“Tweeter” Replacement

Haymore1965 · May 13, 2023

Hello all, last night In my 96GT Convertible I removed all my Mach460 front and rear speakers and replaced them with a pair of Kenwood 6x8’s in the doors and some Sony 5.25in rounds for the rear and tied it into my Kenwood HU with new speaker wire. Sounds decent but I’m curious what options I have for replacing the 460 “tweeters” with some modern ones if that’s possible these days. Granted I’m sure they are just small speakers right and not called tweeters? Idk. That’s why I’m making this post here.

Info is limited on the Mach system and haven’t been able to get solid research done. So I hoping to get some good help here.

So, for those who bypassed the Mach460 system with their own radio system, what have you done to add “tweeters” in the original locations in your cars? The door and back quarter panels?

Also, one last thing, is there a special headunit I need to get to run those four “tweeters”?

Some pics of my ride Shadow…

Thanks,

Zach

ttocs · May 13, 2023

the best way to do it is to get component speakers that have a woofer and seperate tweeter, and then a cross over that splits the signal so the speaker see the high/low it wants to play. Just adding tweeters on top of the existing speakers will tax the deck, make it hot and possibly blow a fuse or the output on the deck.

Haymore1965 · May 13, 2023

Gotcha thank you. These are the speakers are have for the front. So instead of adding them on top of these like you mentioned, I may just wire in a smallish amp then.

ttocs said:
the best way to do it is to get component speakers that have a woofer and seperate tweeter, and then a cross over that splits the signal so the speaker see the high/low it wants to play. Just adding tweeters on top of the existing speakers will tax the deck, make it hot and possibly blow a fuse or the output on the deck.

Haymore1965 · May 13, 2023

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Haymore1965 said:
Gotcha thank you. These are the speakers are have for the front. So instead of adding them on top of these like you mentioned, I may just wire in a smallish amp then.

ttocs · May 13, 2023

if you do that, the challenge you will run into is either trying to figure out and use the stock speaker wiring, or you will need to run wire from the amp to each tweeter including through the door jam. It isn't that hard if you know how but I am also not sure it is worth the trouble for a tweeter. You will also need to make a mount for the tweeter which again isn't hard if you know how but if you are in an apartment with no tools, then it is different. If it were me I would find a buddy to buy your current speakers and get some components with the tweeters already in the package.

shovel · May 16, 2023

Real easy, eliminate all of the Mach amplifiers (and the wiring to the front one under the radio, does require cutting the yellow wire but the rest all comes out).

Use decent coaxials in the back, wired to the harness that previously served the tweeters. That connects directly to the amp bypass plug in the dashboard (as in, powered by an aftermarket head unit). Discard the Mach tweeters, or just leave them in place but disconnected. There is not really any value in running components or separate tweeters back there unless you're running a real serious system with DSP per driver and if you're doing that you wouldn't be asking.

For the front doors, tape off the lower door speaker wires, those came from the rear amplifier and are wired in parallel left/right. Just tape them off to the inside of the door so they can't rattle. Then intercept the wire which goes up to the tweeter pod. Just like in back that is fed directly by the amp bypass plug in the dashboard. Install the crossover from a set of components up there. Run the woofer wire down to the door woofer and run the tweeter wire up to the tweeter pod. Disassemble the little tweeter and use its basket as a mounting location for the component tweeter.

Don't forget to install a bit of noise damping material (Noico, Dynamat, whatever brand you like) in the doors as long as you have them open.

joemomma · May 16, 2023

Interestingly enough, and since I'm super picky with tweeters (or overly sensitive to bad ones) I'm thinking about putting my Mach "tweeters" back in place of the Rockford ones that came with my new components. The RF ones just don't sound good to me. With the placement of the Mach door tweeter pods and their proximity to your ears, you'd better have some good tweeters (not that the Mach stock speakers are any better than the RF ones, but they may not be as bright as the RF ones).

r3dn3ck · May 17, 2023

The Mach 460 system is 8ohm so it's not amenable to replacing individual components. You can do like I and anyone else that had a mach system lose a major component and forklift replace the whole works: sub, 5.5" speakers, 2.5" tweeters, amp and deck with common 4ohm commodity bits. I dropped a couple grand to get a decent setup and it blows the mach 460 away.

joemomma · May 17, 2023

r3dn3ck said:
The Mach 460 system is 8ohm so it's not amenable to replacing individual components. You can do like I and anyone else that had a mach system lose a major component and forklift replace the whole works: sub, 5.5" speakers, 2.5" tweeters, amp and deck with common 4ohm commodity bits. I dropped a couple grand to get a decent setup and it blows the mach 460 away.

Mine was actually not a Mach car, I just used the tweeter pods to mount my component tweeters. It's all new (Alpine HU and 5-channel amp, Kicker 12" sub, and RF components up front with some cheap NVX rear coaxials) but I'm just not happy with the RF tweeters in the Mach pods. Way too bright.

ttocs · May 17, 2023

joemomma said:
Mine was actually not a Mach car, I just used the tweeter pods to mount my component tweeters. It's all new (Alpine HU and 5-channel amp, Kicker 12" sub, and RF components up front with some cheap NVX rear coaxials) but I'm just not happy with the RF tweeters in the Mach pods. Way too bright.

a quick/cheap fix is to put another layer of cloth over the grill of the tweeter to get it to quiet down. It isn't hard if you know how but it is easy to mess up if you don't know how.

joemomma · May 18, 2023

I'll see what I can rig up, I'm planning to pull the mirrors for a fresh coat of trim paint so I'll have to take the Mach pods out. While I'm in there I'll see if I can get some cloth to cover them as a test. Something like an old t-shirt or something?