Fitting New front speakers !!!!! All explained

[Anonymous]

That's what I did, changed the HU & speakers / crossover and kept original wiring into the door, and spliced new wiring from there.

I'm told would have better sound if ALL the wiring was upgraded, but its good enough for me.

12AWG speaker wire is complete overkill anyway, 16AWG will be fine and easier to install/cheaper. Infact, unless you're going for MEGA watts the stock cable will be fine (OEM car cable usually has more strands in it than you think) and don't no-one tell me that some of you lot are golden-eared audiophiles who can hear differences between speaker cables   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:  

You'll want decent, shielded interconnects between HU and amp, though.

[Thudd]

Tbh I reckon the best first upgrade from stock would be a power cleaner. Mine is really noisy.
Edit: this was interference from my old FM MP3 thing. IO Connect and wired MP3 and it sounds great, if lacking in bass.
Next step has to be some better speakers I guess. More expense  s:( s:(

[enid_b]

So if i went for a component set I can use the existing power cable?

run it into the crossover and then wires to the respective speakers? What is putting me of is that I dont want to start having to run extra wires or take another 12v feed from some where

i used the exisiting wire and spliced in the new speakers crossovers etc.  yes it would have been better to change/upgrade the wire, but lets face it, the car is a roadster, its noisy, top down, its even noisier.  you aint gonna notice it when you are on the move.

if you are a rude wide boy and the ICE cruuze car park donut spinning are your bag, then yes change the wire.

one thing that is VERY important.  get some dynomat or similar sound proofing material.  this will make things a lot quieter in the cabin.

E

[Decapotable]

So after reading this if i was going to get better speakers I need to get a componenet set.
my question is how does the standard speakers receive the different frequencies before an aftermarket crossover is installed?
?

Having been inside my doors now, taken a look and changed the speakers, I now know something about the stock installation at least in an 05 car:

From the factory the full frequency range is sent to both drivers it seems. The tweeters are protected from receiving the lower frequencies by an in-series capacitor which will only pass HF of course. The bass units will not be bothered by the higher frequencies and have no filtering whatsoever. This layout is extremely common for in-car audio and must provide something like a first-order roll-off for both drivers I guess. A low-cost cross-over by contrast typically provides second order using a pair of CR circuits, one for the HF and one for the LF driver. In the case of the bass (LF) units this original fitment design will be uncontrolled and the tweeters are not going to be great handled this way either. However I reckon that the lack of a crossover is not the biggest issue.

The stock tweeters do not extend very far into the upper frequencies far on my vehicle and I am assuming this is typical. To be honest they are poor. In addition the tweeters are significantly less sensative than the bass units so the frequencies they do cover are too quiet anyway. Finally, the bass units suffer quite badly from resonance. So I know all this is designed and built to a cost but I am still surprised just how bad they can make these things. I am sure one could have had a single wide-band driver with better response than this supposed component set-up.

The resonance of the LF units might be improved with some sound treatment in the doors but mine are coming out so I will never know. The HF units are just never going to sound good. Replacement component speakers will improve the situation - if they are a half-competent design. Component speaker sets with a cross-over are better but this is often artly because these sets just have better drivers anyway.

[bridgemr2]

I changed my stock speakers at the weekend for a reasonable component set with crossovers.  I just gutted the stock speakers as others have done to use the plastic frame and just stuck with the stock wiring to make things easy for me.  I encountered a problem with bass vibration noise that I managed to solve so I thought i'd post up my solution in case anyone else is faced with the same situation.

I had fully lined my door with flashing tape as an alternative to dynomat.  The speakers went in nice and securely using the plastic frame (cardboard removed as that made my speakers sit too far out if fitted on to it).  Refitted all the door bits and then put some music on..... with any decent bass level I was getting a significant vibration from the grill area.  Basically this was resulting from the speaker edge slightly touching part of the grill.  On further examination I found that the problem area was a couple of moulded fixed clips on the back of the grill - basically where the grill is fixed on to the rest of the door plastic.  I had to therefore remove the whole grill/pocket section (breaking the moulded clips) and trim off the 2 offending clip sections - the 2 bits that jutt out into the grill opening.  As the stock grill is oval, and speakers are obviously round, I also trimmed a bit off right round the grill opening so that there was no further chance of contact.  I then reattached the grill/pocket by using some black rubber sealant stuff.  The vibration is fully gone and I can have the bass up - well chuffed with the sound quality for minimal expense.

[SamsSpares]

hi buster, im looking to upgrade my front speakers and complete sound system. and i just read your post. but i have no idea of speakers and what not!
any chance of some help or explaination?!
email or something?
Let me know
Cheers!

[Goeman]

You do realise that the first post was written 7 years ago and Buster hasn't logged on since 2006? You'll be lucky if he answers your question.

[Anonymous]

Well if he's too late i guess its back to hunting through the threads  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[AckersMR2]

Just thought I would quickly post up my speaker install. I bought some Focal 165a1 component speakers to fit in my 2, £92 new from Fleabay. I gutted the standard speaker mount hacksawing out the magnet and supports leaving me with a outer ring to mount the new speaker to, easy to do, takes 10 mins, far easier than making up mdf ones and as others have said the stock mount has a rain/water guard. Also peel off the stock cardboard surround and then screw the new speaker directly to the mount.

I carefully peeled back half of the stock polythene door cover to gain access to the door skin (you can get to the front half of the door through the speaker hole), covered the inside of the outer door skin with Wickes Flashing tape (150mm x 10m £13) tip here is to heat the flashing tape with a hairdryer once applied to help heat up the tack and get a good bond (if you have a dark coloured car and are doing it in the summer this may not be necessary?). Then re apply the polythene back over the holes.
I then ditched the stock tweeter mounting bracket that is screwed to the door and opted to mount the Focal tweeter to the door card instead so also ditched the stock tweeter cover, this being far easier than trying to screw the new tweeter to the door, you'll have to enlarge the tweeter hole in the door card a little.

Then using the existing wiring in the door to hook up to the crossover which I mounted onto the top of the foam block in the door card with some self adhesive velcro. TIP: Left door Pink wire is +, purple wire is -, Right door Green wire is +, blue is - (thanks stargazer30 & cclarke99)

I also flash taped the inside of the door card, and so pretty much used up all of the tape so you know how much to buy.

I took a couple of pic's of the door card and the door skin after i flashed them, I didn't bother taking photo's of the whole process as so many have done this before.


Untitled by Aki_Z1000, on Flickr
After taking this pic and realising I would have enough left over I went back and also stuck some tape along the bottom edge of the inside of the door card, you just can't use too much of this stuff!


Untitled by Aki_Z1000, on Flickr

[stargazer30]

Very neat job AckerMR2!  :-) :-) :-)

The bottom of the door card is a good idea as it rattles here at high volume I had to take mine back off to get it.  Also I used a little clear silicone on the plastic clips on the door card to stop them rattling!

[AckersMR2]

Good tip that about the silicone, as last night I noticed a slight rattle from the back of the door card near my elbow, bet its the rear clip half way up the card. A quick fix as I've had the door cards off so many times over the weekend I can do it now with my eyes shut in under 2 minutes   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[Anonymous]

hi all, used this thread to fit some infinity reference components into my g/f's MR2 at the weekend. All went well so thanks to all who have posted tips.

Can't believe how much better it sounds, really pleased with the results.   s:mrgreen: :mrgreen: s:mrgreen:

[Red Rooster]

Hi All,

Help, I can't see the images, anyone got any ideas ?

Regards

Steve

[onion86]

Hi All,

Help, I can't see the images, anyone got any ideas ?

Regards

Steve

They've all gone as it was posted 9 years ago  s:) s:)
If there's not another how to on here try spydermagazine (speaker install) and midshiprunabout.org (how to run speaker wire through doors) which should help with most of it. The guide's still here though don't really need pics.

[trickyD]

Hi, just wanted to add my 2p about sound proofing, as I've done it many times on various cars.

Sound insulation such as dynamat is designed for thin metal surfaces such as the metal door itself - not the door card.
Now I'm not trying to start a war here just trying to help direct people's efforts  s:) s:)

I'm sure putting it on the door card wouldn't hurt, but the dynamat is designed to reduce "ringing" (vibration) in the metal which is usually relatively thin and light a bit like a bell. Adding a dense acoustically-inert substance to the metal, prevents the ringing like putting a finger over a bell. It also blocks some road noise which can travel through metal quite easily and the dynamat impedes it.

The door cards themselves appear to already be an acoustically damped material (soft plastic) so should reduce the noise a bit already.
-- Obviously adding dynamat to the cards won't hurt! But it's not the main aim here  s:) s:)

Correct me if I'm wrong of course  s;) s;)

[AckersMR2]

Your probably right but I had some left over after doing the door skins so it seemed a shame to waste it  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[trickyD]

Of course, can't hurt  s:) s:)

[Anonymous]

Hi, first post  s:) s:)

I've followed this guide from spyder chat and all went ok:
 m http://spyderchat.com/forums/showthread ... 00-Install m

The only change I've made was to secure the tweeters in the same place has the old ones so they get the same "tilt angle" and with that I didn't had to cut the door because I was able to fit the original plastic.

[trickyD]

If i just got some coaxials and use the existing power cables going into the 6.5" would that be adequit?

its not power cable its speaker wire   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  , so yes it'll be fine, unless you are seriously upgrading.

[niltor14]

So, new to the forum, I can't see the pictures. Are the links broken, or is it just me?

[trickyD]

Yes the links have died  s:( s:(

[niltor14]

Thanks tricky!

[Gazbills]

Any benefit to be had by installing components with the stock headunit? Guessing with the lack of power most stock units output, the sound quality (esp. low tones) could degrade unless using ultra sensitive speakers.

[Anonymous]

They will sound better, the standard speakers will have had it by now!
adding a new head unit in the future will yield even more results though

[loadswine]

+1 on that, the stock speakers are quite poor, so even modest components can give an improvement.