6,5" speakers in VW T4's doors, what's the best way to fit them? [SOLVED]

[Vesjåg]

I'm planning to mount a pair of 6,5" component speakers in my 2003 VW Caravelle's doors.

I have been searching around the internet without finding anything close to this topic.

Doors have these grills installed, behind them is just a sealed empty box. I have been looking at two ways at fitting a 6,5" midrange speaker inside:

1. Fabricate a DIY adapter which screws into the plastic surrounding the grille, then mount the speaker inside allowing it to play inside the surrounding sealed box. The box will be fitted with aqoustic dampening.
2. Or go with a DIY like this allowing the speaker to play inside the door and use foam to direct the sound thru the box and inside the van.

What is the best solution? Other solutions that work just as well or even better?


I haven't measured the volume of the box but I guess it's plenty for the midrange.. grille hole is 17,5 cm across and 6,5 to 7,5 cm deep depending on where you measure.

These pictures may give you an idea of what i'm dealing with:

I have a set of JBL Club 6500C two way component speakers which I plan on mounting as a temporary solution as I'm not sure about the quality of these speakers.
I had them play inside a 2001 VW caddy playing directly from the head unit, mounted using the original wiring and no crossover. Tweeters where mounted on the dash so that sound where reflecting back from the windshield. The tweeters sounded very harsh. I hope that they will settle down a bit mounted in the Caravelle using the crossover and placing them acoustically smarter.

That said, in my T4 I have these 4" coax Hertz speakers mounted the same place, on top of the dash reflecting back from the windshield. These speakers sounds very pleasing in the top frequencies.

All comments and suggestions are welcome. I am at some point going to buy a amplifier for the JBL's, any amp suggestions?. For now I am going to mount them directly to my Pioneer MVH-X580DAB until the amp arrives.



I'm really doubting the JBL's will perform the way I want, and should maybe just buy a new set of HERTZ or similar quality component set with a sweet sounding tweeter? (I am really sensitive to harsh sounding equipment). But for now I will let the JBL's have their chance and maybe, just maybe they will prove themselves.





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[Vesjåg]

So after some fiddling I came up with something i'm fairly happy with.

I used what I had laying around, mainly components that came with my speakers, foam rings and rubber vibration dampeners.

Adapter that came with the speakers mounted directly onto the door panel. Egg shaped foam behind the speaker and foam rings on the far side of the adapter. Rubber in front to reduce vibrations doubles as a fairly airtight seal.


I have ordered universal grilles that I hope will cover screws, and Zapco ST-4B amplifier to power them JBL's.

I placed tweeters in top of A pillar and it actually plays very well. I was afraid it would be an acoustic gap between mid range and tweeter but it sounds really good. But looking forward to more power when amplifier arrives. The mids sounds under powered playing directly from the head unit.

For the future I will make acrylic rings that's big enough to go on-top of door panel and hide screw holes and mount the speakers onto them. This should do for a more sturdy and eye pleasing design.