just wondering what the deal is with people installing their high end components into the kick panels of their cars?

ive always thought you had to put them in the doors, as the cavity once sound deadened, atcts as an enclosure

but i commonly see cars with expensive splits in fibreglass pods, which apparently sound fantastic

can someone explain this? how do people get this type of setup to work? would there be any issues with cancelation if these were not sealed?

thanks for everyones help

hey dan,
ok where to start?.....its mostly to do with imaging...
the best place for your speakers in your car is your kick trims, as they are almost the same distance apart (equidistance) from your ears to give the best stereo image.unless you were to completly re-do the dash of your car, remove the front seats and sit in the rear
eg. if you where to measure the distance of the door locations to your ears say from your driving position you would find that there could be around 12" or more difference between left and right(not the best for imaging)
keeping your wavelengths the same distance is what your trying to acheive, so that you get the best stereo image
always make sure that any enclosure you build is sealed properly!

A simple door cavity is never a properly "sealed enclosure" unless you are prepared to do without windows going up and down and the door opening (allowance for pull rods etc). It leaks, it's NOT sealed.
Not a huge problem, most mid-bass drivers are designed to be used, ostensibly, "free air".

The path length issue as craigt correctly points out, is the major issue, getting the drivers away from the listener.

With kicks and woofers designed for sealed enclosures, a good fibreglass enclosure actually IS a sealed enclosure and the performance of the driver is more predictable and usually smoother, so long as the Qtc isn't too high (correct driver choice).
Our top SQ guys will be "across this" and they get outstanding results.

This also follows with sealed pods in doors, which is why they can perform so well when done right.

The blanket statement that 'kick panels are the best place for speakers' I have to disagree with, since not all cars suit this location due to things like narrowness of cabin & intrusiveness of dash shape, space in the kcikpanel area, height relative to the listening position, and the simple fact that your feet & legs are more often than not going to block some of the speakers.

The kick panel phenomenon is more relavant to the USA because the driving position is on the opposite side of the car. Though this may not sound like a big deal consider that pedals are more offset towards the right and, given that so many cars in the USA are automatics, this allows far more room for kickpanel installations not to interfere with pedal operation than it does in RHD countries like Australia.

When choosing the correct location for your main speakers you need to weigh up the trade off between improved path length differences to how other factors like legs in the way and the safe operation of the pedals will affect things. Also note that kick panel installations are notorious for dragging the stage height down to where your feet are.

In many cars you can achieve a different (I won't say better because I know so many people are staunch about kickpanel locations) result by using a combination of the stock door location and either a kickpanel mounted tweeter or an A-pillar or sail panel mounted tweeter. At the very least stage height will be improved dramatically, yet at the cost of 'frequency steering' where midrange sounds are low and high frequencies sound higher up. Playing with crossover slopes which are shallow can help here.

In many cars you can still achieve near optimal path length differences for the mid/tweeter combos this way. Don't forget that time alignment is also affordable and can help matters for one position in the car - if you're selfish...

Typical midringe speakers are design to work in infinite baffle, and while a door panel is never really sealed it does afford a better IB configuration than small kick panel pods do. The trouble with kick panel pods is that - even once fully sealed - you'll be left with only a litre or two of enclosure space if you're lucky and this often ends up with a boomy midbass sound as a result of shifting the Q too high.

Each car needs to be treated differently.

Speaker postion/placement is always a hotly debated topic. All of the comments that people have made thus far are definately relevant.
As every diffferent car naturally has a dissferent environment the speaker postioning will change. Sometimes only minimally and sometimes completely different.
For example in my WRX the tweeters are mounted in the dash in order to raise the soundstage, however we had to correct the imaging with time alignment due to the dash cluster. The mid drivers are in the doors purely because there isn't any room in the kicks. Originally there was a standing wave issue that cancelled out the mid bass. This was corrected with sound deadening and some tricky looking foam directly behind the driver.
On the flip side of this a recent installation saw the tweeters mounted in the kicks and the mids in the doors. At the last SQ competition the car scored exceptionally high in sound stage and imaging, with some great potential to further develop the system.
My main point is that every car is different and there is definately no one correct way. To gain the most out of your front stage here is a simple formula that I'm confident not many would disagree with.
Fit
Audition
Tune
Re fit
Audition
Re tune
+lots of sound deadener
+ Two servings of patience
If the above doesn't work repeat untill the desired result is acheived.

It took six months of testing/tuning/refitting to get to where we are now and there is still room for improvement.
Cheers

so could it be said that kick panel installations are more for the experienced installers?

if so, i will go for installing my splits in the doors, as this is my first install (although i am rather confident)

i was just asking about the kicks as they provide a more secure placement which is safer from thieves, as well as allowing me to save on the expensive deadening cost of the door option

the pods that i could build in my car would be around the 3-4 litres, mabe slightly bigger

does this make sense?

A pod that size is LIKELY to promote a fairly peaky response, although it depends very much on the speaker involved.
Performance = trial, error + effort

I can think of a few 8" speakers that thrive in 6 litres sealed........

Further to Kris' observations, there is one VERY serious SQ competitor in the USA (MacIntosh electronics etc) using Dynaudio 360 splits all in the doors.
He tried myriad speaker positions but that actually worked best for imaging. Go figure. The vehicle is a current VW Kombi.....

And yes, Damon, a nice roomy left hand drive automatic frees up the space and allows angling options we can only dream about!

The Yanks (and Euros) are spoiled yet again!

I don't think you need any experience to tell you if kick panels will work in your car or not, just sit two people in the front and have a look at the pathlengths from each kick to your ears. Is there going to be any obstructions with two people in the car? Even by yourself will your own legs obstruct the speakers in the driver's side kick panel?

How have you calculated obtaining 3 - 4 litres? I doubt two plastic milk containers would fit next your right foot comfortably. Even if you have, have you taken the midrange speakers TS specs and put them into BassBox 5.1 or similar and had a look at the response in a 4 litre or smaller enclosure?

By the way, this post is not about dissuading you from building kick panels, as I've heard them work well in many cars (including some of my own). Its just that kicks are not a magic fix for all cars and often can sound worse than using stock locations unless all the factors are planned out and considered.

Ah, it is a "black art"

Being a masochistic type (apparently...) I actually like this about mobile audio.

Have seen SO many instals that shouldn't work too well, but did. So many that should, but failed.....

Or we could cheat by moving to WA and driving a LHD import. :wink:

I cant see where anyone made a blanket statement that kicks are best. I guess you could say that kick panels often have the least amount of compromise from a SQ POV. Any car audio system is just a matter of finding what comprpmises are acceptable, that dictates its design.

Personally I think the statement kicks suffer low stage height is grossly inaccurate. Maybe all the cars I have judged have got lucky but I just dont hear the alleged low stage height ppl often associate with kick panel mounting..I do listen with my ears thou and not my eyes.

I have seen all types of cars with kicks and certainly many of these vehicles had a work put into the kicks but just because its not as easy to do as US cars means little. The trend for kicks isnt because its easy or hard but because it gets optimum results for those are chasing them.

Im sure everyone has had the experience of listening to music in a car and only being able to hear the speaker next to them. Its not as rewarding as hearing music as you would at home and hearing both chanels of stereo information.

I would steer clear of a pillar mounting or sail mounting as its well documented what happens to high freqs when at glass level. If u cant go kicks or choose not to then often just mounting them forward in the doors is enough to help equalise path lengths to some extent and avoid seperation issues. It also avoids the problems that mounting them at glass level introduces.

Anyway as I stated car audio is about what compromises are acceptable, and so go for whatever method has the least amount of compromises possible and still provides you with the best compromise of results Vs functionality.
peace
Cyberpunky

May I know what's sail mounting and what will happen to high frequencies at glass level?????

Thanks!

Sails are were you adjust ur outside mirrors. The little triangle bit at the bottom front corner of most car front doors.

As high freqs have a very small wave length and our ears are able to detect the slightest arrival time delays form reflections etc, mounting at glass level tends to make high freqs overly bright and agressive, and due to the reflective nature of the glass will tend to blur posistioning cues, make the stage less defined and distinct. The other issue is seperation. although to untrained ears high mounted tweeters can give the illusion of a good stage the reality is that lower freq midrange info will disticntly come from another point and so the stage is broken into 2 sections. High freqs up high and lower freqs down low.This is not freq steering, it is sepration, freq steering is a term the refers to a particulr freq or several points, and not a part of the spectrum. A properly imaging and staging car will have a stage that is solid regaurdless of freq.
hope it helps
peace
Cyberpunky

ah ok.. thanks!