Hey I got my Second tC a few weeks ago, and have been loving it almost as much as the first (nothing quite beats first love). I want to amp up the speaker system up a little, I'm a fan of bass and the mid range speakers aren't doing much for me currently. Are there any quality cheap speakers that anyone knows of? I'm not looking to shake bolts off the car, just enough for me to feel it. Any suggestions? I don't have a lot of money to spend on the speakers either, so the cheaper the better, but are there any suggestions?

 

Pawnshops are your friend, as someone that runs one we runs specials all the time and you can usually pick up some Kicker CVR's in a box for about 125 and a decent amp(name brand) to cap you off at about 200

 

Well, do you want more bass or more mids? There's two way different paths and price ranges for this. Door speakers should never try to emulate bass. Just subs. If you add 1 10" sub and tune the OEM speakers properly, your system should sound very balanced and acceptable. If you want more, pull out your wallet because cheap and quality don't go together in the car audio world.

 

Ill check around town see what i can find, I got some friends that can help me.

Probably a little bit more on the bass but I need the trunk space in the tC (which as we all know is not a whole lot without the seats down). So I cant put a box in. I have a friend thats selling two 12" subs pluss a box that came out of his Rabbit 2.5 for dirt cheap but filled his trunk up. Would it be possible to take the rear speakers out and put in some subs? Or is this all just a pipe-dream if I'm not willing to give up space.

 

Just a single 10" doesn't take up your whole trunk. Two twelves sounds a bit overkill based on what you said you want from your stereo. The acoustics of hiding subs behind the rear quarter panels would be pretty bad. Far too much effort for far too little gain. Snag up a small class D amp, a sealed 10" enclosure and the 10" sub of your choice. Tune it moderately and enjoy your balanced stereo system. (Stuff the box with fiberfill also).

 

If you hear enough bass now, and simply want to feel more of it, consider using a "bass shaker", such as this;
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=299-028
Mount one under each front seat, powered by a small 25 to 50wpc amp with low-pass filter, and you'll get an impact similar to a couple of 10" subs in the hatch.

 

Thanks! I hadn't thought of that but that sounds like a great alternative! Is there a mount under the seat or will it come with something that can be mounted to the seat?

 

There are a couple ways to mount them. Years ago is was common to mount them directly to the metal floor of the vehicle (cut out or move the carpet), so everything in contact with it vibrates (such as your feet, and the seats), and that's what the manufacturer suggests. However, many prefer to mount them only to the seats, as that seems to provide greater impact/feel, and isolates the vibration from other car body parts that might vibrate & generate noise.

For the first method, you simply drill mounting holes through the floorboards under the seats (after moving the carpet out of the way, and checking underneath to ensure you don't drill through a fuel/brake line, etc.), then just screw them down.

Mounting directly to the seats requires slightly more work, as you need something to attach them to. The fastest, easiest & least expensive way is to attach a piece of wood (0.75" thick plywood recommended) to the metal seat frame, then mount the shaker to the wood. This works great and many people have mounted them this way. The alternative would be to use a metal plate (like 0.25" thick mild steel, which would be VERY heavy) instead of wood, but it's not worth the trouble imo, as the performance doesn't improve that much over the wood alternative.

 

Alright, well if I were to go with a single 10" sub in the back is there a specific box that would work best? I figure they are all pretty much the same, but it can't hurt to ask. Right? On the box I'd prefer if the back was flat so I could push it flush against the back of the rear seats.

 

Components

Best bang for buck is pg rsd65cs
http://www.woofersetc.com/p-6952-rsd...er-system.aspx

Amp
crescendo audio 1000c4. You'll get 125 x 2 for the comps and 500 x 1 @ 4 ohms for the subs.
http://www.crescendoaudio.com/produc...roductid=17516

2 Polk audio mm shallow 8's. $89 each http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...-MM840DVC.html

You could go for 2 in a false floor. They need .35 per so .33 with polyfill should suffice. 20mm of xmax & a fs of 20hz so it will get loud and play deep. .66 cubes would also be real small.