The factory sound in my 2008 Miata Sport was sort of disappointing so upgrading it has been on my mind since I got the car last summer. This Christmas my sons got me the start I needed by getting me some decent speakers. They got me some Kenwood 6×8’s for the doors and Infinity 3.5’s for the rear. The factory speakers in the doors consisted of a seperate cheap little tweeters and 6 x 8’s with a whizzer cone. I wanted to put the 3.5’s where the door tweeters were but there wasn’t enough back clearance for the larger magnets on the upgrade speakers so I just removed the door tweeters altogether
Stock door speaker.
OK, to the right of the picture above, I tried about four times to put another picture with a caption but this marvel of a blog software (wordpress) did everything but that. And I might mention that it was unbearably slow at not putting that picture in right place. The car had places made for rear 3.5″ speakers so I decided to put the 3.5’s there. I had to remove basically all the interior behind the seats to get access to the mounting location. There were speaker grilles built into the center of the rear interior panel so I expected an easy job of installing the 3.5’s. After I got the panel off I saw that there was nothing to mount the speakers to. I did see three studs there and a female wiring connector. After a little searching on the Miata forum I found out you can get the speaker bracket and the needed wiring harness from the dealer. I got mine from Online Miata Parts.com for a lot cheaper than my local dealer so I ordered them.Infinity’s in place with the factory bracket and harness
I had to do a little massaging of the factory bracket with my Dremel to accept the Infinity 3.5’s but it wasn’t too hard.
This is where the rear speakers will mount
Overall, I like the upgrade. The door speakers sound a lot better than those cheap factory ones and the added 3.5’s in the back add a decent amount of fill to help out the door speakers.
Next, I want to get a decent head unit that I can use my iPod with and a little sub to fill out the bass.
Great post! The sound system’s almost done, now time to move on to the engine and upgrade to a V8
Not because I have one, but because I don’t have one and want to drive yours.
Ahh, more power, that’s always a great idea. My choice for the Miata would be to add a turbo. Smooth power when you want it, docile daily driver when you don’t.