phunky.buddha 10+ year member
Blow stuff up!
Hey crew, long time no post- almost a decade...
I just bought a 2008 MX-5 Miata (NC1) for my wife. The tired factory Bose setup has got to go. I have some existing speakers from the last car that I could cut some adapters and drop into place, but have been pondering direct bolt-in solutions for not too much cash. My wife's ears aren't too picky, but I'd like whatever I put in to at least sound decent with a small sub to go in later backing it up.
Factory setup is a weird 5 channel configuration with a 3.5" center dash speaker, 3.5" as "rear" speakers between the seats, and a tweeter (I think 3.5" also) in the upper doors plus an 8" midrange in the lower door locations. The monoliths in the upcoming system install (not gonna change these) are a Kenwood Android Auto head unit with 2V outputs (DMX47S) and a Precision Power i640.5 amp that's sitting in the garage, rated at 60x4 + 200. Sub support will be from a Kicker 8" square shallow mount that'll be flushed into the passenger footwell with a slim box that I can hopefully build before the end of the year. It'll get wired to 2 ohms to pull 350w from the sub channel of that amp.
My intention is to remove/disconnect the center and rear speakers, and focus purely on the doors. I currently have a set of JBL GTO 8608C components that I thought sounded decent for the price in the last minivan. I contacted JBL and they said the crossover was set to 3.5kHz with a 12dB slope, so I'd just skip the crossover and run that directly from the head unit through the amp with the 60 watts available to each driver. To use this speaker set, I would just have to cut my own adapters to mount the 6x8 into the 8" hole. Maybe I could buy the non-Bose factory speaker mounts? Not sure.
So here's the question for you all- are there any shallow 8" mids that you would recommend at a cheap price point that would sound better than the JBL set I already have? I'm looking to spend $150-ish max for the whole mess. Given how shallow the doors are, it's difficult to find a suitable 8" midbass that can fit into the door and clear the window. I think I have right at 2.5 inches of depth. It seems like decent 8" mids that aren't $200+ each all went off the market 4-5 years ago. In my few searches, I've really found a bunch of no-name brands and then some offerings from Skar of all companies...
For what would fit into the door and play down low enough to mesh with a sub at an 80Hz-ish crossover point, the Skar NPX8 paired with the NDX-33 ST tweeter is the recommendation from the Skar tech guys, with a crossover point of 2kHz. I'm not even sure I have enough room to mount those tweeters. Price point for two mids a-la-carte and a pair of those tweets is right at $170 from Amazon. Is it worth it? I've never heard Skar hardware in person, but they seem to be pretty popular these days- even though the forums seem to hate Skar as a company.
Any suggestions on alternatives that would fit into a shallow Miata door? Should I just say screw it and bust out the circle jig to throw the existing JBLs into the doors and spend my two Benjamins on other things more worthwhile (like tires) for my wife's new fun car? My Google-fu seems to really stink these days hunting for shallow 8" mids that can play down to 80. Thanks for any input!
I just bought a 2008 MX-5 Miata (NC1) for my wife. The tired factory Bose setup has got to go. I have some existing speakers from the last car that I could cut some adapters and drop into place, but have been pondering direct bolt-in solutions for not too much cash. My wife's ears aren't too picky, but I'd like whatever I put in to at least sound decent with a small sub to go in later backing it up.
Factory setup is a weird 5 channel configuration with a 3.5" center dash speaker, 3.5" as "rear" speakers between the seats, and a tweeter (I think 3.5" also) in the upper doors plus an 8" midrange in the lower door locations. The monoliths in the upcoming system install (not gonna change these) are a Kenwood Android Auto head unit with 2V outputs (DMX47S) and a Precision Power i640.5 amp that's sitting in the garage, rated at 60x4 + 200. Sub support will be from a Kicker 8" square shallow mount that'll be flushed into the passenger footwell with a slim box that I can hopefully build before the end of the year. It'll get wired to 2 ohms to pull 350w from the sub channel of that amp.
My intention is to remove/disconnect the center and rear speakers, and focus purely on the doors. I currently have a set of JBL GTO 8608C components that I thought sounded decent for the price in the last minivan. I contacted JBL and they said the crossover was set to 3.5kHz with a 12dB slope, so I'd just skip the crossover and run that directly from the head unit through the amp with the 60 watts available to each driver. To use this speaker set, I would just have to cut my own adapters to mount the 6x8 into the 8" hole. Maybe I could buy the non-Bose factory speaker mounts? Not sure.
So here's the question for you all- are there any shallow 8" mids that you would recommend at a cheap price point that would sound better than the JBL set I already have? I'm looking to spend $150-ish max for the whole mess. Given how shallow the doors are, it's difficult to find a suitable 8" midbass that can fit into the door and clear the window. I think I have right at 2.5 inches of depth. It seems like decent 8" mids that aren't $200+ each all went off the market 4-5 years ago. In my few searches, I've really found a bunch of no-name brands and then some offerings from Skar of all companies...
For what would fit into the door and play down low enough to mesh with a sub at an 80Hz-ish crossover point, the Skar NPX8 paired with the NDX-33 ST tweeter is the recommendation from the Skar tech guys, with a crossover point of 2kHz. I'm not even sure I have enough room to mount those tweeters. Price point for two mids a-la-carte and a pair of those tweets is right at $170 from Amazon. Is it worth it? I've never heard Skar hardware in person, but they seem to be pretty popular these days- even though the forums seem to hate Skar as a company.
Any suggestions on alternatives that would fit into a shallow Miata door? Should I just say screw it and bust out the circle jig to throw the existing JBLs into the doors and spend my two Benjamins on other things more worthwhile (like tires) for my wife's new fun car? My Google-fu seems to really stink these days hunting for shallow 8" mids that can play down to 80. Thanks for any input!
