Speakers For Better Sound Quality
 

So when ever I drive my FR-S, I get reminded on how poor the sound quality is from the factory system. I replaced all the speakers and HU in my daily driver (Yaris), so I know it's not a fair comparison...but with that said, I want to get better sound quality in the FR-S without replacing the HU or adding any amps. I'm thinking of starting with the dash speakers. So my question is, which of these two speakers would be a better choice for me? My music sources are mainly radio and USB with the occasional BT. I have a simple 8" Bazooka tube in the trunk to fill in some of the bass as well.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_108R40...fx.html?tp=105

or

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_108PER...0m.html?tp=105

From what I've read in this sub-section, the mounting depth should not exceed 2", which neither of these do. But I will have to cut off two of the mounting tabs on them. I also see that people have used both sizes as well.

I went with the below and IMO my system sounds great. I used the subaruaudio.net speaker adapters to mount these in the dash and doors. I would look into using an amplifier, I have a Soundstream RUB4.500 powering these, 4 x 75w @ 4 ohm:

Dayton Reference Series RS180 7" in doors
Dayton Reference Series RS75 3" in dash

Well, if I'm not mistaken the frs doesn't have tweeters right?
So I'll go with ones with the tweeters.

Also those Dayton woofers are great bang for the buck. I don't have them on my BRZ but I have them on my old MR2 and a pair for my garage.

Like how they're less than half the price of the Reference speakers, I'll have to keep those in mind. However, I do not want to run an amp, so if that's the only way those Daytons would sound good, then it would be out of the question.



The FR-S has tweeters in the dash, thought the BRZ did as well???

I might be off, but I do know that on my BRZ it has the 3" speaker and a 1" tweeter in the dash.

Not sure if the FRS has both, or lacks the 1" tweeter. I don't know some where I got missed informed.

I thought both cars had a tweeter and a mid in the dash, woofers in the door, and another mid in the rear with the only difference being how much wattage is being pushed to the speakers?????

I've spoken to them (pretty much said what I said in the first post), and they said 3.5" is too small without the use of brackets (but some people/sources say the factory speakers are 3.5").

These are a direct fit in the factory 3.5 bracket, with Minor trimming to remove the factory speaker, as it's glued in. They are very good, but don't have the best off axis response, so there might be better. That said, this is what I have in my car now.

https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...MaApb-EALw_wcB

Edit, in the picture is a test fit, I did screw them down before finishing

Thanks for letting me know it's pretty much a drop in.

Are you running them off just the HU?

I am not, however their power requirements are low enough that you could. I'm running them at 75w crossed at 250hz and 5000hz. Not ideal, but they work in this range pretty well.

that was meant for mr.ac regarding the speakers :lol:

I see. What other speakers have you replaced so far?


I knew that, ummmm, I was just testing you, yeah, that, testing. :lol:

I've treated this car a little like a toy, and replaced every speaker.. multiple times, and traded with friends, and gave things away, or sold them. Built up as money became available. I learned a lot along the way and blew a lot of money on incremental improvements, and playing around.


Right atm I have alpine SPR-60c woofers and tweeters, and the Dayton audio 4" ref running on CDT audio EX-30 passive crossovers.


however, I just bought a set of JL C5 653 off another forum member, and am excited to give them a try. I have the JL audio stealthbox with the 10TW3 in it, and its pretty awesome.

Wow, I thought about getting some Infinity 6.5" components, but the factory wiring sounds a little confusing and I don't want to mess anything up (funny how I'm willing and do mess with the Yaris wiring).

So are you running that Alpine tweeter in the factory tweeter location?

I like the stealth install look, so I have everything running in factory locations, which is certainly not ideal, and is why I mentioned the off axis response earlier. The factory locations fire pretty much straight up into the windshield.


The factory wiring is a bit confusing. I ended up dumping most of the factory wiring except for the doors, and ran new wires from the crossovers in the rear of the car to the dash for my current speakers.


If you are wanting to only replace the dash 3.5, you can run it full range with pretty much any of the speakers in this thread, as long as they are 4ohm, the factory wiring will put them in parallel with the tweeter in the dash and you'll end up with a 2ohm load on the head unit. The doors are powered separately off an amp in the rear of the car that takes the high level front signal and repeats it. you could also try to reuse the cap on the factory speaker, IIRC it is glued to the side of the housing. I don't recall its specs, but if you did this you'd have the same "crossover network" at the factory speaker did, just with a better speaker.

I really appreciate your help. What if I don't use the cap on those 4" Daytons you posted? Do you think it'll be overwhelming for the high frequencies (not that I like the factory tweeters reproduction or the highs).

:iono:


I'm honestly not sure, depends a little on the listener, some people like their highs super bright.. leads to listening fatigue though in me at least. You can pull the spec sheet from parts express, they drop off in response off axis around 4k to 5khz. Obviously with a cap they will drop off faster, and let the factor tweeter do the work. Ears are very sensitive to that range.


If you want a simpler install, you could buy a 3.5 coax set and replace both the factory 3.5 and tweeter at the same time. There are lots of options for these on sonic eltronix and crutchfield. Then in the future if you want to upgrade, you could rotate those to the rear.


Some note though, if you do this you might want to choose a higher sensitivity set as you'll be bumping from 2ohm to 3 or 4 depending on the speaker you choose. also the factory 3.5 wiring in daisy chained to the tweeter, so if you pull the tweeter you need to use some wire to bypass its harness, see this thread, its got a good picture of this


https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37386

I briefly saw that thread when I was researching. I'll go that route if I replace the door woofer and the tweeters. I'll see if replacing the 3.5 will be sufficient for me. =)

@Chimera, I think you weighed in and suggested the Daytons when I was deciding on parts around 4 years ago. Glad I went with the Dayton's, they sound great and are still kicking -- and the price is right.

@Chimera I see in a thread from a couple of years back you suggested JBL GTO 628's as door speaker replacements. That model is discontinued and their current ones (GTO 620, GX600C) are 2.5 and 2.3Ω...would you consider those acceptable for use with the factory amp?

Just to throw in my 2 cents .. of really no experience besides researching about speakers and stuff over night ..

Of the 2 you suggested I THINK this would be the better speaker.
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_108R40...fx.html?tp=105
I say this because it has better sensitivity (92 vs 88), lower impedance 3 vs 3.5 (stock is 2 in the doors, thus 3 will be louder than 3.5 but quieter than the stocks 2), wider frequency range 75-21k vs 150-10k Hz, and closer to stock (33 watts) RMS/peak watts 35/105 vs 75/300.

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This is what I would like to test out personally:
Dayton Audio DSN25F-4 1" [ https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...#lblProductQ&A ]
Dayton Audio ND90-4 3-1/2" [ https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--290-208 ]
Infinity Primus PR6512IS [ https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-PR65.../dp/B073QXD1XF ] - or - Infinity Reference 6522EX [ https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-REF-.../dp/B01FUZV7ZG ] ← 2.7 ohms vs 3 ohms .. don't know how much louder the 2.7 would be.
Kenwood KSC-SW11 [ https://www.amazon.com/Kenwood-KSC-S.../dp/B00BO8O9XQ ]

@Bonburner I'm actually using the 5.25" versions of the Reference in my Yaris running off only an Excelon HU (tuned the gains, placement, and distance of all speakers), which is why I'm considering them for the FR-S. The stock 3.5" speaker is a 4-ohm speaker, iirc, so the 3-ohm would definitely be louder than it.

But it seems like more people have experience with Daytons, so I will most likely go that route. I can always put them in the rear for rear fill duty should I replace them.

Hi, JL C-series is pretty fair but if you want to delve deeper into it, I'd recommend reading this: https://liamscar.com/best-car-speakers-for-bass/. It explains all the basics, also you might wanna compare prices.

i seriously recommend that you try any 6.5" woofer that lists a 'copper shorting ring' as part of the motor assembly. it dramatically cuts down on distortion, and it's a feature that i've never seen listed on car audio specific drivers.

i've specifically ran the peerless hds nomex, and the dayton esoteric series. both i run without a low pass crossover.