Sound Stage?

Alright.  I am driving an 01 Mazda B3000 ext cab.  It has 6x8's in the doors, and behind the seats mounted on the sides of the cab above the jump seats.  I am planning on upgrading(of course), and had a few questions.  I would be running these speakers off of an amp.  What size amp, that is to be determined, depends on waht speakers I purchase.  Going for SQ, so pushing a buttload of power to them is not really my goal.

1.  Am I better off converting to 6.5" and 1" component pairs, coaxes, or just replace with 6x8 coaxes?  6x8 components?  MB quart makes 6x8 components, coaxes, and of course 6.5" component sets. 

2.  If I went with components, would I mount the tweets right next to the mids, or on the doorframe pillar?  If I could really pull it off, I would like to have the front mids firing up from the floor instead of sideways out the door, but I do not have room. 

3.  Should I bother with the rear speakers at all, or devote all of my effort to the front speakers?  It has been mentioned that the front sound stage is more important than the rear.

My goal is to have the sound stage at the driver, not the middle.  I could care less how it sounds from the passenger seat.

Any opinions on the above mentioned items would be greatly appreciated.

Good questions.  Here's my opinion:

1) Go for components with round speakers.  6.5" components will sound a lot better than 6X8 or 6X9.

2)  Mount the tweets within 4" of the woofers if you can, and aim them at the driver's head.

3)  IMO you can leave the rear speakers out completely.  Some people like to have some rear fill sound, and some head units use DSP circuitry to create "surround" or ambient sound stages and these require rear speakers.  If you use them, install a nice set of coaxials that fit the OEM openings.

Suggestion: go shopping and listen to component sets and buy the ones you like the most, don't use "suggestions" off the web for brand name recommendations.  We all hear differently and what sounds good to me might not to you.

The 5.25's in Q-forms will give you good SQ in terms of placement, but the mid-bass will have less punch, depending on the speakers you choose anyway.  One way around this is to use 6" mid-basses in the rear, no tweeters.  They'd have to be both hi & low pass crossed or your soundstage would move to the back.  With a good rear mid-bass you may be able to get away w/o a sub depending on how much sub-bass you like.

As always, it's going to be about what speakers you choose.  I find that 5.25's have a "smaller" sound, but some are better than others.  I'd disregard the freq response graphs & do extensive sound room time with the speakers X-ed over so you know what you're getting into.

interesting point.  I was driving home today, and playing with the fade.  Not that I cruise like a "homeboy", but I have the seat back reclined quite a bit, and the rear speaker on the pass side is pretty much facing me directly.  The  rear driver's side speaker is like 8" below my head directly behind me.  I noticed a better sound when I had more sound coming from the rear, and it seemed that when I faded forward to neutral, the fronts reinforced the sound moreso than when I had the fronts going, and faded back to neutral.   I tried this listening to Slayer, and Pink Floyd just to see if it was the style of music I was listening to at the time.

Heh, I am sure the speakers in the rear are exactly the same as the fronts, but the fronts sure sounded like butt alone!  Interesting twist, huh.

Thoughts?

My first set of components (JL Audio VR650s) were installed with the mids in the stock locations in the bottom of the doors and the tweeters about 14" to 15" above them in the top of the door panel at dash level.

I HATED this setup.  Even after deadening the doors, making sure that the mids were airtight, and attenuating the tweets to -3dbs, I was still getting very bright highs, a lifeless midrange, and weak midbass.   After running them for a year and trying every tuning trick in the book, I finally gave up and replaced them with a set of CDT EF Neo braxials.   One day of minor tuning later and I was in heaven.

I know a lot of my dissatisfaction with the JL VR650s had to do with the speakers themselves, but I also know that having the tweets so high in the doors and far apart from the mids played a part in it as well.  I doubt I will ever run anything other than braxials again, but if I do, the tweeters will be mounted as close to the mids and as low in the doors as possible.

As far as the soundstage goes, a little rear fill (attenuated WAY below the front stage) raised it up nicely without ruining my imaging.  I really don't feel the need for a second set of tweeters.