I am looking into replacing my front stage right now and was wanting some advise on which way to go. My budget is $500 for just the speakers in a 2-way setup. I drive a 4 door 99 Grand Am and have no speakers in the rear. My current front stage consists of the Focal 165KF running passive. The Focals sound good in the higher ranges but lacks greatly in the lower ranges. I am not looking at getting louder just more low end and detailed. I cross my sub around the 50-60hz range and would like to bring my front stage close to that range also. I am looking to better the staging in my car. Currently I have these in the kicks with the speakers aimed inbetween the two front seats at the height of the headrests and the tweets aimed towards each other and slightly upwards. Now I have been thinking about putting the new speakers in door pods and putting the tweets in the A pillars. I am going to be running the new setup active off the SAX 100.4. I was wondering what speakers to go with and if the placement sounds good or if I should look into placing them in a different location. Any and all advise is welcome as I do not know a lot about front stage. I have been able to tell that it is the most important part of my setup since my sub is on only sometimes and when it is on, it is turned down all the way on my HU. If any other information is needed please let me know.

Do you or will you have any processing available beyond what the SAX offers?

I am planning on using just my HU ( Pioneer DEH-P980BT) for equalizing and maybe the time alignment and the SAX for the filters.

What have you done in the current install to increase the midbass of the 165's?

ie, what does the installation include. Pics would be helpful, a description of what you did, how they are wired (phase), what eq work you have tried, and so on.

I do not have a camera so I am not going to be able to show pictures of the install. I have the speakers in the q-logic kicks ( I think this might be part of the problem but I had never fiberglassed before when I bought these ). I have deadended all the doors with CLD tiles MLV and CCF from SDS and am going to be doing the floor when it gets nicer outside. I know very little when it comes to tuning a front stage so I have tried using the auto eq/ta on my head unit but it would never sound good so I started to adjust the eq and ta until I liked how it sounded. Each side is wired up to one channel on the amp and I have only adjusted the high pass filter on it and I have adjusted it all the way down to 50hz before. I have tried adjusting the low end of the eq on my head unit but it does not get much better. Im sorry if I'm not giving enough information as I have little knowledge when it comes to front stages so I will do my best to tell you everything you need to know.

Did you reinforce the q-logics or vent them into the fender? If not, I'd start there.

No I havent. Which way do you think would be the best way either vent or reinforce? How should I go about doing this?

you could build an aperiodic enclosure.... get a lil more low end. i know you were looking to go active, but if you decide to just go passive again try take a listen to some rainbows.

you could build an aperiodic enclosure....

No need, vent them into the fenders it will be much better. You've been reading where the info is dubious. Better than cramped sure, but NEVER the first step.

As for reinforcing, typical way is with MDF and or fiberglass. Adding mass surely helps as well. Never seen a set of qlogics that were aimed worth a shit, but that won't be the issue with the low end. If you cut them up though I'd play with other aiming.

I use Q-Logics and always make a new mounting ring to attatch from behind to reinforce where the mid mounts and then I add some scrap deadening to help add mass as M5 was stating.

I could easily do what OldSkool said but if its better to vent them then I could always try that too I just dont know what I would need to do for that. Would it be a better option to just throw out the q-logics and put the speakers in more of an ideal location?