Raising the sound stage...

[SAV912]

I've been reading through the SQ/Derek thread for a few days now and they do some excellent work. I have a few problems with duplicating that though:

1. I have a liftback, not a sedan,
2. Their shit looks like it sounds amazing, and it probably costs an amazing price to boot,
3. I don't want to sacrifice floor space where the kick speakers are, and I drive around too many careless passengers to have them putting a foot through a speaker,
4. and I don't have time or materials to build stuff from scratch in a workshop. I have the limited space in a one car garage.

I have Kenwood components in the front doors, a Scion T1814 headunit, and a Scion/Pioneer bazooka tube in the hatch area on the right side. Rear speakers are still stock for now. The tube barely fits lengthwise, and I'm thinking of turning it to sit along the back of the seat. The tube just vents pretty much directly into the hatch door. I've done some sound deadening in the spare tire well and outside in the rear wheel wells and noticed the road noise difference right away.

I initially wanted to place the tweeters for the components up top near the window controls on the doors but it didn't look like it was that easy a job. So instead, I punched out a hole in the door card where the window cranks are on base model Yarii, and made a home for the speakers there. My crossovers were initally set at -4dB but I since leveled them with the 6.5s in the door and aimed them up. What I really need some pointers on is raising the sound stage. It sounds like all my music is playing on the floor of the car near my pedals, even with the tweeters aimed up towards the driver and passenger and the crossovers levelling them with the speakers. There is also a noticable gap between the lows of the woofer and the music level of the speakers. I know I really need to ditch those back speakers, but having better sound quality will not help raise the level of the music.

I don't have endless funds nor do I have skills to build stuff, but I really do like the idea of maybe some A pillar midrange speakers. The problem is that I have no idea where to begin looking, or if I can even do them for my car since I have an '09 and it has curtain airbags. I'm really losing a lot of sound in the middle. I'm happy with my headunit and I don't want to upgrade to anything single DIN or aftermarket if I don't have to. I have a small 250W amp that I was thinking of placing under the passenger seat and using it to add a little boost to the speakers, after I replace the rears with something that could handle a little juice. I don't want to spend $300 sound deadening the whole car with Dynomat. It is afterall a Yaris, and the main point of it is to get me to work.

Sorry for ranting, I may have had a little to drink and just got to typing and went nuts. Again, some pointers would be great, most specifically with getting the sound off the floor and up higher to create a little better of a stage. Below are a few pics of what I have so far.













Thanks and beer.

-C