Hey Jim, I recently upgraded my radio and speakers a bit and here are some
of my observations. First, I believe that most DIN-sized radios are going
to be about the same size. I fit an Alpine CD player in a while back and it
fits fine from a depth perspective. It did of course require a bit of
sawing on the console, but that's what you have to do if you want a modern
radio.
I also upgraded my speakers and added an amplifier. Since the stock
speakers are mounted low in the kidney panels, it's a bit hard to hear them
very well regardless of the brand of radio. I attempted to resolve this
issue by buying a component set of speakers (separate mid-range and
tweeters) and mounted the tweeters in the eyeball vents. My car has no A/C
and I don't put the top up, thus they don't really do anything for me. I
bought a pair of new kidney panels off of EBay (NFI) who will enlarge the
stock hole a bit if you wish and installed 5 1/4" mid range speakers. To
make these new speakers more audible at highway speeds I added a quality
four channel amplifier with a true 45 wpc. Both the speakers (MB Quart) and
the amp (JL Audio) are considered of high quality.
After the install I must admit that I was a bit disappointed. The remote
mounting location for the tweeters worked out very well, but I still lacked
the bass I expected from the speakers. The issue was not the speakers, but
the lack of proper enclosure or baffling for the mid-range speakers due to
their kidney panel mounting location.
I solved this buy adding a pair of 6x9 speakers in some boxes that sit
behind the seats. I had hoped to avoid this due to the space they take up,
but they can easily be removed if necessary since the speakers has spring
clips for the wire. After adding these rear speakers I am very pleased. I
can cruise at 80 mph and hear Jimmy Buffett clearly.
I realize that some of the purists will pooh-pooh decent sound quality in an
LBC, but more than a few of us do take long road-trips and it makes the trip
a bit more tolerable. Shoot, Al Salvatore even has XM radio in his TR6.
I'm currently running Champion RN12YC, but I've also run NGK although I
can't remember the part number right now. I did run the hotter than normal
plug as I consume a bit more dino lube than normal right now.
Hope this helps,
R. Ashford Little II
'70 TR6
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