Post: #1

Lend me some advice on best practices? I'll paint the picture first:

1998 S70 T5 -- Stock setup consists of crappy 6 1/2" component speakers in the front doors (tweeters on dash), crappy 5 1/4" speakers in the rear doors and crappy 8" mids on the rear deck.

I've already replaced the rear door speakers with some nice Alpine 2 ways, and replaced the stock head unit with a double DIN Kenwood unit. I also have in hand, awaiting install some Alpine 6 1/2" components and custom kickpods for the front foot wells.

They started like this:




After a little clean up and painting the grilles:




Also waiting for install is the 12" Diamond Audio sub in an ugly yet effective MDF box along with an MB Quart mono amp to power it:




Now, seeing as the front doors have the factory speakers still and the rear deck does as well it seems to me that I could (should?) leave those in place as well to fill out the sound some. If I left them in place and active/used I'd be left with 2 sets of component speakers in the front, 2 ways in the rear doors, 8" mids on the rear deck and a 12" sub in the trunk.

So, here's the Qs:

• Is that just pointless overkill if the stock front speakers and stock rear deck mids are still just stock stuff? Am I better off with the current equipment I have to just disconnect the stock front door speakers?
• Assuming the answer to the above is "keep the 'extra' speakers" will I hear noticeable improvements if I replace the remaining stock speakers with better aftermarket ones and should I match brand/frequency range of the other Alpines I already have?
• Also assuming I keep the stock front speakers and stock rear mids is it silly/pointless to wire them all into the system without running an amp? I'm going to assume the answer to this is yes...
  

My somewhat basic audio experienced brain tells me that ultimately I'd run all the speakers together, but if so, replace the stock front components and the rear mids with better, aftermarket stuff. Then power them all appropriately with a nice 4 channel amp. I also assume that ideally I'd want to run appropriate crossovers in the rear amp channel to separate the sound out correctly between the 5 1/4" rear door 2 way components and those 8" rear deck mids.

Someone smarter than me corroborate or dispute that please? Eric, I know you are way smarter than me in this arena so I'd love your input especially!

Post: #2

Having the mids in the back isn't quite ideal.
You would be better off making your mids the ones in the front door.
That would require some type of three way component system: http://www.cdtaudio.com/main_series/es/es0642igold.htm
Stick the 4" and tweeter in the kick panel and the 6.5" in the door.

However, you already have the Alpine speakers so I say try it. That includes leaving the rear mids.
But yes, you'll want an amp.

Really the biggest problem is that you don't know the specs of the stock speakers.

edit://I realized you have replaced the front door speakers already. You don't want two sets of tweeters up there.

Post: #3

I'll have a better response once I am not posting from the phone, but you can call me if you want and we can discus your options.