> I have mounted 2-6X9 speakers in the rear
> panel of my 80' 280zx (bought a new panel)
> it sounds pretty good, but I would like to
> install 2 sub woofers towards the front but
> I can't decide on a location that would
> produce good sound, be out of the way, and
> look good. any ideas would be greatly
> appreciated. thanks Joseph
I had a similar setup in my 260 but used a bazooka 6 bass tube against the back panel.
The interior of a Z is pretty small, and it's an open space, so a big speaker is not necessary. I had a Sherwood 4 channel 200W amp with 50W going to the 6x9's and the other 2 channels bridged powering the tube, and an Alpine crossover unit . Enough bass for my personal liking with a nice midrange, and not terribly expensive.
If you are willing to ditch your spare you can have a a sub built into your spare tire well, that would work great cuz it wouldn't take up any space, and nobody would see it. The problem with stereo equipment in Z's is that it's all in plain site, especially sub's. Hide amps & crossover units under the seats, I made the mistake of not doing this and lost everything.
The problem with this setup is that all the sound came from the back. There's more to a stereo than loud bass, the ability of a system to produce a believable soundstage is the true test. Vocals should sound like they are coming from an area a few feet beyond your windshield.
A nice way to round off your system would be to install 1 dome tweeters in the front. I never got around to this, because somebody stole my whole system before i was finished, but i was thinking about putting them either on the top of the support pillars, or on the dash down by the windshield facing up.
The most important aspect of this setup is the crossover unit, you shouldn't just run pre-amp output to the amp and then to the speakers without a crossover. I would suggest an active crossover unit rather than the passive filters which suck up power. The active crossovers can run about 100 bucks. I found a crossover point of 100Hz to work very nicely, in conjunction with the 6x9's. But this would differ depending on which sub and speakers you were using.
Good luck, and remember when it comes to audio there is no right or wrong, as long as it fits in your budget and sounds good.