Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandanK
Matt,
I'm looking to do only drop in speakers.
it looks like that was your first step of your overhaul, but I'm not quite sure I understand what you did to factory "crossover". My car audio knowledge is shallow.
Brandan
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Okay, so the factory "crossover" is literally just a high-pass capacitor on the dash speakers. The door speakers get a full-range signal, and the dash speakers get everything above the high-pass frequency.
IIRC, the capacitor was 68uf. That would make it pass frequencies above 600-700hz, which is probably the lower limit of the stock 2.5" speakers. It is recommended that for any drop-in replacement, you keep some form of high-pass filter in the path to the dash speakers, because the high-energy in some low frequency music could damage them. I have seen people go without, and just send the full-range front signal to both the door and dash speakers, but you do so at your own risk.
When I did the drop-in speaker replacement (i.e. before I added the Kicker KEY amp with its built-in active crossovers), I cut the stock wire harness connectors off the stock dash speakers so I didn't have to cut the speaker wires (I knew I wasn't going to reuse the stock drivers). I also cut the high-pass capacitors off the stock speakers and added it to the factory connectors, and I connected all of that to the new Audiofrog GS25s. That I way, I could plug and play the GS25s into the factory location and harness. This is what I ended up with:
The female spades attach to the new speaker's terminals, and the factory connector block attaches to the factory speaker wires coming up through the dash.
However, if I were doing that again, I would use a bigger-capacity cap so I could lower the high-pass frequency to 200hz. The GS25s are good to that frequency and AF recommends that crossover frequency for them. I think I looked it up and figured that for a 4ohm speaker (which the GS25s are), a 200uF cap would get me where I wanted to be. That would have helped them integrate better with the door speakers. To so this properly, you need to find out the low-end frequency rating for the new speaker you're putting in and choose a capacitor accordingly.