door speakers

My dilemma is weak mid-bass in my 93 RX7. I have Dynamat Xtreme throughout the interior. I was running Focal 6.5" components. Note, I said WAS. When I took off the door panels I found they panels were compressing the rubber surround on the woofers thereby limiting their movement, hence the weak mid-bass. To cure it I removed the mounting panel and removed enough material to allow the speaker to move properly, but when I put everything back together I found my windows won't roll down all the way. (oops!) I did a little measuring and I think if I go to a 5.25" component, mounted in the original position, everything will clear. My other option is to have custom door panels made, but I'd prefer to keep the stock appearance if possible. My question… in a normal situation, how much of a difference would I see (or hear in this case) if I compared a 5.25" to a 6.5"? Theoretically the 6.5" would have a lower cutoff, but my high-pass at 80Hz@12dB anyway.

Id  rework the door grill with some new metal mesh to give ample room for the speaker to work properly. If the speaker is too deep maybe you could put a plastic speaker ring adapter on the speaker hole in the door to give the speaker clearance and allow the window to role down. I read somewhere that when you have the door panel off you could build a stop with something like a padded bolt through the window guides to block the window from going completely down.

The problem is the diameter more than the depth. The speaker cone on a 6.5" is larger than the cutout in the door panel so the speaker actually fits partially behind the door panel. That was allowing the door panel to compress the rubber surround. I thought (correctly) that if I moved them farther from the panel they would clear the door panels. What I didn't think about was the depth. If I had gone to a smaller diameter speaker and left them in the stock position everything would have cleared. If I use the ring you refer to, that will pretty much put me right back where I started, and the woofers will be against the rear of the door panel. What I'll have to do now is put them back to the original position, allowing the windows to close, and go to a smaller diameter to allow them to fit inside cutout of the door panel.