Thread: Front Door Speakers in a BMW 3 Series

Originally Posted by ajdale

It says that the kickers that will fit are a 6 1/2" speaker, so are the alpine ones I'm looking, but the Alpine ones are only 1/4" deeper than the kickers. I haven't looked at the door yet, but would I be easy to do it on my own without any sort of professional installation?

Or is there some sort of riser to bring the speaker out more so you don't have the modify the door frame? bring it like 1/4" closer to the drivers legs?

You can't really bring the speaker closer because of the speaker grill and the fact that the circle opening in the door where the speaker grill sits is less than 6.5" in diameter.

You will have to take measurements of the speaker you want to get and see how much space you have behind the door to work with....i can't remember exactly how much room there is behind there.

You can definitely do it on your own....there is a diy sticky on the page that i linked you to in my first post. It walks through a speaker install in a 3 series step-by-step and is very detailed with pictures. It shows you how to remove the door panel and where to tap into the wiring, etc.

I've done it myself many times...the first time took the longest (trying to figure out how to take the door off and how to mount the speaker)...but every time after that was a breeze since i already knew how everything fit together.

To mount a 6.5" speaker, you will need mdf speaker rings and you will have to bolt them to your door panel. You will then bolt the speakers to that mdf ring and seal around the speaker with dynamat or with a foam insulation so that the airspace in front of the speaker is completely sealed off from the air space behind the speaker.

^^^ G'luck with your install and be sure to check forum.e46fanatics.com for any of your 3 series questions.....if you're trying to do something to your bimmer, chances are that someone has already tried it and can walk you through it.

If the speakers have the same depth as the stock speakers, than they should fit. The only issue with mounting 6.5" speakers to the stock location is depth clearance. You can actually have the speakers be slightly deeper than the stock speakers as u should have some extra clearance there.

The rear deck speakers are like the front speakers....6" all the way around (not quite 6.5")...so in order to get 6.5's to fit in the rear, u will have to make slight modifications to the mounting brackets. It is as simple as drilling a new mounting hole and the speaker should fit in there pretty snug.

My car us currently at a local audio shop and they're installing the 6.5" Type X's in the front doors (i blew one of the mids on my OZ Matrix elites, so i bought the type X's.....200 bucks on ebay). I'll let you know what i think about them as i am going to pick up my car this afternoon.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ajdale
I was mainly looking at Alpine because I have an Alpine head unit, and my friend put an entire Alpine system in his 1992 Acura Integra, for the sake of having all the same components by the same manufacturer, for consistency.

He gave me the impression that if you mix and match manufacturers, you won't get as great a sounding result as if you were to take speakers, subs and amps that were designed to work together.

Although who knows how much difference it really makes.

That is not true....having the same brand throughout your car does not make for better sound quality. They are audio components and they can't read. The only thing being transfered through the wires are voltages and signals. In the end, it is the build quality, efficiency, and install of the components that make up your system that count.

While this is true for most of the car audio systems on the road today it does not hold true for all speakers, if you start spending real money on speakers, F1 status stuff, Utopia, Diamond, Rainbow etc. you get into "tamber matching " the speakers where the even minute diferences in potential frequency response can cost you big in a show or compatition. So if you are looking at the everyday alpine stuff (type s and type r, or the rockford punch or power series stuff) id say mix and match all you want however if you decide to really invest the time and money into building a true SQ system then i would find one brand i really liked and stick with it at least as far as speakers go, amps, head units, sig procs etc don't necesarilly have to match but it doesnt hurt.

/end of rant

bull**** of sticking to one brand for sq! you are missing the most important thing in SQ, that's soundstage and a clean sound. to accomplish sq you have to look at each component by its self. look at how the tweets sound, how the mids sound, how does the kicks and subs sound? and from there you can mix and match to your own likings but also important, to your car. every car sounds different. The thing is, if you stick with one brand it could be -par example- in my car, the tweets can't catch up with the mids but in my brother's car they do.

I'll give you an example of how my install is gonna be.

2 NOVA MDS08 subs
2 PEERLES C165ip kicks
2 SEAS 25TFFN/G /NOVA TN25MKII

If i follow your opinion I should stick with NOVA

but the peerless kick go a little deeper than the nova equivalent.
and the seas tweets sound less agressive than the nova's although they are the same (but the nova is slightly modified)

don't think rainbow, focal utopia's, .... and peerless, seas,... are that different in quality though... they're different in sound though, and I would think sound is pretty important too.

Or maybe I just don't get your reply correctly