elduderino.

BlackAcuraTSX, you have a pretty good point. What was really annoying me before I replaced the 6x9s is I could hear alot of distortion from the factory 6x9s. When I got the sub, the deep lows sounded fine, but you could still hear the 6x9 distorting. Unplugging the 6x9s and just leaving the sub sounded better, but it sounded like there was a "gap" in the sound. Perhaps its the crossover on the sub amp, but even with the amp crossover disabled, same thing. Maybe someone with more technical knowledge can confirm this. My guess is that although the sub can go pretty low in frequency , it cannot go as high as the 6x9s, leaving a gap in the sound between the 6.5s and the sub.


Any other ideas?

 

The by-nines are capable of playing mid-bass (bass guitar, snares, etc.).

Most subs CAN play some mid-bass... but when they do, it doesn't make it outta the trunk.

The way most aftermarket speakers are installed into the doors, they don't play as much mid-bass as we all would like (due to speaker mounting baffle leaks). So, the midbass provided by the by-nines becomes more important.

However, as you noticed, the by-nines can't handle loud sub-bass... even though the factory amp thinks of them as subwoofers, they really don't play "sub"-bass.

So try this as an easy experiment (this assumes that the factory amp is playing the by-nines...): Between the by-nine terminals and the point that you tapped in the LOC for your sub amp, cut the positive lead on each speaker wire and insert a capacitor in series on that line. I'd use these 500-mikes from Parts Express, as they will start to smoothly (hopefully) roll off the lowest bass while largely leaving the upper bass alone. Worth a try...

 

Thanks again elduderino.

So if i understand you correctly this is what the sound in my car is comprised of:

sub-bass: subwoofer
bass (lower mids): 6x9s
midrange and upper-mid: 6.5"
high freqs: tweeters

If this is the case, than it is indeed beneficial to have the 6x9s as opposed to just the sub?

 

Almost! try this:

Sub-bass: subwoofer
Sub bass (poorly) and mid-bass (better): 6X9's
Mid bass (poorly) and mids (better): 6.5
Highs: tweets

In a perfect world, it is best to have mid-bass (good, convincing, hard-hitting mid-bass) coming from the front. This supports the stereo illusion that the performance is up in front of you, and prevents the impression that the drum kit is floating from the front tweets (cymbals and brushes) to the rear deck (snares). We don't hear directionality from sub-bass (exactly what frequency that transition occurs at is a point of debate which I will not subject you to) so if the sub bass sounds good and the midbass sounds good and sounds like it's in the front, we assume the sub-bass is in the front too.

But the only way to do that short of building kick-panel enclosures that are big, hard to do, and rob you of your dead pedal, is to give the front speakers a mating spacer that seals them up against the back of the door panel, so that the front speakers can use the door as a baffle. ("Baffle" is the term for a panel that seals the air in front of a speaker cone off from the air behind a speaker cone, and thus allows the speaker cone to push on the air in front and create pressure waves in the listening area without cancellation from its own back wave.)

I have done this in many other cars, and have attempted it once with joerckt in his TSX (using foam tape from Home Depot to seal the spaeaker to the back of the door panel - see the pics on the sticky about door panels to see how the factory speaker does this...). I am not certain that it was completely effective in joe's car. However, since my fiancee wants us to drive to Whistler for our honeymoon instead of fly, I am wanting to do the stereo upgrade over the next week-weekandahalf so I can listen to tunes on the way up there... hopefully I figure this out and can share precision speaker spacer plans with y'all soon.

So, short of all that, I guess the by-nines can be beneficial (even though I hate by-nines on general principle, never having seen an oval drum, and think they are a Commie pinko threat to America).

 

that being said, wouldn't sound deadening material such as dynamat or accumat create a "baffle" effect????

 

Yes and no... in that if you use dynamat to cover up all the holes, you've made the metal door skin into a more effective baffle, but still not a 100% (or close) effective baffle.

When the speaker is bolted to the door skin, and then is firing through the speaker grille but not sealed to the back of the speaker grille, it's as if the speaker is firing into a chamber (the space between the metal door skin and the molded door panel) with a hole in it (the grille opening). The sound is somewhat muffled as a result, and some of the "snap" of the midbass is lost inside that chamber - it's like a "seventh-order" enclosure where the woofer in a vented box is firing into a vented box, and the two ports are the only outputs to the listening room.

If the speaker is right up against the grille with a seal around it, it should then be creating air pressure changes inside the cabin directly, instead of inside the door panel. The lower the note, the more pressure has to be created, so you don't want to lose acoustic power inside the door panel chamber.

 

Okay question? So if the speakers are capable of handling the 30watts easily, then will the speakers be distorted if the volume is raised to the max because the amp is losing it?
If so, then would you be able to take out the small 30watt amp and replace it with a 4 channel amp for the four midrange amps? and use another 2 channel amp for aftermarket subs?

 

The speakers will be capable of handling the 30 watts easily as clean power (i.e, when the amp is asked to deliver 30 and does, not when it's asked to deliver 40 and comes up short with 30 and a bunch of distortion thrown in). I don't know when your amp will be developing 30 clean watts, but it's probably NOT at a volume setting of 40... it's probably more like a volume setting of 20 (during the musical peaks). This is very subjective and depends on the gain structure of the amp input, the gain sensitivity setting on the amp, and how "hot" the CD is recorded, but it gives you the idea.

Why would you raise the volume to the max if the amp is losing it? When you hear the amp lose it, turn your stuff down, man.

Here is my attitude about the TSX audio system:

1) Head unit: seems OK, can't replace it anyway, but workable.

2) Speakers: low power handling, inexpensive. No reason not to replace them, as they probably won't handle very high power upgrades on the amp side. Often factory speakers are designed for maximum efficiency (high volume with low power - and that factory amp is the size of a Tom Clancy paperback - it MUST be low power). When a max efficiency speaker is strapped to a high-power amp, one thing that often happens is that you get to hear all its shortcomings. The light cone changes shape as it snaps back and forth, things get shrill and harsh, and you find out the speaker really isn't that good.

3) Amp: tiny piece of crap, but high-tech. Probably 3 hihg-power deck amp chips in a box, with an electronic crossover. Replace with 1 five channel, or 1 six-channel, or 1 four-channel and one sub amp, or whatever, but replace it.

 

i think what elduderino described is what i hear now that i have different speakers. The sound is very much improved up to a volume of around 25 on most types of music i listen to, some closer to 20. any higher, and it starts to sound like crap, probably because the amp cant accomodate.

 

Thanks for the reply elduderino,
One more question =). If i were to replace the stock amp with, say a 6channel or a 4channel/2channel for subs. What would i have to do with the tweeters? do the tweeters also need an amp for power? Also, do you know of any good 6 channel amps? Thanks for the replies =)

 

Here's my recommendation:

Lower-budget system: Get the best fronts you can, get a sub, use a 4-channel, lose the R doors and by-nines.

Higher-budget system: Better fronts, better sub and enclosure, better amp, better installation.

Higher than that: Go with a FIVE-channel amp, put 6" coaxials in the R doors. Still lose the by-nines.

When going after higher-fidelity sound, there's really no reason to go with oval speakers, IMHO.

I am using the MB Quart by-nine woofs only because it's my fiancee's daily driver, and she won't go with a subwoofer, and I don't have a garage, so I won't be glassing in a W8 in the corner anytime soon. Trust me, if I could augment the low-frequencies any other way, I would pull those by-nines in a heartbeat so that I could hear the sub better through the rear deck.

The only 6-channel amp I know of in production right now is that Infinity in another thread. For subs, a mono channel is fine. The JL Slash 5-channel is sweet... the Alpine is good too...

 

I second that!