Around $500 front stage

[HoneyBadgerRy]

Price isn't limited to $500 but I threw that number in to get a ballpark. The doors have a 8" hole for the woofers. Currently looking at Alpine X-S65C, morel virtus 602, Hertz HSK 165, and a few others.

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[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

Cdt has a 3way set with 8” mids

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

If you want plug and play the cdt is good plus you can upgrade the mids and tweeters as well as xover.

 

[slikrider20 10+ year member]

NVX XSP6ACT in an active setup for $300. (I have the mids in this system, they are incredible for the price, and i've heard nothing but good things about the tweeters)

or, if you spend more and are patient, you could get the Stereo Integrity TM65 xbl motor woofer with their m25 tweeters for right around $500 (mids not quite in stock yet)

Either way, if your wanting to spend that much on speakers it's clear you're serious...so in that case .... go active. You'll never go back. Ask me how I know.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

If you can fit an 8. That's a no Brainerd.

The cdt mx8 and 1200es is a ****** set

 

[HoneyBadgerRy]

Cdt has a 3way set with 8” mids

If you want plug and play the cdt is good plus you can upgrade the mids and tweeters as well as xover.

How does the HD series compare to the MX series? I want plug and play for now, but I love the idea that if down the road I decide its not enough I can later find a way to mount the 4" in the door uppers (I have an idea already), and mount the (2"?) tweeters on the dash or maybe the A pilers...

Obviously its going to be something I will have to take one step at a time, but with the 8" woofers I probably would be happy with the system to wait to add a sub, so I'm not sweating the $690 price tag for the 2 way set.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Id do some silverflute 8s and some xt 25 tweeters with the rest of your budget spent on processing and door treatments

 

[HoneyBadgerRy]

Id do some silverflute 8s and some xt 25 tweeters with the rest of your budget spent on processing and door treatments

$140 of speakers, and a processor could be better than $500-800 component sets? I like the idea of using a processor, but I have to be looking up the wrong drivers, because I can't fathom drivers that cheap would be worthwhile.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

$140 of speakers, and a processor could be better than $500-800 component sets? I like the idea of using a processor, but I have to be looking up the wrong drivers, because I can't fathom drivers that cheap would be worthwhile.

Processing and good budget drivers will outright destroy high dollar sets with weak processing all day any day. With passive component sets you cant adjust the crossover point and slope nor the output level of the mid and tweet. This is important because every vehicle has different acoustics and surface reflections and the crossover point on the passive crossover most of the times doesnt work, its rare to have a set work well off the batt and its not something EQ alone can fix. Also going active means 100% better soundstage hands down, you can time align the mid and tweet individually compared to a blob of mess soundstage with passive components. Not to mention you get more power to your drivers directly allowing more clean output.

Its the install and tune which is important. There are cheap drivers that offer basically the same performance or better than high dollar sets that silverflute and vifa combo won 3rd at a meca sq competition beating out guys that have high dollar passive components in their sound system that didnt go active

 

[HoneyBadgerRy]

Processing and good budget drivers will outright destroy high dollar sets with weak processing all day any day. With passive component sets you cant adjust the crossover point and slope nor the output level of the mid and tweet. This is important because every vehicle has different acoustics and surface reflections and the crossover point on the passive crossover most of the times doesnt work, its rare to have a set work well off the batt and its not something EQ alone can fix. Also going active means 100% better soundstage hands down, you can time align the mid and tweet individually compared to a blob of mess soundstage with passive components. Not to mention you get more power to your drivers directly allowing more clean output.

Its the install and tune which is important. There are cheap drivers that offer basically the same performance or better than high dollar sets

So ELI5, what all would be included in a setup like that. Say for a head unit I chose the Pioneer AVH-2300NEX, which I assume would send 6 sets of preouts to a DSP like a Zapco DSP-Z8 or an Alpine PXA-H800 without much adjustment of eq on the head unit itself (or would it) from there I would run the preouts on the DSP to whatever amp setup say a PDX-F6 or a Z-150.4 SP or maybe something cheaper, (I assume I leave all the hpf lpf turned off on the amp) and then just run speaker wire to the speakers (some 8" driver and a nice set of tweeters which I'm sure could get argued about forever on the forum). Then spend some money putting sound deadener inside the doors and behind the doors cards. (I see alot of people with these cars like to take those foam speaker baffles and cut the bottom half out for airflow on these doors, I assume I'd do the same with any speakers.)

Is there something I'm missing on acoustically tunning the car? What about tuning the DSP, can I use a microphone to get me pretty ballpark, then just tweak to taste, because all that adjustability is intimidating.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

So ELI5, what all would be included in a setup like that. Say for a head unit I chose the Pioneer AVH-2300NEX, which I assume would send 6 sets of preouts to a DSP like a Zapco DSP-Z8 or an Alpine PXA-H800 without much adjustment of eq on the head unit itself (or would it) from there I would run the preouts on the DSP to whatever amp setup say a PDX-F6 or a Z-150.4 SP or maybe something cheaper, (I assume I leave all the hpf lpf turned off on the amp) and then just run speaker wire to the speakers (some 8" driver and a nice set of tweeters which I'm sure could get argued about forever on the forum). Then spend some money putting sound deadener inside the doors and behind the doors cards. (I see alot of people with these cars like to take those foam speaker baffles and cut the bottom half out for airflow on these doors, I assume I'd do the same with any speakers.)
Is there something I'm missing on acoustically tunning the car? What about tuning the DSP, can I use a microphone to get me pretty ballpark, then just tweak to taste, because all that adjustability is intimidating.

Yes you got all that right. Id look into fast rings instead of those foam baffles. For your door, deadening alone wont be good enough, you'd want to get some sheet metal to seal off the big gaps in the door. Then deaden both the metal portions of the door and the plastic door panel. If you want less road noise then you can do a layer of mass loaded vinyl with a layer of closed cell foam as well to decouple. The mlv and cld is optional but depending on how much midbass you get from sealing the gaps, you might still need to do ccf to prevent rattles.

Its pretty fun to tune especially if you have an RTA.

 

[HoneyBadgerRy]

Yes you got all that right. Id look into fast rings instead of those foam baffles. For your door, deadening alone wont be good enough, you'd want to get some sheet metal to seal off the big gaps in the door. Then deaden both the metal portions of the door and the plastic door panel. If you want less road noise then you can do a layer of mass loaded vinyl with a layer of closed cell foam as well to decouple. The mlv and cld is optional but depending on how much midbass you get from sealing the gaps, you might still need to do ccf to prevent rattles.
Its pretty fun to tune especially if you have an RTA.

I'm under the impression that fast rings and door baffles do two different jobs, the baffles work like sound deadening, and they also help protect the speaker from water. The fast rings help direct the sound out of the speaker grill. I see no reason to chose just one or the other.

The doors appear to be sealed from the factory so no need to fabricate sheet metal to seal off the doors. This is the method I am familiar with, they put a patch of sound deadening behind the woofer, then cover the entire outside of the metal door with sound deadening and then put the factory plastic over top. Would this be sufficient? https://imgur.com/a/cx57z

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

The silver flutes won't touch the mx8s the cdt set is a great set

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

How does the HD series compare to the MX series? I want plug and play for now, but I love the idea that if down the road I decide its not enough I can later find a way to mount the 4" in the door uppers (I have an idea already), and mount the (2"?) tweeters on the dash or maybe the A pilers...
Obviously its going to be something I will have to take one step at a time, but with the 8" woofers I probably would be happy with the system to wait to add a sub, so I'm not sweating the $690 price tag for the 2 way set.

Both the HD and mMX are similar. They are good drivers that don't need much eq with the proper install.

3 ways even passive installed right will have a wider flatter bandwidth and get louder.. a processor isn't beaded to get good sound. A head unit with time alignment an decent eq is more than enough. The cdt xover has alot of options. And if you wanted you could use the midrange and tweeters passive use the time alignment for the tweeters and mids then use the amps xover to bandpass the midbass and use time alignment for it. Just put the tweeters and midrange close

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

How does the HD series compare to the MX series? I want plug and play for now, but I love the idea that if down the road I decide its not enough I can later find a way to mount the 4" in the door uppers (I have an idea already), and mount the (2"?) tweeters on the dash or maybe the A pilers...
Obviously its going to be something I will have to take one step at a time, but with the 8" woofers I probably would be happy with the system to wait to add a sub, so I'm not sweating the $690 price tag for the 2 way set.

I’ve had both the hd and MX series. Both are pretty good. But I bumped up to the Es series. Much better