Dilemma: Tunes in your car??? Stereo mounting options needed.

I'm usually one for letting the sweet sound of the engine or the road be my stereo. In the roadster, its all wind noise anyway.

Now I've build a stationwagon cruiser for the family, and I'd like to play some music as we roll to shows. Ideally, it would be nice to plug an iPod into something discreet, and have speakers that are out of sight- I don't want to cut up my door panels to mount ugly mesh 6X9 grills. My kick panels have fresh air intakes (57 Pontiac), so those are out.

1. Where do you guys hide your speakers in the car without cutting it up?

2. Anybody just tote an MP3 boom box along, and how does that sound? Recommendations?

3. If I want to plug an iPod in for music, does it need to go through a stereo head before the speakers?

Thanks for your advice!

jay

 

nope.

but it will need to go through an amp with a high level input if you use the headphone output. If you have a cable that attaches to the bottom of the iPod the line level output can go right to the amp to the normal inputs.

 

I saw an ad that allows you to play an ipod through your am radio.

 

You heard my MP3 boombox. Plenty loud and good sound.

There's always the iPod straight to a pre-amp to amp to speaker setup (ask Sean). Speaker placement is the real problem. That's why I went with the boombox.

 

any high end stereo shops in your area? They might have some ideas you havent considered.

For ease of play I'd think the Ipod (if you have one already) and a 4 channel amp. I know Ryan, Django and others have run this setup.

Does your dash have a speaker grille in it? Maybe a single in the center. Maybe two 3.5 speakers firing up and then 2 6X9s in the rear?

I'd really have to see how the car is laid out. But it can be done.

If you don't want to cut... you can do the boom box deal. I used a small portable speaker/amp setup that folds up into a 3" square. Sounded pretty good in my Hellcamino.

 

You might be able to get a factory looking radio that has been rebuilt with an iPod jack already set to go. I'm getting a factory looking stereo for my '56 Chevy pickup that has digital tuning, I can hook up my CD changer and plug ij my iPod... Maybe on of the Pontiac parts houses offer these...LMC truck is where I'm getting mone.

 

Post some interior pics.

Does the Safari have a panel in the floor that lifts up?

 

"Creepyjackalope" has a cool setup in his wagon...PM him for the details..but he hid the amp and speaker in a old wooden beer box that way if he doesen't want it in there he can remove it.

Blake

 

Ah, thanks sweetie...

My set up is simple and Easy.... One amp, one Ipod, 2 6X9's and an amp wiring kit. I got the details on how to do it from "50 Ford 1963" here on the HAMB. PM me if you want the details and I can forward them to ya..... In a wagon you can get creative and do it in an old suitcase, beer crate, cooler or whatever so it does not look like a speaker box. Want front and rear sound, use the center dash speaker for a front channel. I kept the factory AM wired to my dash speaker so I got business in the front and party in the back. Like my hair.

 

A friend of mine has this exact setup in his 53 Chev pickup. I can't seem to remember exactly WHERE he go it. Fairly pricey but it totally looks stock. And brand new!

I also saw a 57 Chevy that had a modern stereo hidden under the center speaker grill. Looked pretty cool. I'm planning on doing the same to my 58 starchief.

 

Where did the factory put the oem speaker? Put a pair of small ones there.

You can probably hide another small pair under the front seat.

Don't you have the whole cargo area as well? Surely you can come up with a vintage looking speaker grille solution to mount something back there

good luck

 

I do have a huge speaker mounted on the trans hump:



I could hide a stereo head anywhere, but mounting more speakers without cutting holes was the issue-- I kinda like the hiding them in a suitcase or cooler idea.

Side question-- Does it hurt the the speaker (or the sound) to let the magnet attach to the metal inside the car?

 

Good advice!

Post some pics of your set up (and your mullet) if you get a chance...

 

under the seats, i did it in my caddy and it sounded great. all was hidden too.

 

Im faced with the same situation in our 54 bel air but I planned to mount a new stereo in the glove box and use a remote, I heard sony makes some that will work through the steel glove box door, then hide some mids and put the bass in the trunk

 

Jack--

Did you mount the speakers in a low-profile box? Facing forward I'm guessing?
6 x 9's?

 

Jay-- how about mounting a mid-range/tweeter combo in the kick panels, then, instead of using grilles, perforate the upholstry material that's directly over the cones. It's kinda billet-y, but the holes pretty much disappear up there. Not exactly studio sound for your rear seat passengers, but who's going to spend the most time in the car?

 

Yes - it makes the magnet weaker very quickly. Speaker will quickly sound 'flat', loss of sonic range, lower volume. (vibration in a car = moving magnet on non-magnet steel = weird magnetic forces, helps degauss the magnet = bad sound). Put as much space as you can between the metal and the magnet if you want the speaker to last.

On the speakers - I've considered several / many small (3") thin speakers hidden in the headliner, up by your ears. Never made it work, but that was the headliner's fault (not enough space).

 

That seat is huge! You should be able to easily hide a 8" sub under there.... to keep the magent from the metal floor, you can face the speaker down and put a inch gap between it and the floor. The Amp needed to push a 8 is pretty small, and could be hidden also easily. Honestly, you need to go to a Pro, (if even just to get advice) they will know that amount of air needed for the sub. From what I understand, you can put a subwoofer pretty much anywhere as the human ear cannot really tell where bass is coming from. An 8 inch Sub is usually enough for most any car to have a good thump inside while listening, yet not rattle the whole car and sound like a 80s minitruck on the outside. Add a couple of mid ranges powered by either a deck or a small Amp if you go the ipod route and I think youd be happy with it and not have a huge box desigued as something else taking up space.

 

I managed to fit some custom speaker boxes up under the dash in my Merc using circular 6" mid range/tweeter speakers. I made the boxes of steel to fit in the available space to left of the steering column on one side, and below/behind the glove box on the other side. I stuffed the boxes with wadding to make them seem larger to the speaker. These are driven from a head unit that is under the passenger side of the bench seat. I also mounted a 10" woofer behind the back seat (the car is a 'vert so there is a bit of space back there where the pump for the top lives). The woofer is mounted into a "box" made from MDF - on sheet blocks off the boot, the other spans across between the wheel arches. There is an amp for the woofer in the boot.

Sound is OK to me, definitely better than the AM dash radio, and the only new hole was for the power cable to the amp.

I even used one of those powered hidden antennas under the seat so I didn't have to drop the A/C unit (a bitch of a job) to access the existing antenna cable.

 

In case you'd like to hide wires to the doors:


http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=234908


They look like the same hinges as used in 55.

 

In my chevy, I mounted mine in the glovebox by flipping an underdash mount upside down and trimming a little off the back to make it fit...

 

this may not suit your car because it's a wagon.
i mounted 2 sony 6x9's in the rear package shelf in my 55 pontiac. i made my own package shelf out of stiff cardboard. i cut speaker holes in the cardboard and covered it with really , really thin material. the speakers are totally hidden and sound great. if you hold the material up to a light you can see right through it, but you can't see through it once it's laying in the rear window. for the stereo, i made a plate and mounted it in the glovebox (i still have the original am radio in the dash).
for front speakers, i bought 2 tiny tweeters that are surface mounted. they are stuck sort of under the dash hidden out of sight. these can be flush mounted with good strong double sided tape. my stereo is an older alpine cassette player, but i use a portable c.d player, and an ipod connected to a casette tape adaptor though the earphone jack. it sounds great, and everything is hidden.
i know yours is a wagon and you don't have a rear package shelf.

 

In the 62, I replaced the old stock speaker in the dash and the AM radio still works, as long as I give it enough time to heat up.
In addition I have a set of rechargeable amplified ipod dock speakers with a remote and case.
Sound is incredible for their size, and very loud, and I have over 3000 songs to choose from.
Set up a playlist or shuffle and it will play for hours exactly the stuff you want to hear.

 

In the 60 the stock radio works as well and in addition I used aluminum and fabbed a mount for a head unit inside the glovebox. Shut the door and you can't see it.
The head unit has a place for an input jack, so I use my ipod in there also.
I mounted two speakers in the package tray in the back and bought kick panels with spots for two more.
Not completely hidden, but looks pretty much stock and you can still use the AM radio if you want.

 

I pulled an all-nighter throwing some tunes in the car before heading out to Paso Maria. Yes, some of it is hideously ugly, but this install was for the weekend only and I've already removed the equipment for (a) a cleaner installation; and (b) better equipment!

Dash shot. If you know where to look you can see the master on/off switch and the volume knob as well as some wiring hanging down. You can also see a bit of the sub amp mounted under the dash (upside down) on the right side.


ipod, charger and RCA's fit nicely into the ash tray.


Here is the switch that turns off/on the Ipod charger and remote turn on's for the amps. You can also see the RCA volume knob that controls the volume for the system and well as the bottom part of my old-school Punch 40 amp mounted under the dash to the firewall.


Here is a shot of the Fosgate P3001 mounted upside down under the dash on the passenger side, as well as a nice shot of my $20 Walmart coaxials. hey, I was on a budget and needed speakers, like NOW!


Future plans call for component/seperates in fiberglass kickpanel pods (custom made by me!), bigger, better, more (?) amps, new subs... perhaps an EQ and I am trying to concoct a way to use multiple RCA volume knobs to balance overall volume, midbass and SUBbass.

 

BTW, in case it wasn't clear that was an Ipod (with charger) directly to a volume knob, which in turn controled the volume to two amplifiers... one for the front coaxials and the other amp pushing two 12's in the trunk. The front/bass was somewhat balanced through the adjustments of the amplifier gains.

No head unit, no FM, No CD... just plain Jane MP3 (internet bootleg?) goodness!!

 

Great idea.
Never thought of running the ipod straight to the amps.
I have 2 amps and a crossover and could have done the same thing without the head unit.
May have to go that route, then I can run the head unit in my O/T dodge truck.

 

side question # 2, sorry for the hijack,...i've got the mp3 to the amp figured, but from the amp to the speakers, what kind of cross overs would you use to seperate the output from the amp to bass , mid and high.thanks

 

On my T-Bird I used a pair of small MTX mids in the stock dash location and two Bose 151's (enclosed outdoor speakers) behind the soft top under the rear deck. I have an aftermarket head unit with iPod controls mounted under the dash in an aftermarket plastic mounting box that I found at a local stereo shop. My goal was not to cut, drill or damage any of the original parts in the car so, the Bose speakers are just laying on carpet and don't slide at all and the head unit box was mounted to the underside of the stock town and country radio using the original cooling holes. I use the iPod (see it on the trans hump by the seat) 99% of the time and the head unit came with a remote that I use to change channels and make adjustments. If I need to do anything on the face of the stereo, the ashtray comes out and you can peek at it through the hole. I made sure that I got a head unit with a large rotary volume knob so it would be easy to reach up and control volume. You can purchase an iPod interface that will let you control volume with the iPod, I just chose to do it with the head unit.

Here you can see the iPod, and the cable tucks under the seat when not in use:


Here is a view showing how concealed the stereo is:


Closer up of the stock T&C:


You can just see the bottom of the head unit here:


Here is a shot up under the dash: