Just want some confirmation before I go rip my door panels off to fix this.

Big Mistake (this is the price I paid for being lazy):
I didn't feel like making proper wooden baffles for my car, so I paid Al & Eds to do it. They were also going to install my dynamat and new speakers I had as well. I provided them with the seals to be put on the speaker. These seals/gasket still had the middle piece with a perforated cut on them to easily remove.

When I picked up my car. I asked for the oem baffles. They said they used them and didn't make new baffles...I was like wtf and took my car home and redid the install myself. When I took the speakers out, they didn't even put the seals on them. Then I notice behind the speaker, it appears that the inside part of the seal which gets discarded is suck to the metal panel adjacent to the speaker.

Recently it just occurred to me that this could be hurting performance. What do you think? Do our cars have anything on the metal door panel adjacent to the speaker?

 

I'm having trouble figuring out what you mean by seal/gasket. Pics?

Are you talking about the big plastic sheet that goes on the entire door?

 

No, not the plastic sheet.
Component speakers come with gaskets:


Mine came with gaskets for the mids, but the inner waste part which you tear away and discard was placed on the metal directly behind my speaker and the actual gasket itself was discarded.
Hope this makes sense now.

 

Haha, so they used the paper instead of the foam?

Really, the gaskets help to make a good seal - ideally for air-tight (or air-tighter) environments for the speaker, but the difference they make is somewhat nominal, I doubt I'd even hear a difference.

 

Noo...much worse than that. They didn't put in any gasket, but I CORRECTED this when I took it all apart and built the wood baffles.

Instead they put the part rubber inside part of the gasket you are supposed to discard on the metal panel behind the speaker. So directly behind my speaker, instead of the metal door panel, I have a rubber like foam circle. <---This is what I am trying to figure out.

This all happened 2+ years ago. Recently just occurred to me that it could be hurting my performance. I'm trying to figure out if it is worth it to remove the door panel and correct this. Maybe I can slap some dynamat equilivant behind there.

 

From what you are explaining, they did it correctly. The gasket makes a seal behind the speaker, between the speaker and the metal door panel.

Seriously, a quick diagram in MS paint or something would help.

 

^ Sounded to me like he was talking about the outer door skin, but why anyone would put the foam/rubber ring on that is beyond me.

 

Yes, thats it. But its not the rubber ring its the entire circle within the ring which is supposed to be discarded since the manufactures use a stamp to cut the rubber ring.

Anyone think this could affect performance?

 

cant imagine it would hinder the performance at all. if it is rubber or foam backing, than it will actually provide minimal deadening. Not unlike what dynamat is designed to do.

 

^^ agreed. It's a minimal form of dampening.

To confirm, the installer put the inner whole circle of the foam/rubber gasket ring on the inside of the outer door skin.

That's actually clever, it adds some dampening to the outer skin, which is a pretty flimsy sheet of metal to begin with.

 

Hmm..you guys have a point. While it may be deadening outside noises, my thoughts were it could be deadening the speaker since it is directly behind it. Now doing a little more reading on it - that may not be a bad thing.

 

I wouldn't worry about any deadening ever reducing the effectiveness of a speaker. Deadening is used to reduce resonance in the flimsy panels, which is essentially exactly what the installer did.

 

Excellent. That gives them a score of 1-3 of the things they didn't screw up versus screwing up. (screwup's being: using the oem baffles, not using the gasket around the speaker, and not using the new door pins I included to reduce door rattle from the old worn pins)

Back on topic. Guess you learn something new everyday. Thanks gents!

 

Hi, I just joined this forum because I decided to keep my maxima for a few more years through college. Now, I want to keep it running in tip top shape. Recently me and my cousin installed a cd deck and 4 speakers. After a few months of use I noticed things randomly turned off. Now since the weather has gotten warmer it's horrible. I leave my car in the lot, I come back from class to go home and when i start the car the clock, cd deck and my windshield wipers do not function, no power? As I leave and go home, then turn on car again later to drive somewhere the stuff works, I think when I leave my car for extended periods of time something inside overheats and causes the clock, cd deck and windshielf wipers to not work. I can see how the clock and cd deck are wired neareach other, but why the wipers??

 

Take the radio out and recheck the wiring.