So i was at u pull it today "window shopping" and just lookin for some parts for the fleet w my buddy steve (who's an ex ford mechanic). didn't see too many star's in the j/y (there were a lot in the parking lot of people who needed parts to who knows what) but i did get the scope on some parts for the civic... but that's besides the point. any ways steve and i were walking around, feeling kind of upset when we stumbled upon a lincoln mark 7... and i managed to snag these from it:



i ended up replacing the mid on the one because i think the car was leaking water, and the mid was water damaged... but both tweeters work, both mids work now (the bad one still worked, but the paper was warped and the foam edge was all ripped and rotted away) and both woofers (which look brand new) work, and make GREAT sound.

see:


i guess they're ford premium JBL 3 ways... i think it will be a nice upgrade from the cheap 6x9's in the stars. i also found some practicaly brand new pioneer 2 way 6.5's in an infinity... they're goin in the civic instead of the sony's i was going to use.

 

They look pretty trashed, but if they sound OK after you replaced the damaged drivers, by all means use them. (They were free, right?)

Most factory speakers sound pretty bad, and are not worth the effort it takes to replace whatever is in place already. We used to call JBLs "Just Barely Listenable", with minimal apologies to James B Lansing. But they're better than nothing, if that's what you're starting out with.

About 30 years ago, I got a set of speakers made by a relatively unknown company called DLK. It was the first car speakers I had seen that would actually withstand the tortures of being mounted in the package shelf of the typical sedan. Before then, the most commonly seen model was the Jensen Tri-Axials, which deteriorated after a couple of years of the sun beating down on it. The DLK Powerdomes used some kind of synthetic fiber cones with a treated cloth surround that was designed specifically to stand up to the sun. It was also the first car speakers that used a 1" dome tweeter that you normally found in home speakers. They were only coaxial speakers, but they sounded great. I wish I still had a set to install into my Aero. But they would have required reinforcement of the panels, as they were very heavy. They had massive solid magnets (vs the two-piece glued-together types of other brands) and were mounted on a heavy basket frame.

 

real silent (pun) killer of car speakers is high moisture levels here in the NW and the SE US. humidity turns speaker cones to mush and driver coils to blue-green crud.
parking a rig inside in heated garage helps. that' were the wife's Acura sleeps at night.