Neal728

Guys & Gals,

I would like to put Kappas in my 2K2 Maxima like I had in my old car. Anyone get these to fit? Crutchfield says they don't but I think they are BSing. Anyone? If not these, which would you reccomend, Inifity reference, pioneer, ect.

Neal

Stereodude

This is a question I'm looking at now. Do you have the Bose system or not?

I'm suspicious of the info on Crutchfield's site myself. There are two speakers with the exact same dimentions (6.75" 2 way co-axials). They say one won't fit, but the other will. If there are no dimensional differences what causes the one not to fit?

Stereodude

Stereodude

I should mention that Infinity doesn't make 6.75" speakers. I'm going to take a look at some Kenwood Excelon components tomorrow (which supposedly fit) tomorrow to see what they sound like.

Stereodude

Neal728

Hey stereodude, did u have a listen to the speakers? How were they? U think they would fit, and if so, model #? BOSE is making me angry....

jfriar52

I'm not positive, but I think that they might not fit because of the tweeters. I think anything with a mounting height over 9/16" won't fit. If they stick out too far then they wouldn't fit with the panel on. You might be able to cut out the door grill panel around the speaker and use the infinity grills. If you don't want to do any cutting, I'd probably stick with something that will fit. And infinity does make a 6 3/4" kappa (652.5i) which probably wouldn't fit either.

Stereodude

Unfortunately no... I went to the store and they didn't have them. They said they were supposed to get them on Monday and they would be putting them on up in their display. So I'll call them on Tuesday and see if they really have them in or not.

The models I'm trying to listen to are:
KFC-XR71p
KFC-XR51p

According to Crutchfield they should fit. I'm not buying them until I hear them though.

Stereodude

Stereodude

I think the problem is actually depth. If the speakers are too deep the windows will not go down (or so I've read).

Those must be the phantom Kappas. According to Infinity's site they don't exist. Figures...

Stereodude

Neal728

It would be GREAT to know what our limits are on mounting height, mounting depth on the 2K2s, I've been looking @ a ton of different speakers trying to decide which to get. Stereodude, what do you think of the Alpine HUs coming out that have the 27 rms and a hybrid amp, the ones that need a direct line to the battery? I don't need too much power, does this look logical? It would definitely simplify my installation process....

Stereodude

I don't care for Alpine HUs myself. I think they're overpriced and underfeatured. I've not yet opened up the doors on my car to measure the speakers and see what the deal is.

Stereodude

Boots

I dig my system, but with the windows down in the front, the 6.5" speakers strike the glass (just barely) when you shut the doors. BE CAREFUL! Kappas are very accurate and bright. The cones are very delicate though, so use extra care during install.

Neal728

Stereodude, so you'd reccomend staying with the BOSE HU, getting the adapter, and going with aftermarket amps? If I'm just going to run component set in the front and coax in the rear, do I need a 4 channel for that? Some of you have used 2 channels I thought.

Stereodude

It depends. I'm getting ready to replace mine. With the Bose you pretty much have to pull the trigger and replace the whole thing at once. If you yank the speakers and put some amps in it you still have the HU doing it's equalization.

I'd recommend either leaving it alone, or replaceing the HU and speakers (and either using the HU for the speakers, or amping them). I'm going to replace the HU and speakers. I'm going to drive the front components from a 150x2 amp that I already have and I'm going to drive my sub by another identical amp (bridged to 450x1). I already have the sub. I'm not 100% certain what HU I'm going to get, or what speakers to get. I'm still trying to sort out what speakers will fit in the stupid car.

Stereodude

jfriar52

I'm pretty sure that the depth is 2 3/8" and the height is less than 9/16".

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

Again, this is my opinion, go listen and formulate your own opinions.

I think Infinity Kappas are weak at best. For some reason, they are a very popular speaker, but I still don't know why. I had the chance to A/B/C/D with Infinity Reference/Kappa/Beta/Nakamichi a few years ago. This was in a sound room and I was able to control the switch and I had my own music. Kappa came in second to last, just barely nudging out the Nak's. The Reference actually sounded better to me.
Go out and A/B some speakers to find what you like better. You may end up liking the Kappa's better, but I doubt it.

Stereodude

Apparently you have odd standards by which you judge speaker. The Kappas are popular for a reason. And that reason is that they are good.

Stereodude

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

Sound quality, warmness and power handling are "odd standards"? Did you ever consider that they are popular because most people have never A/B'd a pair of speakers in their lives? Perhaps it is because it is a reliable speaker that people can "brag" about having since no one knows who Directed is (they make EXCELLENT component speakers for under $229 shipped for 6.5" components) or CDT (Cambria 6.5" components for $199 shipped) or Crystal (CSc 60t for $175) or Image Dynamics (Chameleon, don't have a price off the top of my head, but they compete in price) or even Focal (165H for $179) while Infinity 6.5" components are $200.
I haven't listened to every set I mentioned, but I can say that the Directed's, the ID's and the CDT's will MURDER Infinity Kappa in an A/B test - and some of them are cheaper than Kappa.

Stereodude

And will any of them actually fit in a Maxima. That seems to be the elusive criteria. Finding speakers that will fit in a Maxima's doors. According to Crutchfield jack squat fits.

Stereodude

Stereodude

Seriously... You tell me which one will fit in the Maxima's doors (I have a 2002 SE w/ Bose) and I'll go do some listening and get a set for the front and one for the rear.

Stereodude

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

Crutchfield says the 2000-2002 Maximas have 2 3/8" mounting depth in the front and 3 5/16" in the rear. That 2 3/8" number is pretty shallow, but there's no reason you couldn't build a little ring to put around the opening to sit the speaker on top of to pop it off the door a little bit. Most anything will fit in most any car and sometimes you don't even have to cut anything, you just have to be creative.

Stereodude

Well Crutchfield is on crack. Those are the "non-Bose" dimensions. The paper catalog and the website do not agree exactly. The dimensions listed in the catalog seem to agree with the non-bose system (for the most part).

The Catalog lists: 6.75" for the front with a depth of 2.375", 6.75" for the rear with a depth of 3.9375"

The website is much more nebulous. For the non-Bose: 6.75" for the front with a max depth of unknown. The only show some of the 6.75" speakers to fit. Max depth for any that fit is 2.4375" (this is more than the catalog shows). If we look at the speakers that don't fit we see that there is one speaker that is 2.4375" that won't fit and the rest are deeper. For the rears they list 6.75". They do not specify a depth, but all 6.75" speakers are shown to clear on the back.

For the Bose it's just messy: 6.75" for the front with no max depth specified. There are speakers as deep as 2.5625" will fit. However, there are speakers as shallow as 1.75" that do not fit (with no apparent explanation or reason). For the rears they list 5.25" with no max depth specified. They have speakers as deep as 2.3125" fitting and as shallow as 1.875" not fitting (again with no apparent rhyme or reason).

Since I have the Bose system in my car I am very concerned about the apparent "fit" issues that I may have. I should probably open up the doors on my Maxima and see what's really going on inside of them.

Stereodude

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

Why would mounting depth depend on bose/non-bose?? Mounting depth has to do with the structure of the car, not the existing stereo setup in there. Crutchfield shows the same "structure" for 00-02 Maximas. Maybe you could ask in the 5th gen forum?

Since you guys are all so concerned, I would have thought one of you would just take off your door panel, take out the speaker and take a ruler and measure it with the window down ...

Stereodude

Don't ask me... Ask Crutchfield... Apparently the doors are not the same for both designs. As I spent a great deal of time elaborating above that Crutchfield apparently does not have any consistency between the various models of 5th gen Maximas or even between their website and their catalog.

Also as I've mentioned there seems to be issues beyond depth (at least for the cars with Bose). As I understand it years previous to 2002 the amps for each speaker were mounted to the speaker in the doors. Perhaps that explains the bizarre differences. However, in 2002 this is no longer the case. The amp for all the speakers is in the trunk. So maybe it's not really an issue for 2002 Maximas.

The doors do not open easily. I started to take mine apart last night and stopped due to the the fact that the door is held on by christmas tree fasteners. As you probably know they almost always break when trying to take them off of something. Since it was getting late last night and I would like the doors panels to stay on in the future I did not force the door panel off.

Stereodude

Neal728

Aside from all the mounting issues both of you are talking about, I'm looking at the wiring in my 2K2 with BOSE (took the doors off). It looks like the wiring runs from the HU, to the rear deck amp, then off to the speakers. If this is true, then I need to run all new speaker wire from the replacement HU to the speakers right? Or should I mount an amp in the trunk and use the existing stuff? Hmmm... so many options... Also, what guage/brand wire would you guys use for nothing crazy, just comps in the front, coax in rear, a simple sub, ect.

Stereodude

I would use new wire in any case. I'd use some SoundKing 12ga that you can get from partsexpress. A 100' foot spool is about $35. I would not use the existing wiring.

Stereodude

Stereodude

Ok, I got ticked and ripped open the doors on my 2002 w/ Bose today.

The front is 165mm (6.75") The depth is 2 7/16. There doesn't seem to be anything that would cause any problems beyond the depth. The glass from the window is >3" behing the front of the mount surface, so if you want to cut out the back of the plastic you can with no problems (I'll post pictures later).

The back is 5.25". The depth is 2 1/8". Again there's nothing funky in the hole other to cause problems beyond the depth. The glass doesn't come down far enough to cause problems. If you were willing to cut out the plastic you could get up to more then 5" of depth. Again I'll post pictures later.

Stereodude

Neal728

Stereodude you rule! thanks for looking. The BOSE system in the 2K2 has midbass/midrange in all 4 doors? or midbass in front and coax in rear? Cuz I'm gonna switch em out. The tweeters I put in make such a huge difference in the highs.

Stereodude

Midbass in all 4 doors.

I'm looking to replace everything Bose in the car. I'm trying to decide on what components it get. CDT looks like they have the best stuff (from the spec and reviews) for the money.

Stereodude

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

CDT ROCS. I heard them when they were Clif Designs back in the mid nineties and I was VERY impressed. They are (supposedly) even better now ...

Stereodude

Here are the speakers. Notice the worthless lip on the back of the mounting holes. It seems that it can be safely dremel'd away.

http://stereo.d2g.com:900/max_front_door_wide.jpg


http://stereo.d2g.com:900/max_front_door_close_1.jpg

http://stereo.d2g.com:900/max_front_door_close_2.jpg


http://stereo.d2g.com:900/max_rear_door_close_1.jpg

http://stereo.d2g.com:900/max_rear_door_close_2.jpg

Stereodude

Stereodude

Right now The Zeb is closing out the Cambria's for $119 for the 5.25" (CA-50) and $129 for the 6.5" (CA-60).

I was also looking at getting a pair of (CL-61) for my front doors. They're throwing in either a free pair of CL-5X or CL-6X with their Classic components. The CL-5X look like they'd be decent rear fill.

So it's either two pairs of Cambria's or the Classic Components/Classic Slim full range combo. I wish I could hear them in person somewhere.

Stereodude

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

The plastic doesn't even have to be there. On my 4th gen, I took out the plastic thing (held in by 4 screws - identical in function and similar in look), traced it onto MDF, cut the shape out - double thickness (2 3/4" boards), glued them together, and cut out a mounting hole for the speakers.

In your case, you would then drill out the three holes in corresponding spots to the plastic mounting ring and mount the MDF. This way you can have more mounting depth by raising the face of the speaker a little if possible. I'll try and snap pics tomorrow, I've been meaning to anyway.

Big_Ham

iTrader: (1)

And, BTW, www.mmxpress.com is a factory authorized CDT Audio dealer ... full REAL factory warranty ...

And from their site:
SPECIAL DEAL, FREE SPEAKERS! Buy a set of CDT Audio Classic Series Components and get a set of CL-5X Slim Coaxes (retail value $90.00) with Purchase!

Triple8Sol

iTrader: (29)

They do exist, and Infinity did make them. They are no longer made, as Infinity has a new line of Kappas... I run 4 Infinity Kappa 62.1i (6 1/2") and they sound great!

Stereodude

The Zeb has the same deal and they're authorized as well. They also have the Cambria's half off.

Stereodude

Stereodude

Here's something that might help some people if they want to make their own mounts to replace the plastic ones in the front doors of the 5th gen. The factory plastic mounts are only 1" thick and by my measurements the back of the speaker grille in the door is 2" from the door, so it seems that you can get away with a 1.5" thick mount. This will allow anything up to about 3.5" deep speaker to be mounted in the door.

Anyhow, here's a "trace" of the hole and the screw holes. Print it out at 300dpi and you should be good to go in figuring out how big to make the round rings. Once again this is from a 2002 Max SE w/ Bose (but the other 5th gens should be the same).

http://stereo.d2g.com:900/max_front_...g_template.jpg

Stereodude

Neal728

Would there be any down side to me just cutting out the back part of the plastic and keeping the round part?

Stereodude

Part of the magnet is no longer protected from water coming down from the window. If you have a 6.75" speaker that's probably the easier way to go. I want to put a 6.5" speaker in, so I might as well lift it out and fix the hole size at the same time.

I would cut up part of a pop bottle or something so that the back of your cone is still protected.

Stereodude

Triple8Sol

iTrader: (29)

So b/w the 5th Gen Bose and non-Bose systems, is it very difficult to just change out the speakers and HU? Is there a difference b/w the two? Can't you just buy wiring harnesses and do it that way? I'd rather not change out all the wiring if I can avoid it...

blizz20oma

iTrader: (1)

Wow, this is an informative thread for all you 5th gen/2K2ers.

I just wanted to share my woes with stock bose speaker pods in my 4th-gen and getting speakers to fit.

6.5's are technically too small, but really, screwholes on a pair of boston FX6's I had (6.5"s) would have matched up fine it seems. Unfortunately, the bostons didn't fit. It wasn't necessarily mounting depth - the mounting depth of the speakers were definitely within spec. The problem was how deep/large the actual speaker basket was. According to the shop that sold them to me, Boston's have pretty large baskets. I traded them out for my Eclipses, with notably smaller baskets (and mounting depth - the two are obviously related, but it wasn't the mounting depth that was the problem). These fit into the pods OK, but since they are 6.5"s, they didn't quite match up on the lip. I was able to get two screws in on one side, with the other side having a very slight gap between itself and the lip of the pod. I had some silicone gasket sealant material I was planning to use anyway, and was able to compensate for the gap simply with that. They're mounted fine and no air is escaping from the lip edge. However, I was concerned with the sealant plopping through the gap and perhaps into the speaker by the vc/magnet. So I took it pretty carefully - but where the gaps were, if anything fell, it would have missed the internals of the speaker anyway I think.


I don't know if you guys can apply something like this to your 2K2s. It's easier than making MDF enclosures for your doors, but enclosures would be optimal for performance. I also had to slightly modify the stock basket (in the 4th gens, there's a circular plate at the rear of the pod with two pegs coming out of it - I ripped the pegs off. Could rip off the whole circular plate, I suppose). I think with a little work you could get a lot of 6.5s/some 6.75s to fit OK, but it seems the mounting depth is fairly shallow in the 2K2 doors with stock pods. I can't tell by looking at the pics if you'd have similar basket-depth problems that I had with the Bostons.

Good luck guys. Hope you get those 2K2s bumpin.

Stereodude

I ended up getting CDT HD-62DT speakers for the front and I got some CDT CL-5x's for rear fill. I'm going to build some MDF (or similar) rings to replace my cheapo plastic mounts for the front.

6.5" speakers may fit, but MDF rings are simple to make really. Besides I needed some extra depth for my speakers.

Stereodude