HAES 6x40 good or bad idea?
 

Hi all,

I bought a used HAES 6x40 Coupé Amp because my plan was to install rear speakers, but after replacing the dash speakers with Alpine SPG-10C2 I realized that it wasn't extra speakers I needed—I just needed better speakers.

Now, from what I have read on the Internet (and therefore I must be true ;)) is that I should've bought a Cabrio version of the Amp if I wanted to get better audio from the door speakers—since there's a builtin crossover on the door channels.

Now, I've bought some nice Alpine SPR-50C and my question is, should I:

A) Replace the door speakers verbatim with the Type-Rs, and just not use the included crossovers and 1" tweeters?

B) Reposition the door-channels in the wire harness to the amp so that the REAR channels are instead routed to the doors? The idea here is that hopefully the channels going to the rear will be less filtered and as such provide a better source to the Type-Rs.

B-extended) Adding the crossovers and tweeters to the doors too. I'm less enthusiastic about this since I want to keep the appearance stock.

C) Skip the original and the 996 HAES and buy an Alpine MRV-F300 and power the Type-Rs with that instead.


Addendum: The idea is to replace the CDR-23 with a Clarion NZ502E down the line, but want to make sure the speaker situation is addressed first.

how much are you willing to spend?

what is reasonable but will sound quite ok is a good 100mm combo speaker set (midrange and tweeters seperately) for the dash - alpines on the trash. A set of 130mm woofers/midrange (no coax stuff) for the doors and 4 channel amp if you use them with crossovers or a 6 channel amp with built in sound processor.

I have mine on a 3 way crossover with high to dash tweeters, mids to dash, and low to doors. RAF (rear area fill) to rear shelf. Good setup, only drawback is no fader, as rears are just fill from front channel crossovers. I too am all for stock look, and tweets in dash seem to be fine.

My opinion is start with a good speaker/crossover setup, then change amp if you like. Doing amp first is akin to putting a bigger engine in a sinking boat...it's not gonna change the performance, and it might end up sinking faster. :)

I'm sure you will get all kinds of suggestions for speakers (and I won't venture there), I'd suggest don't skimp too much, as doing a good install is not a 5 minute job, and better now means not re-doing later...and personally I hate doing the same thing twice.

With the caveat that I’m old ... I dont see spending many $$$ on sound upgrades as as soon as your Boxster is moving there’s so much road/wind/engine noise that no system will provide concert hall quality sound