Speaker upgrade

Hi,

I ‘upgraded’ the four door speakers in my mk3 a while ago. I bought the below speakers off Amazon. They are very tinny and distort at the slightest hint of bass.

Has anyone upgraded to door speakers and what did you go for? I only have a Kenwood 50w head unit at the moment. No amps.

Thanks,

Paul
Pioneer TS-G1720F 17cm 2-Way Coaxial Speakers (300W)

 

Replaced my mk2 with a full set of alpine speakers as had 3 not working, one ripped and 2 odd front door ones. Very impressed with them,
Must be equivalent for a mk3,or sizes anyway.
I've had my 10+ year old Sony cd player that's followed right from my zr, clio, caddy, mgf and more.

I also managed to get them when ebay had 20% code too. But I'm sure they were cheaper than listed now anyway.

 

MK3’s run a spilt system from standard with the bigger door speakers producing the Bass and Mid tones, and a tweeter.
On the rear doors this is near the handle and on the dash in the front. Similar to component speakers in the aftermarket world with a passive or active crossover, the back of standard door speaker has take off to supply the tweeter and the crossover is done in line.

With the lob sided height of the dash, you’re never going to produce the perfect sound stage for SQL purposes but to rock out to whilst driving it works pretty well. The standard speakers, with a decent Headunit and addition of sub can produce some decent sound.

My MK3 Hatch runs standard speakers, an Alpine HU with an inline Alpine amp powering the speakers, and a 8” Rockford in the boot with a separate mono amp. (Over complex, but I fitted the sub first). My Estate runs a MK4 Gamma V Headunit and standard speakers and it sounds alright not too shabby and you can bop on a road trip happily.

The speakers you’ve got may need more power to allow the cones to move and produce the bass, they distort and flap when there is not enough power and equally flap with too much power. Being Coaxial the speaker is doing everything, Bass / Mid and Highend (tweeter) - and it’s all low down near your knees as the sound stage has moved, you fill bass and hear highend so unless you knees grow ears its going to sound different.

You could add an amp, power the door speakers, and use the head unit to power the tweeters in the doors and dash to lift the sound stage, you might need to add some capacitors to the 12+Ve to cut the bass and mid out.

 

Brilliant info folks, many thanks. I’ll have a look at those Alpine speakers and have a think about fitting an amp.

cheers

 

I upgraded to a set of Focal components in the Mk3 and they were well worth the money - a decent manufacturer starting at about £80 atm for mid (door) and tweeters component sets, with a crossover. Made a big difference to the standard speakers.

Recently grabbed an ebay bargain for the Fabia VRS daily, a set of Morel components for £70 removed from a breaking porsche 911 that had stereo upgraded - these sound fantastic and almost as good as a decent home Hi Fi setup. Mind you they were about £450 when new so they should do - these are running off a 50w Pioneer head unit and sound absolutely fine (great, even)

Always worth looking on ebay for decent used stuff, especially these days as less people are upgrading audio and older stuff comes on market cheaply - - Morel, JL Audio, Hertz generally better than the usual Halfords special brands. Components are best because you'll usually get the crossover which as Quiksilver has mentioned, will cut the frequencies to each speaker to improve response and efficiency.

Whilst it's always worth using a separate Amp if you can be bothered with the wiring and hassle (I did in the mk3, CBA in the daily), a decent head unit should power doors and tweeters acceptably. If you want a separate sub (a must if you want decent full range sound quality) then amplify that in the boot.

Don't bother with rear speakers at all - concentrate efforts on the fronts, you're running a stereo setup not surround sound. Multi speaker setups are a compromise and spoil soundstage. Remove the rears unless you're replacing them with the same quality as the fronts. And even then it's a waste.

It's also worth getting some cheap soundproofing adhesive material to dampen standing waves inside the doors if you're getting serious - stick it to any flat metal surface that doesn't already have sound deadening on it, that you can get to without stopping the window working or anything. You don't need to get 100% of the door, just the more the merrier sort of thing, but only worth it if you're going for high quality speakers.

I got this for £13, it's out of stock now but I'm sure similar is available at a similar price https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374397863742

If you're installing components, which as I say is well worth it, then be prepared to cut into the speaker wiring loom under the dash, if I recall correctly - it's been about 6 years since I did it... I fitted the crossovers under the dash / in the glovebox and ran extra wires to the tweeters from there, and reconnected the crossovers to the wiring that went through the door to the woofers. If that makes sense. I'm sure there's a decent guide on here somewhere.

 

Many thanks for the detailed reply Joe.

 

I have fitted a set of MB Quart component speakers in my mk2, they sound fantastic off a Blaupunkt DAB head unit...really worth going for early 2000 speakers before the company has changed hands...