What size are the front speakers and what was the factory wattage on them. Has any one ever used Dual name speakers to replace the front.

 

I do believe they are 4" in the dash, I replaced mine with some higher power speakers, had to do alittle bit of modications to fit them.

 

You mean "Dual" as the speaker manufacturer? They used to do Turntables, and I think they sold that name off a long time ago. I think these are budget speakers, probably equal to what you've got in there already.

Size of the factory speakers: 4" for the fronts, 6x9's for the middle and 3.5" for the rear doors.

For the wattage I think it depended on which factory stereo you got...there were at least 2.

for the 4" speakers - you will never get any bass out of any speaker that small...best you can do is to put in a 2 way speaker, then put a 5 1/4" woofer in the door for your fronts.

I just replaced the 6x9's with Visonik's and didn't care about the fronts...they sound OK with my Panasonic stereo.

 

Yeah, if you are going to replace the speakers, you should also replace the wire. The stock system uses a common ground on the speakers that is know to cause a lot of distortion and other problems. Dual brand speakers are cheap junk. They are generic speakers with the Dual logo printed on them. I would recommend Panasonic or Kicker. They are worth the price, even if you do not intend to crank it up. The cleanness of the sound is very desirable. Make sure you properly crimp or solder your wire connections, simply twisting the wires and wrapping them in tape creates a lot of sound distortion.

On the bass issue from the fronts, that is true to a point. Smaller speakers are limited in the bass output. However, they can do plenty well with a good brand unit. Putting speakers in the door is not as simple as it first sounds. It is a nice upgrade though, but you need to plan ahead and make sure you address any clearance issues so that your windows will roll up and down properly. Also the door panels tent to rattle, so you may get rattle issues unless you add extra fasteners to the door.

I would recommend sticking with the 4" speakers in the stock location. Just so long as you use a good speaker that costs at least $80 for the pair, you should be fine. As far as wattage, any speaker will work. Higher wattage units may sound quiet unless the amp can adequately handle them.

 

i ended up actually going the component/amped route in my aero. the 6x9's in the middle area are just too free floating, and don't offer a lot of bass response for the type of speaker they are. what i ended up doing was i have a pair of phoenix gold octain r 5.25" speakers in the dash, and then i ran speaker wires to my doors, and bought a set of kicker 6x8 components, paired them with a pair of explorer speaker brackets, and mounted them to the door pannel, and then hooked the dash speakers up just for the tweeters. i get good sound all around, nice clean bass response from the 6x8's, and they aren't really in the way at all, and i don't have to fight with my dash speakers when my subs are off.