How to cram a 6.5" with cast basket into your door *Pics*

[MarkIII4Me]

I'm using a set of Orion HCCA 6S components which utilized a cast basket (not stamped) 6 1/2" midbase and 1" tweeter.

Start with a pair of speaker brackets out of a 91 or 92 Supra. I went this route rather than fabbing my own pair since the factory bracket positions the speaker in the optimum position allowing both the midbass and tweeter's sound to escape through the 91+ speaker panels.



The first thing I noticed is that the midbase basket was hitting the factory bracket on both the left and right sides where it tapers in to fit the door.

I simply cut out the sides and a little of the back-plate to accommodate the midbase.

Then I noticed that the midbase clears the bracket, but now hits the door.

I went ahead and marked the door along the speaker ring and cut out all metal needed to make a nice fit.

Only the right side (on passenger door, left on driver side) needs cutting for the midbase to clear, but I went a head and shaved a little of the opposite side as well to help clear the speaker terminals. I applied a healthy dose of liquid sound deadener to the back of the doors around where the bracket mounts. I went especially heavy on the part of the door where it was cut since it became quite flimsy. I applied around 3/4" to that part.


Afterwards, I sanded the inside of the tweeter housing to allow for fitment of the 1" tweeter.

I used painters tape placed directly on the door around where the bracket mounts. Then mounted the bracket on the door and taped along the insideof the left and and right of the bracket. Then I sprayed some expanding window sealing foam along the outsides of the bracket.

After leaving the foam overnight. I removed the bracket from the door.

I trimmed the foam with an Exacto Knift

I then coated the outside of the foam with nonhardening modeling clay. I also used the around all edges for a tight seal both on the speaker ring and the back side of the bracket.

I reinstalled the bracket, put a light inside the door and looked along the outside of the bracket to look where light was coming through. Then I applied clay as needed along the inside of the bracket to make a tight seal.

 

[MarkIII4Me]

Walla! Monster speaker in the optimum position.

***I've since added #6 washers around the 4 screws that secure the speaker to the bracket since they were barely touching the speaker ring to begin with. ***

 

[suprajztwenty]

wow...looks like you had fun for a few days. i wouldve just made it out of metal.

my 6.5's mounted right to the door (i never bought those 6.5 enclosures) i just used self tapping screws and the sound quality is decent enough that ill leave em alone until next year when i get some down time on the car

 

[MarkIII4Me]

I've found that the clay does a great job in dampening the vibrations from such a large driver. These speakers are 2ohm and I'm going to be pushing 350rms to each side (they can take it). I like a lot of headroom in my soundstage.

The next step is to finish sealing off the doors and then I can finally put my doors panels on. :icon_bigg

 

[KevinM]

Nice job, I've always liked the HCCA series, one of the few with cast baskets and quality materials.

Kevin

 

[Anth505]

350 watts rms to each side?? lol. I'm sorry, but that just seems to be major overkill. Not too mention that 'if' your amp actually produces 350 watts rms per side and you listen to it at that level, (though the speakers will likely destruct themselves to the point of launching their cones into orbit first) kiss your hearing goodbye.

Otherwise. nice job. I would have done it differently, but still, nice job nonetheless.

 

[MarkIII4Me]

350 watts rms to each side?? lol. I'm sorry, but that just seems to be major overkill.

You must not be too familiar with these components. They love lots of power. They are identical to the Orion Concept components minus the fancy aluminum cones. Most speakers are damaged from being underpowered and clipping the amp to the point where it throws distortion at the drivers, heating up the voicecoil and melting the adhesive which results in separation of the cone from the spider. Not to mention this speaker is running infanite baffle and has a vented VC, so overheating should not be an issue in my application. Now, it is possible to blow a speaker by overpowering it, but I plan on keeping the amps gains relatively low. I won't be cranking it up, plus I'm pushing a clean 5v from the head unit and can even bump it up to 9v from the Orion 97.2 Concept EQ's balanced outputs.

Not too mention that 'if' your amp actually produces 350 watts rms per side and you listen to it at that level, (though the speakers will likely destruct themselves to the point of launching their cones into orbit first) kiss your hearing goodbye.

Harman Kardon TC600 easily puts out that power into a 2ohm stereo load. It's an obsolute MONSTER!!!

I don't plan on bursting my eardrums, but I'd like to be able to hear my music flying down the highway without the targa on, running a non-recirculated ddp and pushing 25+psi through my Turbonetics 62-1 Hi-Fi. That, and I want plenty of midbass to blend with these babies.

Running off this Audio Art 100HC which benches at 1398rms watts @.25 ohms

Otherwise. nice job. I would have done it differently, but still, nice job nonetheless.

I was originally planning on doing them in mdf, but I don't have the space or the cutting tools. Wasn't looking forward to all the dust either. Then I was going to form the brackets to the doors with fiberglass, but the foam just seemed so much easier.

For only using a dremel wheel and an X-acto knife, I consider it a pretty successful project :biglaugh:

 

[GrimJack]

350 watts rms to each side?? lol. I'm sorry, but that just seems to be major overkill. Not too mention that 'if' your amp actually produces 350 watts rms per side and you listen to it at that level, (though the speakers will likely destruct themselves to the point of launching their cones into orbit first) kiss your hearing goodbye.

Otherwise. nice job. I would have done it differently, but still, nice job nonetheless.

If you are running good quality components, as the OP is obviously doing, more power is better. He's rather unlikely to blow up those components, especially at normal listening levels.

Most speakers are damaged from being underpowered and clipping the amp to the point where it throws distortion at the drivers, heating up the voicecoil and melting the adhesive which results in separation of the cone from the spider.

Err... wat? Seems like you've combined the two common causes of speaker death...

Speakers are generally killed by one of two things. Amp clipping is one of these, however, this simply causes uncontrolled movement of the cone, and tends to destroy pretty much everything - separate the various bits, and as soon as that starts to happen, the magnetic force isn't exactly in/out, and as soon as stuff starts moving sideways in a speaker, it gets ugly fast.

The second cause is overpowering. If you push too much power through the voicecoil, it will heat up. In the case of blowing it, it'll heat up enough to vaporize the insulation off the wire, after which the coil shorts, and then you don't have a coil. No coil means no speaker, and therefore, no sound.

PS: Nice job on the construction. Did you seal the back of the tweeter mount? Worth doing, as the amount of air moved by that size cone can quickly separate the contents of your tweeters, otherwise. Not much effort involved, either.

 

[MarkIII4Me]

Grim, I see what you mean. I guess I did sort of mix those two causes of speaker death together. Thank you for the correction.


Also, the back of the tweeter is sealed since it sits on the outside of the bracket. Some air may squeeze through the small opening where I have the wires ran, but doubtful. I may just push a little clay in there just to be safe.

 

[Anth505]

Don't take me wrong. I agree it's much better to have reserve power on hand than not to have enough. I run 2 JL audio amps. 1 500/1 and 1 300/4. The subs are...I can't remember, but they sound good. The highs are Boston Acoustics 5.25 pro. I have good gear and 75 watts a side to all 4 speakers is way more than enough. My gains are set pretty low as well.

I understand that you are running good gear and that the orion speakers are likely much less sensitive than my Bostons, therefore requiring more power, but 350 watts a side is bonkers. :aigo:

 

[MarkIII4Me]

350 watts a side is bonkers. :aigo:

These babies are built to take it. I specifically matched my components to the amp. You should see their passive crossover. It's the size of a VHS tape :evil2:

Oh, and components sensitivity is realitively high at 91db

Specs:

1" Copolymer Dome Ferrofluid Cooled Tweeters
Tweeter Level Control With Off-Axis Response Correction
6.5" 2Ohm Vented Copolymer Core Midrange
Adjustable Midrange Phase Correction
Freq. response: 40Hz to 22kHz
Sensitivity 2.83 volt RMS pink noise measured at 1 meter: 91 dB
Impedance, nominal: 2 Ohms
Mid mounting depth: 2 7/16"

 

[Zach]

I'm a little jealous, you've got some nice old-school components I remember drooling over those orion components back when I had an HCCA 12 and HCCA 250G4 in the back of my accord hatchback

 

[Slow_Sc3]

those door's look amazing! I can't wait to hear what it sounds like.

 

[Pernilongo]

the sensitivity is rated differently by every manufacturer. the method is a very important variable. Some companies use these sensitivity numbers as a marketing and selling points. a speaker with sensitivity rated at 87db might require less power to sound just as loud as a speaker rated at 95db measured by a different method.

 

[WeDgE]

Speakers are generally killed by one of two things. Amp clipping is one of these, however, this simply causes uncontrolled movement of the cone, and tends to destroy pretty much everything - separate the various bits, and as soon as that starts to happen, the magnetic force isn't exactly in/out, and as soon as stuff starts moving sideways in a speaker, it gets ugly fast.

Mmm close, but not quite. "Clipping" is just as it sounds (it isn't "uncontrolled" movement of the speaker, though). When you "clip" an amplifier, you're basically chopping off the top part of a sine wave, creating a square wave. This can destroy a speaker because the voicecoil is essentially stopped from moving (usually at the top and bottom of the suspension stroke), and is fed a buttload of power (remember, it can't move to cool itself off). With a sine wave, the speaker is constantly moving, cooling off the voicecoil.

It is entirely possible to "blow" a speaker that has a much higher power rating than the amp powering it, if the amplifier is being "clipped".







Nice job, OP! I've always loved alot of midbass in my setups.

 

[MarkIII4Me]

the sensitivity is rated differently by every manufacturer. the method is a very important variable. Some companies use these sensitivity numbers as a marketing and selling points. a speaker with sensitivity rated at 87db might require less power to sound just as loud as a speaker rated at 95db measured by a different method.

I was actually surprised to see how specific Orion was with how they rated the sensitivity of these drivers.

"Sensitivity 2.83 volt RMS pink noise measured at 1 meter: 91 dB"

Then again, they were an $850 set back in the day, which was pretty high back then. Just goes to show what a great parent company A\D\S was. Damn do I miss them

 

[MarkIII4Me]

those door's look amazing! I can't wait to hear what it sounds like.

Matt, talk is cheap.

Get your ass back down here and help me finish! :biglaugh:

 

[Anth505]

the sensitivity is rated differently by every manufacturer. the method is a very important variable. Some companies use these sensitivity numbers as a marketing and selling points. a speaker with sensitivity rated at 87db might require less power to sound just as loud as a speaker rated at 95db measured by a different method.

Most speaker manufacturers use a set standard to measure speaker sensitivity. Also a speaker rated at 87 db will require more power to sound as loud as a speaker rated at 95 with the same given input.

 

[Zach]

I was actually surprised to see how specific Orion was with how they rated the sensitivity of these drivers.

"Sensitivity 2.83 volt RMS pink noise measured at 1 meter: 91 dB"

Then again, they were an $850 set back in the day, which was pretty high back then. Just goes to show what a great parent company A\D\S was. Damn do I miss them

Is A/D/S not around anymore? I've been drooling over a set of 3-way components for years, just no fundage and I'd rather buy a big turbo with that money

 

[Pernilongo]

Most speaker manufacturers use a set standard to measure speaker sensitivity. Also a speaker rated at 87 db will require more power to sound as loud as a speaker rated at 95 with the same given input.

If their sensitivity is measured by the same method.