Agreed, I hate cutting into door panels for speakers. Especially when a prior owner has done a poor job of it. But even worse is often they don't sound very good mounted there. I'm with the others that have mounted 6.5" rounds in the kick panels. If the speakers are not extremely deep (there's a lot of variance in designs) and a new panel is made to keep them tucked in as much as possible, then they do not take up too much of the valuable interior space. Plus that position tends to give a decent sound. I've gone that route on several of my vintage cars. But as I stated earlier I don't get too extreme with my sound systems anymore - just the one pair of 6.5's. So placement is important for a fairly balanced sound.
My 6.5" two ways had really large magnets so I cut a hole in the sheet metal for them to clear so they don't take up much room. I think the sheet metal cavity may actually enhance the bass. I seem to recall putting some sound deadening material in to make it an "infinite baffle" acoustically.
I have some molded foam "cups" that I purchased decades ago for another vehicle but never used. Hopefully they will fit behind the 6.5's in the kick-panels. They are a easy way to help isolate the speaker:
Good point Bob. And the narrow shelf does not have much 'width' to work with either. So the rear shelf is a rather limited area for speakers in general. Plus with the shelf right next to the passengers heads there won't be a much balance of sound; the driver will mostly hear the "left" channel and passenger the "right" channel. Now you got me wondering why they chose there instead of other locations, like say the kick-panels or make room on the top of the dash like most vehicles had in that era?
Regardless of the inclusion of a radio/speaker or not, did all of the early cars have the place for a speaker in the dash? And did any cars with early style dashes also get rear shelf speakers - or was that only on the cars with the later style dash?
He did a really nice job. I like some of the custom touches and excellent craftsmanship.
I had the same reaction. A real nice custom speaker installation which obviously took much work but he is ending up with two 4" round speakers in the end. If you are doing as much work as he did, I'm sure there are better options for speakers.
Sort of along those lines (kinda), there were discussions previously about using various bluetooth speakers (actual speakers in this case) - driven from a phone or pod. There are a multitude of such speakers in every imaginable configuration. However most of the ones I've heard sound terrible to me. Although I'm sure there must be something decent available in bluetooth. I haven't sampled any of the bone "collar" type like you linked, please let us know how they do.
That's about what we've been referring to as "kick panel" speakers. The ones you pictured appear to be larger, deeper speakers that stick out more. That might be too intrusive in the tight X1/9 footwells?
Mine are in the same general location but are pretty flush. They are mounted on a particle board baffle behind the carpet and the magnets extend through a hole in the sheet metal. Visually, they look pretty much like the grills are sitting right on top of the standard carpet configuration. I currently have 6.5" two ways in there but I may see if there is any chance some spare 6 x 9 three ways may fit.
