I've done a bit of looking about but can't decide what route to go down to put a rear speaker on the shelf behind the back seat of the car. Radio is still the tube set so a massive 5.5 Watts into 6 Ohms. I've got a Front/Both/Rear switch on it so being able to put a slightly better speaker in the back would be nice. What were the options in the early to mid fifties? Thanks Phil
I would think the in-dash speaker behind a metal grille would have been about it back then. Whatever you do in the rear will probably not be period correct, but with some thought it could be made to look right.
I was trying to avoid cutting holes in the panel. I might have one of those metal grilles somewhere though, dating back to the late fifties.
What kind of car is it? A lot of cars already have cutouts in the rear shelf that are sized just right for speakers. But even if it doesn't it would be easy enough to cut holes and then cover the shelf with thin fabric so the speaker is invisible.
'51 Pontiac sedan so plenty of room on the back shelf. No cutout though. I have an original speaker, but it is optimized for AM with a very narrow bandwidth and a heavy power peak at about 1000-1500Hz. Gives it that "tinny radio" sound. The amplifier in the radio is a very high quality class A push-pull , connected to a good loudspeaker it rivals any modern radio. So, if I can hide a better loudspeaker, that would be good, I guess. Phil
We used a single center 6x9” in the back of our moms 56 Ford with a fader knob under the dash. My brother and I did in 1960. I don’t believe I ever saw a “loud” speaker mounted inside a car. Back in the 50’s I remember a few mounted on roofs at election time. Usually they had 4.. one in every direction.
I think I may put a decent loudspeaker under the parcel shelf and make up a new rear window pad to cover it up. Also, speaker refers to a person talking, a loudspeaker is an electrical or mechanical device used to reproduce sound to be heard at a distance. Per Webster's. </pedantry>
I was trying to figure out how to fit Nancy Pelosi on the shelf and why you would want to. You’d still have that tinny sound your trying to avoid.
I think I know what I'm going to do. Rather than drill a hole in the back, I think I'm going to make a piece that sits in the space of the shelf from wood, with a raised section in the middle which echoes the waterfall down the back of the car, that can house a nice little 5x7 speaker I have, and have dual purpose to hide a high level brake light that'll shine out the rear window. Phil
I don't know if this appeals to you, or if you can do it with your current radio, but I have a Bose blue-tooth compatible stand-alone speaker that has great sound quality. They can also be connected with a small auxiliary coed. They are under $100.
I took the original radio for the car and added a board inside which has a relay on. Disconnected, the audio from the AM radio is fed to the amplifier of the radio; Bluetooth, it clicks over and the output from the is fed to the amplifier. Thus, the output audio quality is solely dependent upon the loudspeaker. The original one in the radio... Well, it works, but it is optimized for AM radio (bandwidth limited audio to 4kHz, with anything below 500Hz removed in the filter to remove a lot of hum) but the power amplifier section has flat frequency response from about 12Hz all the way to nearly 30kHz and is really very high quality. It's the same basic design Fender used for decades in their guitar amps. I'm limited for space inside the original radio, hence the original loudspeaker. An external one would expand the radio well. Phil
Um.....uh.....er..... well, yeah, I got it.....? (all I know about radios is that you turn this knob to find noise, and that knob to make noise louder).... So..... how about them Yankees? Well, gotta go now. Good luck! (Whew, I barely got out of that without looking like a dumbass!) LOL
That's okay, I think I managed to injure myself with my pocket protector. I'm late for my Latin class!
A little bit of CAD (Cardboard Aided Design). Created a template for the shelf. Copied that across onto wood. I've cut that out, and sliced it partway up at an angle because the metal kicks up towards the window. Need to get or make some brackets to hold that together now. Too hot to carry on outside in the car today, it's like an oven at midday. Phil
Sanded down the rough edges, made a nice little kick-up at the back to match the sheet metal. Covered it with cotton backing, to make a soft touch. Ironed the nice blue broadcloth. Glued it on, and stapled the back down. Test fit. Happy with that. Speaker box next. Phil
I'm trying to figure if I want to break it up with vinyl for the speaker box, or just use the same blue fabric.
New parcel shelf in place and seat locked in. Mk1 6x9 loudspeaker complete failure. Back to the drawing board.
I was going to add a second layer of wood to this and have two sunken sections on the left and right, but decided against it as it would have made the shelf too thick. I could very easily sink a couple speakers underneath, cut through and have just the blue fabric over the aperture, but that depends upon cutting the sheet metal, which is something I was wanting to avoid doing (mostly because it's a messy, pain in the behind task). Phil
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_109CL620F/JBL-Club-620F.html There are a bunch of shallow ones on their site. These claim to be 1 15/16” deep.
I have a 5x7 too, might try that first. Also, design in cardboard first, like the shelf was. That worked...!
Don't know if your looking for originality but if you use your phone for music , there are some kickin Bluetooth portables available , small but loud . Put in corners & crank.
It is a thought, but the radio in the car performs that function already; it just needs a better loudspeaker.
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