upgrading xantia sx speakers?

Barbarian · Post by **Barbarian** » 18 Apr 2006, 00:54

Im wanting to upgrade the speakers in my xantia to better quality ones but i dont want to spend alot on them. just a bit better than the crap thats in the car. as far as i can tell my car has 4 speakers in two on the dash and two in the front doors. I take it the dash speakers are tweeters? I know very little about this. What size are these? And what size are the door speakers? I listen to mostly rock and pop type music like the smiths guns n roses, manic street preachers ect so im after speakers that will sound good with this type of music not just pure base. I take it id be better with a set of 3-way speakers in the doors? Im also thinking about a set of 6x9 mounted in speeker boxes on the rear parcel shelf i dont want to cut it up or buy an accustic shelf! a set of 3-ways here too? I might just leave the dash tweeters alone.

So can anybody reccomend a decent set of speakers that would do the job but dont cost the earth?

Ross_K · Post by **Ross_K** » 18 Apr 2006, 01:33

Yep, the ones in the dash are tweeters. The ones in the front doors are 17cm and the ones in the back doors are 13cm...

The Pioneer TS-1785 speaker kit comes with replacement tweeters for the dash.

Barbarian · Post by **Barbarian** » 18 Apr 2006, 02:25

I dont have back door speakers thats why i was thinking of adding 6x9 in the back but then id need an amp? Iv got front and rear aux ports on my head unit but im not sure if they 40w output as well.

If i was to wire in a set of 6x9 in the back and have 6 working speakers in the car(including the tweeters) how would i go about it?

Barbarian · Post by **Barbarian** » 18 Apr 2006, 02:31

whats the Pioneer TS-1785 speaker kit like? How much of an improvment did it make for you?

Ross_K · Post by **Ross_K** » 18 Apr 2006, 02:54

They make a world of difference compared to the factory speakers.

They're about 30 quid cheaper now than when I bought them a few months ago:
http://www.mcs-direct.co.uk/acatalog/in ... 785%2ehtml

Dunno about your 6x9s - what radio have you got? The factory fitted one or an aftermarket one? Although I'd think that either way you should be able to run four speakers at once...

Barbarian · Post by **Barbarian** » 18 Apr 2006, 03:33

Its an after market one an old kenwood kdc-4080R cd head unit. But what im saying is i want to run 6 speakers the 4 in the car that includes the tweeters or dont they count as actual speakers? And a set of 6x9 in the back. But i just want to run them all off the head unit.

mezuk04 · Post by **mezuk04** » 18 Apr 2006, 08:05

An old stereo can make the difference between having good and bad performing speakers.

If there is a chance that the stereo is pretty much coming to the end of its life then maybe a new stereo would suffice, merely upgrading the speakers may not be enough.

Have you tried a mates stereo in yours????

I did, and it turned out it was the stereo which started to pack in!

The speakers in the Zx Temp and Xantia I found to be pretty good and on occasion I have it pretty darn loud. In the ZX I also had a sub, amp & 6x9's in addition to the factory speakers.....and I have to much of a habit of popping speakers.....It was never the factorys that went but always the 6x9s

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 18 Apr 2006, 09:14

Some head units have 4 outputs rated the same (eg 4 x 25 watts) and some do not - (eg 2 x 7, 2 x 25 watts) The latter are best used with a pair of front (door) speakers on the 25 watt output and the tweeters on the 7.

Rear speakers make a lot of difference and make the whole setup seem much less stressed and produce a better overall sound. The purists will argue over the benefits of shelf speakers versus door speakers - them make the most elementary mistake an installation and not fit decent enclosures with backs.

however something at the back will produce much better results - and what I'd do is try connecting the front tweeters and door speakers to one outlet and the rears to another.

Power - the volume on noise produced rises on a logarithmic scale - which means that if your present system runs on 10 watts - and you want twice as much noise you will need 100 watts - NOT 20.

So what you can do will depend on the output of your present unit which is probably written on a sticker on the back if no where else. I'd say that much less than 25 watts is rather short of guts although 10 can sound quite good with high efficiency speakers in a quiet car (for someone who doesn't want to shake the paint off the car doors)

nxh66 · Post by **nxh66** » 18 Apr 2006, 13:07

Hi All,
The tweeters should be wired in parallel with the front door speakers using a capacitor (normally built into the tweeter) to maintain the correct impedance and to filter low frequencies from the tweeters input.
There will be 4 pairs of wires to connect to the head unit and i've normally found that it is present in the car even if the rear speakers are not actually fitted as standard, although it may terminate under the rear/ front seat or if ur lucky in the rear doors!!
The aux/line out sockets will require an amp, u would be lucky to run some headphones of them without one, it is rather easy to blow 6*9s off an amp if you get carried away!

In my zx i settled for keeping the standard front speakers which were suprisingly good, replacing the rears with another pr of standard front (better tweeters!), buying a better headunit with low pass cuttoff to the normal 40-50w outputs and putting a modest sub in the boot, far from a chav system but good sound quality and i do tend to shout fro several hours after a long drive!!

Barbarian · Post by **Barbarian** » 18 Apr 2006, 14:49

well my cd head unit is fine i have been using it in my old car for 3 years. The output on my head unit is 4 x 40w which should be enough without an amp, its just getting the 6x9 wire up correctly that ill have the bother.

So the tweeters and front speakers in my xantia are already wired up in paraell?

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 18 Apr 2006, 17:40

On the ZX all the speaker wires come back behind the radio unit - and I'd guess that the tweeters and mains are currently wired separately. You may be able to work it out from fiddling with the radio controls - probably the fader if you have one will alter the main and tweeter balance.

BonceChops · Post by **BonceChops** » 18 Apr 2006, 18:16

The front door speakers and tweeters should be connected to the front output from your stereo not some to front and some to the rear. I found the original front speakers to be excellent in my Xantia. I fitted a very old Kenwood CD head unit. I added a sub woofer and removed the bass from the front speakers. I was surprised with the quality of the front speakers. The rear speakers were not bad but could not handle as much power. As far as rear 6x9's, if you read any car audio forum they always say no to big rear speakers and that the 'sound stage' should be in front of the listener like when you go to a live gig. Your 40w output head unit will really only be about 15w rms. The front speakers had a rating printed on the back of them, its 25 or 30w if i remember correctly. If I was you i would add an amp to the front speakers with an 80hz high pass cut off and add a sub woofer using an amp with an 80hz low pass cut off on the rear output from you head unit. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the result

Barbarian · Post by **Barbarian** » 18 Apr 2006, 18:40

i cant be bother with amps and stuff dont want to spend that sort of money all i want is decent sound in the car with enough bass for rock,pop music to sound good, as far as i can tell the the speakers in the car cant handel the bass and volume from the head unit without vibrating, maybe the replacement speeker mention earlyer would be enough

p20 · Post by **p20** » 18 Apr 2006, 19:06

I've got the Sony 3 ways in front and back doors. Left the tweeters alone. Powered by a Sony head unit. Not the most bass in the world, but really clear sound. Able to run head unit with bass turned up and no distorting. Another happy MCS-Direct customer