Need small front speakers

I have a 1978 Mini Cooper and am in the process of adding a radio to it as it did not come with one from the factory. The interior of the car was packaged very efficiently which means there really is not much unused space to add a speakker. I was able to find a location for two 6x9s in the back under the rear seat, and snuck a head unit under the dash using a universal mounting kit, but at this point I have no front speakers, and do not have much room to add anything.

What are the smallest speakers out there that I can consider? I took a look at some 3 1/2" units but they seem a bit too large to fit. I could fit something more in the 1-2" range but all I see in that range are tweeters, not full range speakrs.

Does anyone make a 2" or under full range driver? I understand that it will have very poor low freq output, but by full range I mean 200 Hz and up.

How bad do you think it would sound if I only mounted a 1" tweeter in the front? Who's tweeters work to the lowest frequencies?

Thanks,
-Joe

No way in hell I could get a 5x7 up front and still be able to get in and out of the car. I am looking into fabricating something to allow a 3.5 or maybe a 4, but it will be intrusive...

I appreciate the ideas. A classic mini door is only a couple of inches thick, so there is no room at all when the window is down on models that have roll up windows like mine. There are people that build pods that stick out from the door into the cabin, but they interfere with your feet once you close the door. I am not against modifying the car, it is just very cramped quarters... I could probably sneak a 3 1/2 under the dash on the corners, without interfering with my seating position, but they would make entry and egress more difficult.

In the end, I know that small drivers will result in small sound, but there just is not much space available. Understanding that, what are the best choices for small drivers? Right now i have no front speakers so anything would be better....

DeLaw,

Thanks for the link. I saw these on the website you advised. Has anyone tried them, I am pretty sure I can sit pair of them on the flat part of the dash up front.

-Joe

I think I found enough space for a 4" speaker up front. I know that really isn't enough driver, but it is all i can fit. I am leaning towards a pioneer tsd1002. Any thoughts?

thanks,
joe

I am running low power, just the headunit.

I have not figured out if I can mount them in an enclosure yet, or if they will be free air. If I can make an enclosure, it will be _very_ low volume and I probably will not high pass filter the drivers as the low volume should help prevent over excursion.

I could fit a non polarized cap in series with the 4" drivers to help protect them from trying to reproduce too much bass if they are mounted free air. A singe cap is just a 6db / octave slope, what -3db freq, or uF value would you advise?

The icontv stuff looks pricey. I don't really have room for much of a speaker and my guess is it will sound relatively poor regardless of how much I spend so I am trying to limit the budget to under $100 or so for a 4" driver.

Thanks,
-Joe

Head unit is an older Pioneer aftermarket unit that does not have any crossover capability. I had it laying around and figured it would get some tunes in the car.

I was pretty much thinking the exact same thing regarding the enclosure. A piece of PCV pipe with an MDF front. I will probably only have 2 inches or so of pipe length hence the very low enclosure volume.

I have the 6x9s hooked up and they provide a surprising amount of bass reproduction. As a fluke, I hooked up two stock 3.5" BOSE speakers out of a junk car and although they were never intended to be full range (they were originally used with a larger woofer in door, and a sailpanel tweeter) the MINI sounds a _lot_ better with sound coming from the front. I think/hope a coaxial 4" driver might be pretty acceptable, though severely lacking in midbass...

-Joe

I like the Faiitels, but they were listed as 8 ohms. I know the head unit will have no problem with that from a stability perspective but I thought that might reduce the already limited power output from the head unit. Also it did not look like they came with grills so I would have to fab something up.

It sounds surprisingly good with just the bose twiddlers up front, but there is absolutely no midbass. I could try fabbing up a quicky enclosure to see if it helps, but I did not want to go through the hassle if I was just going to change speakers anyway...

keep the ideas coming I still have not bought anything...

I don't think I can fit the planer driver, but I will take some measurements. The planer unit did not look like it had much low freq response at all though... I am really trying to get as much low freq response as possible from a driver I can use full range for about $100 per pair or less that will work either free air, or in a tiny (0.3L - 0.6L) enclosure

Has anyone tried these I would have to buy or make grills, but they seemed to get good reviews, although most people did low pass them at about 5kHz. I guess I could mount them, a Xover, and a tweeter but space is really at a premium and I would prefer the 3-4" single driver solution. (The driver can be coaxial as that does not take additional space, which is why I liked the Pioneers) The Daytons are listed as full range, has anyone tried them in that configuration?

The speakers from the junk car prove that I need something up front. I don't think they are the right solution, but the experiment proved to me that having any speaker up front is _much_ better than having nothing. The junk car speakers also proved that more midbass response would be a good thing. When listening to Pink Floyd's "money" the stereo effect when the bags of change slam down in the beginning was dominated by the rears and that sounded odd...

Thinking of pulling the trigger on something soon. Right now I am still leaning towards the Pioneers, but the Daytons are very interesting. What I do not like about the Pioneers is they say they have a mounting diameter of 4 1/8" which will not fit in 4" sch40 pipe without some modifications...

-Joe

I just read the Q&A section on the Dayton speakers. Not advised for full range as the metal cone has resonance issues at 12 kHz...

I just ordered the Pioneer ts-d1002r 4" drivers. I know they are kinda consumer grade and are not really high end, but I think they will suit the bill. Getting any sound up front is going go be a big improvement over just the rear 6x9s. I need a small full range driver and I hope these will do.

-Joe

It is done.

I went with an older Pioneer headunit I had from a previous vehicle, Pioneed TS-d1002r 4" speakers mounted under the dash up front and Pioneer TS-d6902 6x9s under the rear seats.

I mounted the headunit under the dash with a universal mount, and attached the remote the the top of the dash with Velcro.

I made small enclosures out of 4" PVC sewer caps for the front speakers and epoxied them to a 3/4" plywood face that I bolted to the underside of the dash. I tried running them without the enclosures and they distorted at higher volumes / lower frequencies. I sealed the enclosures up tight and there is no distortion even though I am not running any high pass filters. The enclosures are about 0.5L so they are prettty small and control cone motion. They do not interfere with my legs when driving and are just a slight annoyance when getting in and out of the car.

The rears are mounted on a single piece of 3/4" plywood that I fitted under the rear seat and covered in vinyl.

So, how does it sound? OK. It is about 500% better than when I had no front speakers, but it would be better if the fronts were up a bit higher and had more midbass. Generally it sounds better than most modern cars factory audio, but it is nothing to write home about. The Pioneer 6x9s put out a VERY impressive amount of bass, but no one would confuse them for an amplified sub.

Overall I am happy with the results. I have decent sounding tunes that do not take up much precious interior space. Pics for those that are interested:

Fronts - You can see the pass side just under the dash and inboard of the rollbar. The drivers side is hard to see:


Rears:

I ended up squeezing a 4" Pioneer tsd1002 driver up front. You can see it in the first picture just to the left of the head unit. It does not make any bass, but it has much more range than a tweeter.

joe