Diy suggestions for jeep.

I have a 95 jeep wrangler that I'll be driving soon. The problem is, it only has a pair of 4" x 6" speakers, and they sound terrible. I can't even hear any music over the sound of the offroad tires and wind, plus tons of distortion. I looked into getting a decent pair of replacements (less than $150 pair), but even some good ones disappear under like 100hz. I don't need booming rap bass, I just want to be able to hear a bass drum.

I already have a 2 channel 300 watt rms rockford amp sitting around, collecting dust. So I thought maybe I could take one of curt's bookshelf designs, and combine it into one box (2 channels) and lay it on the floor behind the back seat. That way I could still use the storage space by putting groceries or whatever right on top of it. I'm sure facing the speakers towards the backseat will have some negative effects, but I'm now sure how bad they will be. I basically need something loud and cheap so we can hear it over the road noise, with decent sized woofers.

So if I understand correctly, I should be able to to take one of curt's designs for one bookshelf speaker, and just double the inside volume of the speaker. I'm also assuming that the shape of the box shouldn't matter, just as long as I retain the correct inner volume. That would be nice, that way I could get a perfect fit of the tiny amount of space back there.

In short, does anyone have a suggestion for a speaker design that would play kind of loud to overcome the road noise? And will combining two speakers plus changing the shape of the box have any negative effects?

Thanks in advance for helping me again ladies and gents, my 15" dayton HF you helped me with sounds great in the living room

Edit: After looking around cut's site, it looks like the sten II's would be perfect, and they match the 4 ohms of the car amp. I'm still open to suggestions on other speaker designs though.
Edited by doodoobutter - 7/21/12 at 12:56pm

Theft did occur to me too. I plan on mounting the amp to the bottom of the seat. If they know where it is and really want it, they will have to remove the seat. I also figured that would be a good place for the chance of rain when the top is off.

As for the speaker, I haven't really thought of any good ideas other than just bolting the hell out of it. I plan on taking the faceplate off of the deck everytime I get home though.

As for the ammo compartment, I'll have to check that out when I get it out of the shop, that's an awesome suggestion.

I saw people posting pics of cool ways that they installed subwoofers into the bottom of the back seats, but I'm not really interested in extreme bass. Could be something to think about in the future, maybe just a little 8" subwoofer to help with the low end a little. If I go with the "2 sten II's in one" box, it will cost me around $150 US, so if there is a theft, it wouldn't be a huge setback. I can also look into my car insurance and see what they have to offer for theft. My buddy had his laptop stolen from his car in his driveway, and his renters insurance actually covered it!

The amp has been sitting for about 5 years, so it doesn't really count towards the budget. I tried to sell it, but people kept low-balling me. Since it doesn't take up much space to store it, I decided to keep it for a future project since I didn't really need to get rid of it. Glad I held onto it

But I''m really not concerned about that, since it will be bolted to the bottom of the passenger seat. Hopefully no one tries to unbolt the "double bookshelf" speaker bar, I'm not sure how well that will stick around. We've have been thinking about getting a dog anyway because of increased crime and theft in the area as a deterrent. Well and because I want a dog now that we have a house with a yard. I think an english bulldog laying in the driveway will deter thieves.

BTW, if you have any experience with diy speakers, does this sound like it will work? I don't have much experience in speaker building, so do you know if combining two bookshelf speakers into one long enclosure will work? I've only built subwoofer enclosures at this point, very straight forward. Speakers seem almost as easy, just a matter of cutting wood and following directions with the crossovers and what-not.

Edit: I hear you on the destruction to avoid enemy use. I was in the army, and if anything had to be left behind because of emergency circumstances, it was to be destroyed. I think they told us to just destroy everything just to be sure. I never had to, but I remember in training, if you had to leave a disabled vehicle behind in a combat zone, you had the go-ahead to just blow it to hell. Wish I could say I got to do it.

For some reason it never occurred to me that putting 2 separate channels into one box wouldn't work, because they will be playing different sounds at different times. This would have a bad effect on the proper pressure inside the box. So I will be putting a divider between the two for the custom "sound bar". I'm still unsure if I'm aloud to change the shape of the box, as long as I keep the same internal volume though.

Somewhatlost says:

"those are all good ideas for a 'normal' build...
but this is going into a soft top jeep... in my (and possibly others) experience, the end result wont matter much because Jeeps have a weird way of messing with sound... accuracy is out the window so to speak, the flattest speakers in the world will end up with a freq response so bumpy you will be glad the jeep is a 4x4....
so in general your best bet is just going with enough volume so you can at least hear whatever freqs are left, and not worrying about too many rules..."

This is what I'm going for. Beer party, thanks for the general rules guide. As long as 2 of them in a row can fit across the floor behind the backseat, I will probably not mess with the dimensions. As for what Somewhatlost says, that has been my thinking going into this. Normally in the house I would sacrifice almost any attribute for quality, but in this case, quality is low on the priority list. I need spl. I could spend $1000 for some sick speakers, but when you add the sound of wind, the loud hum of the oversized offroad tires, and the very audible engine, it would be a waste of money. The only time quality speakers would get to shine is if I were sitting in the driveway with the engine off.

So basically I'm looking for high, distortion free spl. That's why I chose the sten II's. But like I said before, I'm still open to suggestions on a cheap, high volume speaker design. Although I do appreciate suggestions on maintaining some sound quality too, so thank you for the responses.

"The write up on Curt's site for the Sten II's indicate they don't work well placed on their sides."

I did read that, but I doubt I'd hear the difference of the speaker orientation when I'm barreling through the woods and blasting some primus :P

Here's a pic to give you an idea of the tire noise on pavement. Your average car deck is around 20 watts per channel, 4 speakers. The factory deck has to be putting out maybe 10 watts to 2 speakers, which are on the dash directly facing you. To hear music while on the highway, you have to crank it, and it sounds like a 20kbs mp3. The thd must be something ridiculous. I'm no audio expert, but when I was ignorant to sound equipment, I had one of those sony htib which had a 10% thd, and the distortion was nowhere near this. This deck and speakers are beat... can't wait to start this project

Thanks for all of the input, I'll be going with the sten II's in a single enclosure, with a barrier separating the channels. I'll revive this with some pics when we get around to the project.

Well this project was put on hold due to ankle surgery. I just put a fuel pump in it and ran new break lines and it's running (and stopping) again like nothing ever happened so I'm reviving this thread. I realized this setup will be seeing some water, so I found this amp.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=267-7038

I know that pyle usually means pyle of s***, but do you think this thing really puts out 70 watts x2? If so it's a steal, and waterproof. I figured I could build the sten II's and run the speaker wires right into the wood with some hot glue to waterproof it, and spray the stenn enclosures with some kind of waterproof paint or something.

My main concern here is the crossover. I'm not sure how they are setup, but most of curt's designs have the crossover exposed. I'm also not sure how much heat they produce, so can I mount the crossover inside the enclosure? It's likely that I'll be pushing them to their limits during highway and offroad driving to hear them, so heat may be a problem.

I'm also planning on bolting the enclosures to the floor and using pl to seal the drivers into the enclosure after they have been bolted to the floor so they don't get stolen.

Woops didn't notice anyone responded.

This is true. I've never bought pyle before because I know what it is, but at the same time I'm looking to buy something that I don't mind getting stolen. Your jeep sounds nice , ours was bought for one reason, to beat the hell out of it. I do my own mechanical work so it's not too expensive of a hobby, and I didn't want to buy a nice jeep to beat on it and fix it all the time. Also, like I said, I'll be bolting the amp to the bottom of the driver seat, and the sten II's will be bolted to the floor. I'll make sure to keep them unfinished so they look less appetizing.

I like that amp, and I'm sad to see that Aura is done. After this sten II project for the jeep I was thinking of a stentorian project for the house at some point, hopefully the drivers are around long enough. As for bass, here is my plan for eq with sten II's... set the hpf to 50hz, and bump the bass all the way up on the aftermarket HU. I don't want to add a sub because we use this for camping and need all of the space.

So I hope to get to this soon, me and my brother just installed a 4 speakers, an amp, and a hu in my camry yesterday because I couldn't stand the sound of it. It was 20F and windy, had to take breaks to warm up every 10 minutes. Today it was 2F... as soon as it gets above 20F Im starting on this and I'll post pics, thanks for the suggestion on the aura amp.

Turns out I had an old 2 channel rockford amp in the basement that does 75rms x 2 into 4ohms, sweet. Think that's too much for the sten II's?
Edited by doodoobutter - 1/24/13 at 8:13am