All-out audio build (Lanson's '15 RT)

Time for a little update to my system. I started noticing scratchiness in the coils on both of my speakers up front, and well... that's not how I roll. I think the Image Dynamics X69's I have are prone to rusting from the inside, so flakes of debris like rust particles get stuck in the coil gap and are almost impossible to remove. They are only about 2 years old and I live in the desert, so I'm definitely not going to trust ID for door speakers again. I decided to upgrade, but I didn't want to give up the 6x9 size. I ended up talking with one of my audio buddies on the forums and he set me up with Audiofrog GS690 front woofers. And while we were talking it through, I decided to try a new tweeter to match, the GS10. Now my Alpine SPX tweeters are just fine, but sometimes you just have to try a matching stage to see what the designer's plan was, so that's what I did Here's some pics

GS10's


GS690's


The door back apart. Comment: Dodge makes DAMN fine doors for the Durango at least. I think its the Mercedes thing rubbing off, because these doors have been taken apart and put back together at least 5 times, and they are still drum-tight, all clips work, etc. I just love that, some car doors can barely come apart once before you have to replace clips left and right.
Lots of deadening on these doors, always chasing rattles until they die.


These are the GS690's. What a gorgeous design, no rear vent so they won't be a susceptible to weather damage like the ID's I think. In fact, Audiofrog speakers (made by Andy Wehmeyer, maker of my JBL MS-8, for example) seem built from the ground up to survive in car audio conditions. We'll see over time, but I have a lot of respect for Andy and his designs, so I'm sure they'll be great.



Well...that was easy!


This will get a bit more difficult. This is the hole that I had to hog out for my SPX tweeters to fit the factory spot. This has doomed these panels, because the AF tweeters are just mm's smaller.


They totally fit, but the cutout is just about a mm too big.




I decided to press fowrard with the rebuild, I'll order up some replacement panels later. I added some 1/8" neoprene to the door panel while I was in there.


Other side of the door ready to go already


Other side done as well


So just playing them with the tune the ID's have, I can tell I already like these a LOT. I need to recal the MS-8 so these speaker's response is better matched with the rest of the system, but it is already very close. The ID's were really flat, clean, and efficient speakers as well so I expect minimal changres. I might even just redo the EQ without recalibrating the whole system over again, if I can just do that.

So far, really enjoy these speakers, and highly recommend them for our ride! Get the component set with the crossover if you have no intention of going active like I have here, or you can upgrade to an even better tweeter (the GB10) if you want to, but I wanted to try the matched GS set before considering that and I'm glad I've made this choice so far. Its clear that no corners were cut making either set.

This old post looks very interesting but the images are all broken. Any way to get those back?