I've been out of the stereo scene for some time now but the crappy Protege system has inspired me to get back into it. I plan on keeping the stock deck and replacing the front components and back 6x9's...plus an amp. I'm also on a shoestring budget.

1) I'm not planning on subs so for the 6x9's, what's on the market today that would produce a good amount of clean bass? I'm looking at the Crystal CXe693 but that's just going off the reviews @ sounddomain.com, I've never heard them.

2) I'm also looking at the Crystal CPe50s components but that's also just from reading the reviews.

3) Do I even need to run the back door speakers? I don't think it would make much difference...screw the backseat passengers...they have the 6x9's.

4) Now for the amp I tried to get my Phoenix Gold ZX250 back from a friend but he's in love with it so do I get a 4ch or can I run a 2ch @ 2ohm. If I can run the 4 speakers with a 2 ch @ 2ohm what amp can handle it? There's a lot of good reviews for the Lightning Audio 4ch @ sounddomain but I would be happy with an old black Punch40's if it would run 2ohm.

 

GO WITH Rockford Fosgate for some good bass for speakers. Otherwise, **** it. GET SOME SUBS!

 

Just food for thought, I wouldn't worry about rear speakers or placing speakers in the rear doors. That will save you some money. Most amps are stable to 2 ohms. You could run some 6 1/2" midbass for the rear speakers and get a 2 channel amp to run all 4 speakers. Now, where's my cheeseburger?!

MisterT

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the rear deck speakers in a sedan does produce a lot of bass because the whole trunk acts like a big enclosure.

Yeah, you can definitely forget about the rear door speakers. They are completely useless.

 

Hey, you are not gonna get a lot of bass at all from speakers, just so you know. Why not go with a JL AUDIO powerwedge, for I believe $149 you can get it, a 10" sub in a compacted enclosure, sounds very good and for the price ain't bad at all. Better than spending $100 on a set of speakers and not getting much improvement at all.

 

You can get this done on a shoestring, just shop very carefully. In the sedan there are no speakers in the rear doors. The doors are a shared part with the P5, in the stationwagon has no rear deck, hence rear door speakers.
You have the two way set up of Mazda in the 03 ES. Nice car by the way!! You can look at several options- replace the stock set with a new set of components or get coax design instead, just leaving the sailplane tweeters. I suppose you could wire up the sailplane tweeters for sound also, but they might not tonely match up, that is to say not quite sound right.
Your other decision is on the size of the front speakers, the midrange (lower mounted larger driver) is a 5x7/6x8 ovals stock. Folks here will argue all day and night as to what type and size sounds best. The ovals have the advantage of being a quick drop in install. The down side is there is not a much variety in the market, not a many component sets in that size.
There are two round styles that will fit the front, 5.25 and 6.5 inch speakers. Both have many more options on the market. If you go with 5.25 make sure to seal the gaps all around the speaker to help produce decent sound. If you get 6.5 check mounting depth. Either way, get a mounting adapter ring set, or build some of your own to use. Down side should be clear- more options and choices, but extra effort and potential cost to the use of 5.25 or 6.5
For you basic assertion you are quite right, you can run this as a four speaker setup just fine. I think you will find a board of car audio nuts will always try to talk you into a bigger system- it is the nature of the beast! IF you understand you won't be pounding the lows (never a huge concern or obsession of mine!) like having a sub, then you will be fine with four speakers.
It will be simple enough with a good decent basic amp to tune the setup anyway. You will want to use the high pass and low pass crossovers of the amp, focus the lows only in the rear and then the mids and highs in the front. Don't use much of the high frequencies in the back at all, and then lift the lower frequencies in the front.
High frequencies are very directional, when you hear instraments in terms of left right and center, they are high frequencies. Low frequencies on the other hand are omnidiirectional, so you can't define by your years the location of the sound as a specific point.
By using the crossovers this way you will get a nice front soundstage with bass thoughout the car. The other beneft is that you won't be pushing the speakers to outside thier design. What I mean is bass requires a larger speaker- the larger the cone the low the bass normally. The fronts, what ever size you do choose, are smaller that the 6x9 that will go in the back, so use the strenght of the larger cones in the back for the lows.
The lightening amps you mentioned are indeed for the price very nice amps. The accept high level inputs, so you can use the speaker level outs of the stock headunit and plug right into the amp, and it has the crossovers to tune the system. I would recommend the amp. If you can afford it, purchase the cooling fan that plugs right in. While not a flat out requirement, it is a nice extra and a very clever design. It also has RCA line level outs, so you can can later a sub should you desire. (A perfect fit for a system like this would be a Infinity Basslink, but that can always come later, and only if you feel you need it!) So the lightening is a good pick on your part, not too many folks have seen or used them. I have helped two friends in the past couple of years to pick bolt amps, and they are pleased and the amps still work just fine.
On speakers, while crystal has good reviews, I will just jump up and down and fuss- go listen to speakers, and get some you like the sound of- PLEASE! While most car audio hardware can be picked by features and specifications, the one item that can't be picked that way would be speakers. The sound is very subjective. It is interesting to me it is even cultural, Europeans and Japanese have very different opinons of what sounds good to them. Some companies go the effort of producing domestic and worldwide market speakers with very different sound to them (JBL for one!).
So go and audition as many different brands of speakers as you can that are in your price range, and don't take any reviewer or person on a boards opinion as a reason the buy a specific brand or manufacture. You will be living with the sound, not them!!!
I went on for perhaps a bit much here, sorry!
Let us know as your search progresses, what you decide on and how the install goes! Good Luck-

 

Obviously, Dave has given you some solid infomation there.

I would like to add that you may be able to get some decent bass (better than stock, that's for sure) without using a sub.

I would consider using small "subs" or midbass drivers in the rear deck, in place of the 6x9's, and using a quality component speaker up front in the doors.

I am setting my car up similar to this, only I will use the rear doors (I have a P5). Up front, 6.5" component set (Infinity - excellent speakers for the money, IMHO. Great sound, doesn't break the bank, and doesn't need gobs of power to sound nice). I will, however, be using subs.

In the rear doors, I'll be using Peerless midbass drivers. Against Dave Cameron's CORRECT advice, I have not auditioned these - I took a recommendation from someone. However, the rear is not as important as the front, and these will be used for bass "fill" - closing the gap between the subwoofers and the front components, as midbass was always one of the lacking areas in my audio system.

Since the Peerless work well free-air, something like this should produce some decent bass (not thumping, but filling) in your rear deck, without pulling the soundstage too far backwards.

In summation:

Front doors - audition, get something you're really happy with
Rear deck - bass/midbass fill
Amp - contrary to MisterT, I would say a 4-channel is the way to go. That way you can high-pass the front components (at maybe 100 Hz or so?), and send the midbass/bass to the rears (possibly from 200 Hz and down). Those settings are only examples, of course. But having the 4 channel amp will give you better control over the sound, as you can fade to the rear for more bass, or fade to the front for less. With only a 2 channel amp, you lose that ability to balance your sound. Plus you also have the ability to send the proper frequencies to the proper drivers without the use of an outboard add-on crossover unit.

It should also be possible to fit larger bass drivers in the rear deck (up to an 8" maybe?), and/or actually build a small sealed enclosure in the trunk attached to the rear deck. I'm not sure about the logistics of doing wither of those, but they are just suggestions of something to investigate.

All this may seem a little "out of the box" thinking, but it might make for a great sounding, budget- and space-minded system.

I see no reason why this couldn't be done for right around $500, if you do the install.

Just my $.02 and humble suggestions.

Keep us informed!

~HH

 

Dave did indeed give you excelent pointers.

I will be doing a setup like this once I get the car.

I have from my old car some 6 x 9 kicker impusle ( I second hihoslva on this point) and my kikcer impusle 4 x 40 rms amp.

The rest I had I won't put back in:

Pionner DEH-7400 head unit (sold)
Kicker 2 x 35 rms amp
2x kicker vr comp 10"
kicker impusle 6.5" components (water damage)
-The important thing is that you will be the one litening to your music and like it was said often here, every speaker is different. It also depend on what kind of music you listen.

You don't need to go for huge power, just get good speaker with low distortion amp and deck. (that is just my opinion)

But Dave & hihoslva's pointers are more than enough for you to make your decision. Let us know what you decide.

 

Thanks for all the help. I guess I'm still not sure what to do. Convincing arguments for subs and I'm not against subs...I've had a few setups from a Collins powered 6" tube in my truck to 2 JL 12's in my old Prelude. If I could get a sub that was a total stealth setup (without taking up any trunk space or weighing 100lbs ) than I would be all over it.

I think I'm probably sold on the Lightning 4ch because it's VERY inexpensive and will allow me to control the system properly. Enough people have said good things about them so it's a pretty low risk. I'm still watching some auctions on ebay for old ZX or Ti Phoenix Gold amps, I loved my ZX250 so getting another one would be nice if the price was right. I'm also watching some auctions on PPI A204's...I liked my old A204 too.

I'm still not sure about the front components. I've always run 6.5" Quarts in the the front and I've always liked them but the highs were always to harsh and I could never tone it down. The Crystal components come in Ti or silk dome so maybe the silk dome will roll off the harsh sounds. I know MB Quart has come out with other models since my days so maybe they have a softer tweeter now. Are mylar tweeters as harsh as the Ti?

How much depth do I have for the front doors? I would like to put 6.5" in the front but what's my limit on mounting depth?

Thanks for all the help so far. I don't think I've ever gotten as much POSITIVE response on a board before. Clubsi and the old prelude board was like pulling teeth to get some help

 

Depth in the front doors is limited, though I can't remember the exact specs.

However.

If you want to install 6.5s there, you'll need an adapter plate. If you choose, you can make (or have one made) from 1/2" MDF, which will also give you added depth. I just recently pulled my Fosgate woofers from the car, and these are about 2-3/4" deep. With the 1/2" MDF adapter baffle, there were no interference issues whatsoever, so it's safe to assume you have at least 2.25, if not 2.5 inches to work with, even without the 1/2" adapter.

Just remember to waterproof your adapter plates should you choose to make them - when I had my doors off this weekend, I found mine had all but disintegrated from moisture. I made new ones, but this time used about 5 layers of paint on them for protection, which oughtta be adequate.

And FYI, there is a "trick" to toning down tweeters that are too harsh (this seems to be a common complaint about Quarts) - reverse-wire them. Put the + wire on the negative terminal and so on. I have never done this, but I have heard about it being done plenty of times with good results, and no damage to the tweeters or system at all. But please, proceed at your own risk! You can also try different mounting positions - possibly facing at you is not the way to get the best sound. A car is such a strange and difficult acoustic environment - you never know what "sweet spot" you might find by aiming them at seemingly odd angles.

Silk tweeters are generally less harsh, however. I love my Infinity's.

Installing subs without using ANY trunk space is nearly impossible without major modification to the car, possibly to accept 8"s in the doors or something. But if at all possible, see how some small woofers sound in the rear deck. It would be a great use of space, and you may be able to build an enclosure for them, too - you never know.

You can also consider a flase-floor setup, possibly using some shallow-mount subs. That would be nearly completely stealth, and still give you a considerable amount of useable trunk space. If I didn't need all of the height in my hatchback, I'd have been running a false floor since day one.

If you've got the drive and a little imagination, anything is possible...

~HH

 

I may have found a small sub solution

Kenwood Powered Sub

The review link at the bottom sounds promising...just enough bass for good sound but I'm not shaking the car loose. Plus it's small and light so I'm not adding too much weight to porky protege.

I remember Pioneer making an enclosure that fit in the spare tire but I guess they don't make those anymore.

I wish JL or MTX made a stealth box like they do for the civics

 

Once they get the search feature back up you can do a search on "woox" and it will come up with a thread with someone that installed it under the passenger seat. Pretty cool.
Funny you should mention that.. the 2003.5 P5s have the option for that (made by Pioneer)... not yet available for the "aftermarket" as the part is not available as a spare yet from dealers.

There's another recent thread where that is being discussed as well (see http://www.protegeclub.com/forum/sho...threadid=24064).

 

I purchased the WooX for my sister and installed it in her car (01' ES2.0) last summer. The bass is pretty good and does very well over the stock speakers. It takes no space in the trunk, too. It comes w/everything that you need except a speaker conversion adapter which you can get for $15.00 for a decent one. This makes it easy to attach to the rear speaker lines w/o losing power from them. I give this product a 3.75/5 when my sister is much more pleased with it than I am. Great product though.

 

Send a PM to DaleK - he installed the wOOx under the seat.

Damn inoperable search - he did a nice writeup on the whole thing, but finding it now is impossible.

~HH

 

The thread was called space saving bass if I recall. It was a while ago, so good luck finding it without the search

I mounted the wOOx under the passenger seat, and have been quite happy with it. Not as good sounding as a full on sub box (specially those fancy schmancy 'glass ones ), but more than enough for what I wanted, and I have been very happy with it. Plus the fact that my setup takes up zero useable space, and is invisible.

arl240 also did the wOOx under the seat deal, and he seems reasonably happy with it last time I asked him.