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Okay, this is something I just realized. The stock speaker mounts make it so that you can barely hear 30% of the sound and frequencies put out by the speaker. I listened to the speaker without the door panel on, and it was much cleaner and louder!

So here's my plan to make it so that you can hear 50% of the sound. Now we know there are holes in the plastic cover over the speakers. But there is also a hex pattern of solid plastic throughout the speaker mount. By using a small drill bit, it is possible to make the solid areas into holed areas. It won't change the appearance, but you'll have more sound.

I tried a few holes until the drill died. I believe that if you open up the holes, it will let through more sound and frequency response. There are alot, so have fun drilling. When you're done, it should be about 50%. Still better than the way it was stock.

 
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Oh man, this is an old post, but this is what I've been thinking. I was thinking to trim the whole area off then build a support and put speaker cloth to get better freq response. Thanks gearbox.

 
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gearbox, have you completed this diy? please tell me you got pics lol =D

this is something i need/want

 
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Well I only did the driver side cause it took forever to drill holes. And now it's rough when you run your hand across it. I like the other idea of trimming the whole thing, but I don't know how good I can make that look.

 
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wow this was brought back from the dead

 
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I guess the plasitc is not that hard....I could even trim the dashboard side to get the door seal installed on the metal, by a razor knife (pretty strong one i guess). I think we can just trim it by a big razor knife by pushing into the groove around that opening. Anyway, I don't have time to do experiment at this point. Probably next week I will see.

 
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BTW, gearboox, do you notice some improvement over that? Sand down the inside and see if it's too rough.

 
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Well the roughness is caused by drilling. The plastic is so brittle and you get burrs and such. Also in sun you can see all the drilled spots. But yeah, it evened out the sound a bit. Before I was hearing more from the passenger speaker because it's at a further angle. Now they're pretty even. And you could just use a dremel to cut that plastic. Taking the door panel off helps.

 
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Nice. I found myself in the situation where most music is from passenger side, even with time correction. I also found that my door woofer is covered up about 3/8 due to the size(I have Dyns 340). Therefore, I hope it will make me feel better.

 
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Finally cut the whole piece out of the door lining. Now the speaker is exposed. Then sitting at the driver's seat, looking at the front left speaker....doesn't look too good. The speaker sits deep inside the opening. The door pocket blocks almost 3/4 of the speaker. The only speaker area I can see is the lower right quadrant. If the speaker really rediates 360 degree linear, then I am blocked from the direct sound path of the front left speaker. Well, sound quality? Think again. Need to do some job in here now.

What I think is that, since it is a woofer on the door, have it set to off-axis is better than complete direct sound path blocked. So I am to build a spacer to make the speaker further out so I can see the whole surface from the driver's seat, or at least 3/4 of it. Tell me what you think, gearbox.

 
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Yup that's a good idea. Companies have made adjustable tweeters so you can turn it up, but that doesn't help too much. Your idea is good if you can seal off the spacer well.

 
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Man, I'm talking about the woofer, not the tweeter...The woofer is blocked by the pocket...

 
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And I'm taking about the same thing. The door speaker. If you have 2-way like I do, it also has a tweeter. Go for it and post pics. Are you gonna cover it with grill cloth?

 
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I am still trying to figure out how to handle that @#$% area. I have Dyns 3-way component, woofer on door. These are what I think that may be working.

1. Leave it like now and replace the dome mid with a MW150 5" midrange(woofer) and put the crossover low. Then I don't have those "blocked" midrange problem. The dome mid has to be crossed at around 900Hz then switch to the door woofer. If anything higher than 250Hz(I guess) is blocked from direct path(they become more directional), it will become a mess, and it is now.

2. Cut off the whole area covering (and blocking, of course) the speaker(s). This exposes the view from driver's seat and passenger's seat(both side cut off). However, this will affect the door pocket(!!) because it is the curve of the pocket that blocks the speaker(s) from view.

3. Keep tweeter and mid, but put a MW150 5" woofer in door. Then build a ring to extend the speaker to the surface level of the door panel, so the woofer doesn't just sit deep inside.

(1) and (3) are basically money issue, and (2) is workmanship and time consuming. Which one do you think is a good choice?

 
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First one sounds good. The second is too much hacking for nothing.

 
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I'll try what's good for that. Basically the Dyn MD130 doesn't sound good if I am to use high order filter(like 24/30dB/oct) to cross at around 4k(as suggested by the passive). The high freq output is just too little, or the impedence is too great beyond 2k. But since I'm running full active, there's nothing I can do to correct impedence except EQ, but I don't want to cut/boost too much either. Think of 10 ohm at 4k and 5 ohm at below 2k. The speaker just isn't too great...But it's much clearer than many woofer type midrange in the market..