Six by Nines for a mono car radio application

I am replacing 36 year old paper cone factory speakers in a 1976 Ford Gran Torino. These will be driven by the stock AM-FM mono radio which is wired to three speakers. One small speaker in the dash (I haven't determined exactly what size or what I'm going to replace it with. The other two are 6x9's on the back deck, and that's what I'm looking to replace now.

As it is, I can do as Autograph insists, and turn up the radio, and at full volume it is barely audible over 40-50mph wind/tire/road noise. At 1/2 to 2/3 volume it's actually pretty good sounding, if the car's off and not moving.

At some point I want to install one of those little half DIN amplified graphic equalizers in the glovebox. So I want to purchase speakers that will be able to handle a bit of power, probably 50-75 watts as the equalizers I'm looking at are typically 100w or 150w units.

QUESTION ONE: I am torn between 2-way and 3-way speakers. At first I will only be using these new back speakers for sound. Later when I change out the front speaker I will be using all three of them. Will a 2-way speaker provide enough vocals or should I just get the 3-way ones?

QUESTION TWO: Looking at the specs of speakers I see many that have 25 or 28 ounce magnets, a few 40 ounce ones, some 50's and occasionally a 60 ounce magnet. Does the weight of the magnet have a direct impact on sound quality and power handling? Should I have a magnet weight to consider as a minimum or would some of the under 40 ounce ones be fine?

I will probably purchase on Amazon. The speakers I'm finding seem to fall into four categories:

1) cheap and not so good: Boss, Pyramid, etc, with average reviews of 4 stars or less, priced under $30 a pair, 2-way or 3-way.

2) cheap but rated quite well, there are some certain models of Boss and SSL speakers with all 5-star ratings for $40 or less a pair.

3) name brand, low-to mid range, Pioneers, Kenwoods, Sonys, these are usually $45-$60 with shipping included and the ratings are usually 4 to 5 stars on average.

4) high end, Rockford Fosgate, Kicker, MB Quarts, starting around $70 and up to and over $100 a pair, always good reviews.

I'm trying to avoid speakers that are lighted or are not white, black, or blue in cone color. That is to say, the Boss speakers that are red and the Duals that light up in neon blue (what a gimmick!) are pretty much out regardless of quality. Blue or black or gray or something neutral is good, I have a blue interior, and I probably won't have grilles on these at first until I refinish my package shelf and get it all carpeted and detailed up.

QUESTION THREE: I have heard some of these off-brands, NAXA, SoundStormLabs, Boss, they're all made by the same company and marketed in different colors for no particular reason. Why then would some perform well and some not so much?

So that's pretty much it. Basically I'm looking at some $24 speakers, some $38 speakers, some $48 speakers, some $70 speakers, and I just want to know your OPINIONS, man, if you've used any of these brands I mentioned for a car, no five thousand watt amps, no wall of subs, just a pair of good speakers to get rid of the OEM paper trash. If 6 5-star ratings on a $38 set of speakers means it's worth it then I'll get the SSL GS369's. If the $24 Planet Audio 3-ways are actually better than old paper speakers, that's fine by me. And if they all aren't worth the polyproylene they're printed on, then steer me towards the Kicker KS or whatever. I don't WANT to spend $120 on speakers. But I ALSO don't want to spend short money now and then another $120 later to make it not so miserable.

If it makes any difference I mostly listen to strong local radio stations (classic rock mostly) and 192kpbs MP3 files fed through an FM transmitter (ditto). Poll is for answers to questions one and two, I'd like you to post replies with insight on three.

 

I wish I could actually try all of these out in my car installed and hooked up. But all I can really do is look at the specs and read reviews. Listening to speakers on a wall in a giant store full of people and products is nothing like being in a car with no one talking or shoving or pushing carts around. Also our local Best Buy only has two pairs of 6x9's on their wall, Pioneer and Kenwood, and those are a known quantity to me (and not represented in the below theoretical)

I'm down to five sets of speakers. Some of them are very close in spec so I'll pick the two extremes to represent them. Both of these speakers have sensitivity of 92dB, poly cones with rubber surrounds, 4 ohm impedance, 2-way design

Speaker A (representative of three of the speakers)

rated power about 350w to 400w
RMS 50w or 60w
frequency response 50/60 Hz to 20000Hz
2" tweeter
40-50oz magnet

Speaker B (representative of the other two speakers)

rated power about 500w to 550w
RMS 75w or 90w
frequency response 30Hz to 20000/21000Hz
1" tweeter
25-28oz magnet

So given those two pairs of 2-way speakers, what would you choose if they were the SAME price?

What would you choose if speaker A cost twice as much as B?

What would you choose if speaker B cost twice as much as A?

(edit: you know, I won $60 at the casino Saturday night, I think I just might spring for the $78 Kicker 08KS690's)

 

I bought the cheap speakers and I'm quite impressed. Boss SE692's, 350 watts, they installed easy (except for the bending my fat self sideways in the trunk to reach to tighten the nuts up!), they sound fine through the package shelf with no cutouts, and I can hear them fine going 50-60mph. I'm good. $22.33 spent including shipping.

Because of the acceptable performance of these I would purchase more Boss speakers for our other vehicles. They make a shallow mount 6.5 for my wife's Durango and they're only $16 a pair (so $32 to replace all 4 door speakers). However, since my Suburban has a factory sub and premium sound, I plan to get Kickers for it. 6.5 inch in each door, 8 inch sub in back. We'll see how those sound on the factory head unit and amp and then I'll think about replacing those as well, changing out all the speaker wire for 16 or 14 gauge as I go.