Center Speaker

[trekcarbonboy]

I have always wondered if anyone ever used the center speaker mount in their dash? Did any cars come from the dealer with a speaker mounted there?
I would never mount one there myself, my dash rattles enough as it is. [:0]
Just curious. (slow day at the office) [;)]

Craig '75 2.0 FHC

[whitenviro]

But if you had a speaker there you could turn it up loud enough to drown out the rattles!


[/img]
1980 Pageant Blue DHC with removable hardtop.

[Workshop Help]

Yes, there has been a speaker in the recess for the past 20+ years. I composed an article on it several years ago. Having a speaker there bounces the sound off the inside of the windshield into your ears more effectively than the door speakers sending sound waves into your knee.

The only issue with installing a 5" x 7" speaker is to find one with a smaller magnet on the back side to fit. The old Radio Shack dual cone design was perfect, but it is no longer made. If you can find one on ebay, the part # is 40-1261C.

Mildred Hargis

[FI Spyder]

No of room in mine. It's chock full of wires and connectors. Earlier cars might have less.

- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[rgsSpider]

Same here, I can't imagine how you could even fit a speaker in there. Also, the "grille" is completely solid, there's no holes for sound to get through.

Randy

1980 TR7 <font color="red">Spider!</font id="red">
http://rgstr7spider.tumblr.com/

[Workshop Help]

Well, that's what you ever-so-sweet little boys get for buying black painted cars with rag tops and fancy wheels.

Mildred Hargis

[Cobber]

<font size="2"><font face="Comic Sans MS">The old central dash mounted speaker location is a throwback to ye olde days where a push button mono AM radio with 5 whole watts of output was the order of the day! So the speaker only needed a fairly modest magnet etc.
So the speaker was a lot shallower than those of today.
I've got more powerful fridge magnets than those old speakers.

Remember when our cars were being designed even cassette tapes were a bit of a novelty, and no one would've even dreamed of the speakers of today let alone the head units, amps etc.

Yes there were some folks who went further and had those newfangled 8 track cartridge players but they were in the minority. And these folks even had <b>two</b> speakers, usually bloody ugly boxes stuck on the rear parcel shelf, because there were no cut outs designed into the cars to take extra speakers.

And yes Mildred having speakers down low in the doors or footwells can cause you to loose some of the higher notes, it even worse in an open car.
The solution is to have a split system with separate tweeters mounted high in the door and the main speakers mounted low in the door.
The tweeters are quite small, compact and discrete.
I've just done this in my MGF and it's sounds bloody great just running the speakers of the head unit, no need for an amp.</font id="Comic Sans MS"></font id="size2">
I'll be doing the same for my TR.



"Keep calm, relax, focus on the problem & PULL THE BLOODY TRIGGER"

80'Triumph TR7, 73'Land Rover (Ford 351. V8),
'89 Ford Fairlane
'98 MG-F, 69'Ford F250.
76' Ford F100

[silverseven]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Cobber</i>

[size=2][font=Comic Sans MS]

Yes there were some folks who went further and had those newfangled 8 track cartridge players but they were in the minority. And these folks even had <b>two</b> speakers, usually bloody ugly boxes stuck on the rear parcel shelf, because there were no cut outs designed into the cars to take extra speakers.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">


Lol an glovebox mounted 8-track and radio shack deck speakers.....that's exactly what my car had in it when I got her!

(though I'll also admit that once the top goes back up in the fall, I still mount some speaker boxes back there to listen to my music during the autumn drives [;)])

Ron.

[spanner]

Mines still got the amazing cassette recorder and all those push buttons. Technology overload, I triedit with a Thin Lizzy tape and it didn't sound too bad all things considered but tbh listening to music was the last thing I bought the car for!!
atb
Mike

Near Penrith and the Lake District

[supercass]

So was there ever a centre speaker fitted? I always thought it was something that was designed into the dash but never actually used in production.supercass