These Speakers Will Fit Your Vehicle
October 1st, 2009After You Put Them in a Hydraulic Press
Okay, I just found out what “it fits” means to the folks at Crutchfield. It means the product you bought can be installed in your vehicle without using a plasma cutter, in a professional manner worthy of Jethro Bodine.
I got the speakers today, and I figured I’d put them in, since they would be easy. WRONG. For reasons too boring and complicated to mention, they were not right for my existing screw patterns. The adapters Crutchfield supplied worked for the front doors, but not the back. The Crutchfield guy I talked to said they didn’t actually look at the speakers when they decided whether they fit. They just go by outer dimensions. Swell.
It turned out Alpine supplied some adapters in the bottom of the box. They worked fine with the front speakers, and after modifying one with the milling machine–no joke–they can be used in the back. I now have two speakers installed, but no tweeters. They didn’t bother explaining that the tweeters were separate. I have to buy a 2″ hole saw and cut holes in the inner panels of my doors.
There are things in the box that must be crossovers. I assume it goes receiver-speaker-crossover-tweeter. If not, there will be explosions and fun.
What does installation cost? Sixty bucks? What a bargain. Seems that way now, anyhow.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:11 PM
Sure, installation would be a bargain, but no adventure.
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:37 AM
It’s my experience that an adventure is almost always the result of either no or incompetent planning.
Gerry N.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:16 AM
Remember what Bilbo said about adventures.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 AM
What’s wrong with another excuse to by new tools?
Buy the whole (hole?) set in the plastic case from Home Depot.
Two arbors and 9 saws :
http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hardware-Power-Tool-Accessories-Drill-Bits/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xr5Zb8mz/R-100618859/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
I have a smaller Dewalt set that’s excellent.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 AM
I usually pay to have the “professionals” do the work because when I factor in the value of my time, the 17 trips to the hardware store (gas and tools bought) and the co-pay for the trip to the ER, the “pros” run about 1/10th or less the cost of doing it myself.
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 AM
How to hook up the crossover depends on which type of crossover you have. There’s bound to be a connection diagram somewhere in the stuff you got.
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The commonest sort for car stereo, because it’s the cheapest, is parallel passive. It has one input and two outputs. The input connects to the amplifier. One output connects to the woofer(s), the other to the high-range speaker(s).
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If it’s really cheap, it may not be a “crossover” at all. The subwoofer craze has resulted in a few so-called crossovers that are really just filters, to either block or short out the high frequencies that would make the woofer rattle. They’re so cheap that they are normally built into all but the cheapest amps, instead of being separate components, but if that’s what you have it goes between the amp and the woofer(s), with the high-range speakers connected directly to the amplifier.
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The same kind of faux crossover is sometimes used to drive genuine high-frequency tweeters, which are as useful in an automobile as feet on a fish. You can tell the difference by the size of the components. If the coil’s the size of an aspirin bottle and the capacitors as big as your thumb, it’s for the low range; if the components are relatively small it’s for the highs, but you would have to have either two of them or one with two independent sections, because high frequencies are highly directional.
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Regards,
Ric