Update - Wrong size car speaker installation advice
Edit: Decided the work is just not worth it and it'd look ghetto as fuck! Plus I would be having to cut into my door causing permeant damage for no reason! On top of that I would have 4 6x9 speakers alone in my car with a stick head unit... It would sound like shit! All bass no highs. I spent so much time trying to figure out if I could when I should have been figuring out if I should..
I'm keeping this up as a reminder to myself to not make stupid DIY car decisions! Thanks for the down votes, I truly deserve them on this one.
Original: I made a mistake (pic related)... I told Gemini I wanted to upgrade my door and back trunk speakers. Same sizes, just a better than stock speaker that will sound good with my stock head unit.
It told me that my Altima fits 6x9's all around! A pair in the front and a pair in the back.
It's late where I live and the store was closing so instead of fact checking or looking inside my door panel, I went to the store and picked up 2 pairs of 350 watt 6x9 speakers for $90 a piece before they closed....
I then excitedly checked YT to see how to install these bad boys only to find out my door speakers fit 6.5's...
My question is, if I manage to get these installed, will my stock stereo even have the output for 2 pairs of 350 watt speakers?
Also if so, how TF would I go about mounting them?
Never trust AI just because you're in a hurry folks!
You can cut in holes to fit the speakers. It's not always easy. Okay, it's never easy.
But you can look for adapters. They used to exist. Basically, they mount to the existing holes, and the bigger speakers are set behind/under them (depending on where the speakers go; door or back window.)
Thing is, door speakers tend to have a limited amount of room, so even if adapters for your model are out there, those speakers might not fit. A half inch of space behind the original can be too much for them to fit. So you'd want to measure very well before spending even more.
That being said, yes, you can likely power them from a stock head unit. Won't get much bass if the cones and surround are heavy. Might get muffled highs and mids too. Not usually with 6×9s, since they're kinda good at avoiding those pitfalls as the makers of them are usually making them to replace factory speakers, not be in boxes as their own thing. Overall, if they're good quality, you shouldn't have much sacrifice in terms of sound, but under powered speakers do lose some.
That being said, you could also buy or build a box for them. Quad 6×9 boxes are out there (or used to be), and designs for them would be easy to find. But I suspect that if you wanted a trunk box, you would have just bought one.
Me? I'd return them and get the right size.
Edit: I went looking, and holy fuck have search engines gone to hell.
I couldn't find any adapters to put a 6×9 into a 6.5 space. I know they used to exist, because I helped a friend install them. I don't know if they're not made any more, or if the enshittification of searching has just made it impossible to find instead of the adapters that let you put a 6.5 speaker into a 6×9 hole. Didn't matter how I changed the query, it was returning the same fucking hits (and this was ddg, not Google, so we are fucked, folks).
So, good luck with that if you're not going to exchange lol. No easy path forward.
You didn't give a year for your car, so I can't look up anything to guesstimate how hard altering it would be. Last time I did that on anything, it was a 70s era car with plenty of space in the rear deck, so it was easy to just trace the bracket and cut. No clue how much work it would be on a more modern car door. I know it wouldn't even be possible in a lot because the speakers are mounted on very thin supports that you can't cut away without having nothing left. My car is like that.
You could maybe try surface mounting, but you'll have to fuck around a lot with cutting something, and then making your own mount because I've never seen a surface mount kit that would actually work with the kind of openings I've seen in Nissans. Not that I've seen a shit ton, only a handful, but still.
I appreciate your detailed response! I decided it's way too much fucking work and with 2 sets of 6x9's alone would sound like shit anyway.
Even though I'm not doing this, I did find an interesting solution if you're good at building shit. Speaker pods. There are custom ones you can have built if you wanna drop $200 per door but they essentially mount to your door and you can have multiple speakers in them or just one bigger one. They are pretty cool if you have a full aftermarket setup! If I ever pull the trigger on a project car, I'll be looking into these but it's just not worth it for my daily driver.
White I have you, got any recommendations for good 6x9'e in the back and 6.5's in the front for around $100 a pair and a stock head unit? My car is a 2018 Altima (the one without the Bose system unfortunately). My goal is to make it have good bass for no amp or subwoofer in the back and some crisp clear sound in the front.
The ones I'm returning are the Kicker 350W ES series. I'm probably gonna dump the Kicker brand all together. I truly wish I could upgrade my head unit but because my dash is a dumb shape it's hard to find an after market head unit that doesn't stick out or just look horrible! I tried to install 3 over the years supposedly made for the Altima only for them to stick out, not fit, have the completely wrong wiring in them.
Well, Rockford Fosgate has an entry level line. I think it's called prime? The box in my car is an RF, and the horn tweeters still are. Had to swap the woofers out maybe ten years after I bought the box, as the originals were paper cones. Nothing wrong with paper cones, but they tend to be short term in cars because heat and humidity fuck them eventually.
But they've switched to polypropylene for all their stuff now, if memory serves. RF tends to be a reliable company as far as build quality and sound. Can't recall if that's what my sister put in her truck (well, that I put in, she would have bought them and me install lol), or in the car before that, but the primes sound fine with a factory head unit. Iirc that's what the line is meant for, improved drop in. I tink they top out around 50 watts before they start having trouble, so just fine for most OEM units. Hell, I don't think most standard factory gear even goes that high per channel.
You'll be limited in how controlled the bass is, expect it to get sloppy past maybe 3/4 volume. More oomph can actually fix that, but then you'd have to find a low wattage amp, and at that point, you're beyond what you're wanting for this.
But they will hit well enough you can feel a bit of the rumble in your body with bass forward tracks (though don't expect them to like super deep and heavy stuff like Miami bass). Sound profile will lean midrange, with highs being a little dull, but that's just the nature of that kind of speaker.
Crutchfield is usually a decent place to compare gear. Their prices aren't bad, though they aren't necessarily going to be the best. They tend to carry damn near everything though!
Pioneer, JBL, and I think Kenwood have drop in factory type speaker lines too. I know kicker does, but you've got those lol. As a general rule, anything that caps out 100 watts or lower is going to do fine without an amp. Hell, I don't have an amp for my box and the Sonys I have in it do fine with the factory head unit, despite being rated up to 500 watts. They don't really rattle windows, but in the car, you'll feel it in your guts.
That's my best advice, though be aware I haven't fucked with anything other than casually scrolling in maybe five years. That was when my sister was looking to upgrade. So I may be behind the curve overall
After doing some research, this is what I found out. To mount a bigger speaker in a smaller mount I'm probably gonna have to cut a bigger hole.. if I'm comfortable with that (big fucking if there), I'm gonna have to worry about the window glass hitting the speaker. I have 2 pairs and I only opened one box to check the contents....
I guess it's back to the store Info tomorrow to make an exchange unless anybody has a really easy solution for me! I'm never trusting Gemini again
I mean, the easy solution is to wire them up but just leave them on the floor of your car. This is a terrible solution and you will regret it until you fix it if you do it, which, if you are the sort of person who would do this, will be at least 7.5 years. But itll save you a trip to the store