Help ! - Dismal tech support ref tweeter sizes from JBL, Focal !

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jools999

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1st time audio upgrade for me - am fitting new front speakers to my Mk2 Ford Focus wagon - the originals are 6.5" dia components - keeping the original head unit for now and using 2mm silentcoat on outer & inner door skins.
My budget is up to $150 & wanted to keep original OEM tweeter location for min hassle. Have done plenty of reading inc Amazon reviews & came up with my own preferences but the online data didn't have key info - such as tweeter dia bare (if it can be removed from cover) and/or dia in supplied covers etc.
Contacted Harmon (for JBL) and Focal and can't believe how poor the support is - Harmon refused to tell me (or don't know ?!) who is responsible for the design & manf of their car speakers & pointed me to a European distributor who was equally useless. Focal won't reply (tried 3 times !). Phoned Crutchfield - at least they were helpful but as the data is not on the spec sheets they don't have it either.
So my best bet is a forum (hopefully this one !)
For JBL GT7-6c tweeters - anyone know the tweeter dia bare & in the supplied plastic cover ?
For Focal RSE165 tweeters - anyone know the tweeter dia bare and in the supplied cover ?
For JBL GTO-609C - anyone know the PCD of the mounting holes ?

If anyone wants to post their recommendations that would be great - I could see if the dimensions I want to find are actually available and thus maybe find some suitable speakers that are an easier fit.
Thanks to all
Jools
 

That should work for the 1st set you are looking for it has dimensions in it but won't have the pod info on it.



For the second set of JBL's this is on their us website.


35951







35952
 
I think he means dimensions after popping the tweeter out of the plastic housing to just glue it up into a factory location. It's not surprising that nobody you could get on the phone would know this as outside of R&D process who will know/care? It's basically asking the manufacturer "what are the dimensions of your product after I break it?"

I've done this before and just broken up all the plastic around the raw driver and used some glue. Not sure if I have any advice outside of just buy something cheap and start breaking the plastic away and hope it fits.
 
Thanks for the replies both.
I did find the docs you shared links to but they don't have the info I was hoping to find. The strange thing is that JBL & Focal docs clearly show that the tweeters are removeable from the covers (as they have a choice of which cover you can use) but don't give the bare tweeter dia - so (for these units) there's no need to "break" the tweeters out of the covers.
I can fit a max dia of 42 mm in the OEM location - and the tweeters that come with the JL C1-650c speakers look more likely to fit - any thoughts on how these would compare to the Focals or JBLs ? I just don't have the experience to make a confident choice on best speakers for the money - so all advice appreciated.
Cheers !
Jools
 
I looked at those sets at one time here in the US. I found that many people think those "low end" Focal tweeters sound too harsh.

Between the 3 I would do one of the JBL sets. The 2nd set you mentioned is the newer set out there from JBL/Harmon Kardon. If you can find a store over there has them to listen it might help or someone you know.

A lot depends on the music you listen to as well. And if you want to go active with the system via DSP or via the head unit by ditching the crossovers that come with them.

Mine is getting Steven MB-6s which are 6.5" midbass with the Alpine XT-25 tweeters and doing active with a DSP to get the most out of them.

Also hopefully you are using an amplifier as well. As a OEM head unit or aftermarket won't have enough power to really push those components properly.
 
Is there any physical audio store anywhere near you that stocks anything? Here in USA it would be really easy to find a shop within a reasonable drive that could just pull a box off a shelf and allow you to examine things for yourself.

Again, the issue is these component sets are designed and marketed around the premise that the end user will be using one of the factory designed mounting pieces. IF you are trying to do some custom fabrication you will find more DIY oriented drivers at partsexpress or madisound which would have more accurate dimensions published since these are build/sold with the assumption that the end user is going to custom fabricate their own mounting arrangements.
 
Again - thanks for the continued replies - unfortunately I live in the rural wilds of south west England and there's nowhere that's sensibly near that I could go to to open boxes. I have emailed some outlets in the UK but also had very poor responses from them.
I'm going to stick with the existing factory head unit for now - I'm replacing the front speakers because one of the originals woofers had failed and I wanted to do a nice job when replacing it.
I think one of things I'm struggling with is the really poor customer service & general "quality" this area seems to suffer from ? I've contacted JL audio several times thru' their online contact form with no response at all - the same from Focal and whilst I managed to get a response from Harmon they said they didn't deal with car audio - I said fine pls tell me who DOES deal with this part of your product group and they've ended up refusing ?!
I also purchased (the correct) aftermarket plastic speaker mounting brackets to allow me to fit 6.5" speakers to the car door and guess what - 3 of the 4 holes need filing (quite a bit) on both brackets to make them fit ! It's clear the holes are moulded in (they haven't been drilled afterwards) so the mould tool is wrong and yet the seller denies any issues !
The plastic speaker brackets seem quite flimsy & I read a lot of folks make their own adaptors out of MDF - I'd be grateful if you could advise me - would MDF make any discernible difference to the final audio quality compared to the aftermarket brackets in this situation (i.e. should I go to the bother of making my own) ?
I'm long time engineer in the Aero industry - and a geek in my own interest fields - I wanted to avoid the classic "science" project with this one (as I'm up to my armpits in an AC compressor project) and was hoping I could make this a simple & quick exercise by asking a few questions up front !
No wonder you guys have to be "enthusiasts" to get good results ?!
cheers !
Jools
 
Side note re: installing aftermarket tweeters in place of factory tweeters:
You're safer selecting a 3/4" or 19-20 mm tweeter as the external dimensions tend to be quite compact. Unfortunately this does not benefit sound quality if that tweeter needs to be paired with a 6.5" woofer.
 
Again - thanks for the continued replies - unfortunately I live in the rural wilds of south west England and there's nowhere that's sensibly near that I could go to to open boxes. I have emailed some outlets in the UK but also had very poor responses from them.
I'm going to stick with the existing factory head unit for now - I'm replacing the front speakers because one of the originals woofers had failed and I wanted to do a nice job when replacing it.
I think one of things I'm struggling with is the really poor customer service & general "quality" this area seems to suffer from ? I've contacted JL audio several times thru' their online contact form with no response at all - the same from Focal and whilst I managed to get a response from Harmon they said they didn't deal with car audio - I said fine pls tell me who DOES deal with this part of your product group and they've ended up refusing ?!
I also purchased (the correct) aftermarket plastic speaker mounting brackets to allow me to fit 6.5" speakers to the car door and guess what - 3 of the 4 holes need filing (quite a bit) on both brackets to make them fit ! It's clear the holes are moulded in (they haven't been drilled afterwards) so the mould tool is wrong and yet the seller denies any issues !
The plastic speaker brackets seem quite flimsy & I read a lot of folks make their own adaptors out of MDF - I'd be grateful if you could advise me - would MDF make any discernible difference to the final audio quality compared to the aftermarket brackets in this situation (i.e. should I go to the bother of making my own) ?
I'm long time engineer in the Aero industry - and a geek in my own interest fields - I wanted to avoid the classic "science" project with this one (as I'm up to my armpits in an AC compressor project) and was hoping I could make this a simple & quick exercise by asking a few questions up front !
No wonder you guys have to be "enthusiasts" to get good results ?!
cheers !
Jools
A lot of those "universal" ABS plastic adapters will require some trimming or light modification in some vehicles. A couple square feet of sound deadener should solve any troubles that are likely to come up as far as sealing and damping, though I've had reasonable luck with those and also building my own out of MDF, plywood, or whatever I have laying around extra.

I haven't tried to contact Harmon International in ages but they were helpful (about 10 years back). I did try to email Focal a year or so ago and also got no reply. I think a lot of these companies who sell through wholesalers who supply retailers are just so far removed from the customers they just aren't set up to deal with anybody in between.

I don't know if it helps you but I did have great luck contacting Alpine with some questions about a new head unit before I bought it. Their tech seemed to really know his stuff. Might get somewhere with them if you can source Alpine over in the UK and they're probably double the price of the JBL set you're looking into but the Alpine Type R is a pretty solid component set.
 
Thanks for the suggestions - the Alpine type R 6.5" component set are more than I want to spend at around $225. I looked at the cheaper Alpine set (S-S65c) which are at the top of my budget but the sensitivity is only 88 db/w which I understand from reading online is a bit low if I run them from my OE Ford head unit (which is the plan for now) - I was looking for around 90/91 db/w - is that right ?
You're more forgiving than me about the plastic brackets ! They are defo the right ones for this car & yet I need to enlarge the holes to the point where 'I'll almost break thru' the edge of the bracket - seems to me just another example of "can't be bothered to get something right" mentality that I seem to see so often !
 
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