Gen II Audio Speakers

[Red Snake]

My GTS needed 2 rear speakers (both were blown). I replaced the stockers with a base Alpine 6 1/2" 2 way (SPS-600, I believe).
My door speakers sound pretty good. But the rears just don't have any punch at all. Can't even really hear them with the fader split evenly.

I am no stereo guru, so I am looking for some advice. I do not want to throw money at a whole new system. However, I would be willing to drop a couple of hundred to upgrade the speakers if it'll improve the sound.

How would these Polk audio speakers do in the rear of my GTS? This is a kit with 2 subs (6 1/2"), 2 crossovers and 2 tweeters. If I replace the cheap alpines with these will make a noticeable improvement in the sound quailty?

Polk Audio db6501 6-1/2" component speaker system Certified for marine use at Crutchfield.com

 

[dave6666]

I did all of mine with these:

Alpine Electronics of America, Inc. - SPR-17S

The rears slipped right in. Ditched the high freq driver in the rear of course.

The fronts took a little adapting. The sound is awesome both front and rear.

I also have a CDA-9885 head, with the OE amp.

 

[Red Snake]

Those look nice.

Do you think I'll hear an improvement with replacing just the rear speakers (with OEM headunit and amp)?

 

[dave6666]

Those look nice.

Do you think I'll hear an improvement with replacing just the rear speakers (OEM headunit and amp)?

That was actually the first thing I did. Found them like FUBR one day when doing some trunk cleaning.

The sound was improved for sure. BUT, I would say doing the fronts was much more of an impact, and Dynamatting my doors really brought out the bass. Worth the 1 lb 10 oz of extra weight on each door!

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

 

[Red Snake]

Thanks for the pics. I definitely need to do the dynamat too.

 

[triblk6spd]

How hard is it to get the door panel off? Is it easily breakable like some?

 

[dave6666]

Simple if you take all the screws out first. One pop fastener on the latch end of the door about mid way up. Pulls away easily. Door panel is very sturdy.

 

[Sweet Ride]

Red Snake: The 2 way Alpine's in the back may not sound that great due to being a multi-frequency speaker. They would be much better suited to the front doors. Due to the stereo design most of your low frequency sound is directed to the rear channels. If you had a single sub-woofer style driver it would sound better. You may also want to "test drive" some speakers at a local store before buying them online. Due to manufacturing processes, materials, etc. some speakers are more "bright" and some are more flat. Depending on the sound you are looking for you may or may not like the Polk's. Polk traditionaly delivers a bit more bass than other companies. I am currently looking at switching to the same setup that Dave6666 has.

The best thing you could do for cheap is to rpelace the stock deck. An aftermarket deck will (likely) push more power to everything and you will also have full equalizer adjustability rather than bass/treble +/-. You should hear a marked improvement with a new deck. I personally recommend Pioneer, Alpine, and Kenwood. (And/or their upscale counterparts Premier, Excelon, etc.)

I agree with Dave6666 on the Dynamat. It made a HUGE difference in my old car.

Dave6666: What did you use to cut the Dynamat? No matter what I used (scissors or a sharp x-acto knife) I couldn't get a nice cut. It became a huge mess after awhile.

 

[dave6666]

Dave6666: What did you use to cut the Dynamat? No matter what I used (scissors or a sharp x-acto knife) I couldn't get a nice cut. It became a huge mess after awhile.

Well, I used a good sharp pair of scissors. Them kind with the orange handles.

Your problem could have been adhesive build up on the scissors. Clean with acetone or Berryman carb cleaner periodically.

 

[Sweet Ride]

LOL!

Orange handles? That must have been the problem. I was using scissors with purple handles...

 

[dave6666]

LOL!

Orange handles? That must have been the problem. I was using scissors with purple handles...

Barney scissors no worky on Vipers.

 

[triblk6spd]

Red Snake: The 2 way Alpine's in the back may not sound that great due to being a multi-frequency speaker. They would be much better suited to the front doors. Due to the stereo design most of your low frequency sound is directed to the rear channels. If you had a single sub-woofer style driver it would sound better. You may also want to "test drive" some speakers at a local store before buying them online. Due to manufacturing processes, materials, etc. some speakers are more "bright" and some are more flat. Depending on the sound you are looking for you may or may not like the Polk's. Polk traditionaly delivers a bit more bass than other companies. I am currently looking at switching to the same setup that Dave6666 has.

The best thing you could do for cheap is to rpelace the stock deck. An aftermarket deck will (likely) push more power to everything and you will also have full equalizer adjustability rather than bass/treble +/-. You should hear a marked improvement with a new deck. I personally recommend Pioneer, Alpine, and Kenwood. (And/or their upscale counterparts Premier, Excelon, etc.)

I agree with Dave6666 on the Dynamat. It made a HUGE difference in my old car.

Dave6666: What did you use to cut the Dynamat? No matter what I used (scissors or a sharp x-acto knife) I couldn't get a nice cut. It became a huge mess after awhile.

Am I wrong or would changing the deck do nothing to get more power to the speakers due to the fact that it runs thru the amp. The amp provides power to all speakers correct? I may be off base here as I am no Viper expert.

 

[sirhc76]

I have the polks you listed in my front doors. I also have the db651s in the read deck and they sound great. I have an Infinity 475 running the front door components and the rear deck 6.5s.

I'm running an infinity 1600 mono block powering two ten inch infinity kappa perfect DVQs. The head unit is a Pioneer DEH6900UB that I have an 80gig portable hard drive connected to. I have about 30gigs of music that is very easy to locate.

Chris

 

[Red Snake]

I have the polks you listed in my front doors. I also have the db651s in the read deck and they sound great. I have an Infinity 475 running the front door components and the rear deck 6.5s.

I'm running an infinity 1600 mono block powering two ten inch infinity kappa perfect DVQs. The head unit is a Pioneer DEH6900UB that I have an 80gig portable hard drive connected to. I have about 30gigs of music that is very easy to locate.

Chris

I listed db6501s. They are subs with separate cross overs and tweeters. You're running those in your doors?

My door speakers sound pretty good. It's the rears that aren't performing. Maybe I'll look at the db651s for the doors if these work out good in the rear.

 

[sirhc76]

I listed db6501s. They are subs with separate cross overs and tweeters. You're running those in your doors?

My door speakers sound pretty good. It's the rears that aren't performing. Maybe I'll look at the db651s for the doors if these work out good in the rear.

Correct

I removed the factory front door speakers, both the 1 inch and the 6.5. I replaced these with with the DB6501s and mounted the crossover inside the door. I ran wire through the doors via the grommet. I pulled that along the sill and back through the bulkhead. The rears are the DB651s and are wired to the same amp. They actually put out a huge amount of base when mounted inside the fiberglass enclosure. I have several adjustment options on the amp as well as the HU. Word of advice, If you support your local shops buy them there. I was able to find them at half the normal price on eBay along with Amazon. Let me know if you have any questions.

Chris

 

[pdmracing]

I used the polk 6.75 in the rear, cerwin Vega 6.5 components in the door with the stock amp, clicking the little switch on the amp helped the rear frequency responce.
the CV are AWESOME for a cheap fix

 

[Sweet Ride]

Am I wrong or would changing the deck do nothing to get more power to the speakers due to the fact that it runs thru the amp. The amp provides power to all speakers correct? I may be off base here as I am no Viper expert.

That is correct. I forgot about the stock amp. My bad...

 

[Red Snake]

I used the polk 6.75 in the rear, cerwin Vega 6.5 components in the door with the stock amp, clicking the little switch on the amp helped the rear frequency responce.
the CV are AWESOME for a cheap fix

I (looked but) didn't see any switches on my amp. Where is the switch?

 

[Flash Gordon]

Red Snake: The 2 way Alpine's in the back may not sound that great due to being a multi-frequency speaker. They would be much better suited to the front doors. Due to the stereo design most of your low frequency sound is directed to the rear channels. If you had a single sub-woofer style driver it would sound better. You may also want to "test drive" some speakers at a local store before buying them online. Due to manufacturing processes, materials, etc. some speakers are more "bright" and some are more flat. Depending on the sound you are looking for you may or may not like the Polk's. Polk traditionaly delivers a bit more bass than other companies. I am currently looking at switching to the same setup that Dave6666 has. .

What he said....JL Audio has what you need...Direct drop in 6" subs in your OEM enclosures....

 

[hemibeep]

Is there room for larger than 6.5 in that rear enclosure? Perhaps 8" shallow woofers? I have a cabinet in the rear, and I want it to go away...thanks

 

[GeneralLee]

What he said....JL Audio has what you need...Direct drop in 6" subs in your OEM enclosures....

Yeah, I just got these, and they make a pretty good difference. Even with just the power from the stock amp through the stock rear speaker wiring, they sound pretty good.

 

[Sweet Ride]

Is there room for larger than 6.5 in that rear enclosure? Perhaps 8" shallow woofers? I have a cabinet in the rear, and I want it to go away...thanks

When I replaced my rears, there didn't look to be a whole lot of material that you could cut away to fit in an 8". Even if you could, I don't think it would be deep enough for a decent sounding 8.

If you have/had specs for an 8", a custom enclosure could be fabricated.

This whole stereo thing seems to be the hardest part to mod on the Viper. Limited space, no aftermarket speaker boxes, and not a whole lot out there without going totally cu$tom.

I also wonder if some of the stereo issues can be attributed to the stock amp. Has anyone replaced the stock set up with a decent 4 channel amp?

 

[Red Snake]

Excellent feedback here on this issue. Thanks!



And I just wanted to point out that there are some awesome looking Red Striped GTS's in this thread.

 

[banton]

LOL!

Orange handles? That must have been the problem. I was using scissors with purple handles...

Orange handles = Fiskars scissors

Fiskars have great scissors....at least that is what my wife told me

 

[Sweet Ride]

Excellent feedback here on this issue. Thanks!



And I just wanted to point out that there are some awesome looking Red Striped GTS's in this thread.

Agreed!!! Red/Black = Fastest and best looking

(Judging by this thread, soon to be best sounding stereos as well)

Orange handles = Fiskars scissors

Fiskars have great scissors....at least that is what my wife told me

I will have to give those a shot, as the scissors I was using were CRAP!

 

[GeneralLee]

Mine is Red/Gunmetal.....

 

[Sweet Ride]

Mine is Red/Gunmetal.....

That's ok... We will still include you in the Red/Black club. I hear cars with gunmetal stripes are down about 50 HP to black striped cars.

 

[RTTTTed]

My 98 GTS had Polk speakers with the rest all stock. Sounded great! Changed out the head unit to Jensen DVD CD head unit and there was no difference in sound quality.

Changed the stock speakers in my 01 GTS to Hertz speaker kits (HKS 165 and 165L) for about $400 and awesome sound quality (maybe better than the Polks) with the stock head and amp. Installed Premier Bluetooth head unit and no change in sound quality, although I can talk to my stereo/cell phone now.

Ted

 

[costanZo]

I just bought these things for my new car...

Boston G510-4 10" 450 Watts Car Audio Subwoofer : (2 of these)

Boston Pro60 6-1/2" 2-Way Car Audio Component Speaker System : (2 of these)

Alpine PDX-1.1000 1-Channel Car Audio Amplifier

Alpine PDX-4.150 4-Channel Car Audio Amplifier

Alpine iDA-X100 - Digital Media Receiver with 2.2" TFT full color display and iPod Connection

It's going to be a pretty sweet setup; but I was curious though. How are the stock speakers and deck in the Viper? I bought a 96 GTS so I'm assuming when it came out in 96 the whole speaker setup in the car was considered pretty good. But now being 12 years old I'm sure what I just bought blows the stock setup out of the water by far...

Also.. can having 2 subs or any subs at all shatter the glass on the rear hatch for the trunk when playing music loud? I've never had a trunk with a glass hatch; it's always been a covered trunk.

-Anthony

 

[Red Snake]

.............

It's going to be a pretty sweet setup; but I was curious though. How are the stock speakers and deck in the Viper? I bought a 96 GTS so I'm assuming when it came out in 96 the whole speaker setup in the car was considered pretty good. But now being 12 years old I'm sure what I just bought blows the stock setup out of the water by far...

Also.. can having 2 subs or any subs at all shatter the glass on the rear hatch for the trunk when playing music loud? I've never had a trunk with a glass hatch; it's always been a covered trunk.

-Anthony

The stock speakers pretty much ****. My rears were completely blown, so you might want to check yours out. I am trying to improve the sound by just replacing the speakers, but I am not yet sure how good the head unit and amp are.

You shouldn't have any problem with the rear glass, due to the subs. It will hold up fine.