Standard Speakers Or Upgrades?

[michaelhayler17]

Hi All,

Seen as im taking my door cards of to change the handles, it got me thinking about getting new Speakers, i havent thought of doing this until now as the sound from the standard Speakers is quite good, ive asked a few friends who have swapped out Speakers and said theres been little difference and in one case was told it sounded worse! Just wanted to know what others have done and if anyone else has heard of there being no real benifit? Cheers.

[MattDRX]

Depends on the Speakers, If you get some decent ones like Rockfords which have a very large frequency range ( the Hz rating ) the better, try and get some that go down to around 15-20Hz and then as high as possible, this indicates the range of sound you'll get, RMS means nowt tbh, you need to match the RMS output as close as you can to the headunit otherwise you'll under power them or overpower them, although it's hard to overpower from a standard head unit.

For someone to get even worse sound quality they probably bought some that didn't go down as low and as not as high so the sound wouldn't be as clear.

Material is quite important too, you want rubber butyl cones, soft flexible edging but nice stiff cones, Sony Speakers aren't great by any means and Alpine stuff you need something a bit higher end ( I think it's the R line of Speakers ), from experience you need a set of speakers to cost around £90 a pair for them to be made from good material, have a look at Car Audio Security, their website lists the specs of their speakers quite nicely and the prices are pretty good. you can spend less and get as good a quality but it takes some searching.

[michaelhayler17]

Ok cheers, you see i was thinking of sony ones actually cause the head unit is sony aswell, no other reason than that. And my mate who said it was worse did use alpine Speakers btw.

Is that car audio security the ones with the ads in the fast ford mags?

[MattDRX]

They are the ones yep, Surprised membership here doesn't get you a discount with them, you do with most other forums.

Have a look at these, Pricey but if you check the material and the specs they should be quite good, seems 20Hz is quite hard to hit these days but the lowest noise the human ear can pick up is 15Hz so 65 isn't that bad, they do go lower but get substantially more expensive.

http://caraudiosecurity.com/power-t152-5-25-2-way-full-range-speakers

You'll always be limited by the head unit in terms of sound quality so unless you buy a new double din for a few hundred quid all you can do is invest in good quality Speakers.

[michaelhayler17]

I looked at the pioneer head unit to replace mine, but as my one already has the bluetooth option i wasnt to bothered. Would of loved the pre outs though, would have saved time having to plumb those in.

As for those Speakers do they fit pretty much direct in? Or do u know if i'll need to widen the exsistin holes? I like the cross over features on these and they seem ideal!

[MattDRX]

The holes are generally a standard size for the screws, just make sure they are the same size in terms of speaker diameter, I have no idea what a Focus takes, depth shouldn't be an issue on a focus as the doors are quite deep.

Head units are big money once you start hunting for bluetooth and Nav units etc, but the Pioneer units are good.

If the mounting proves awkward I just cut a bit of MDF, mount the MDF over the speaker holes with some Dynamat in between to absorb rattles etc and then mount the speaker to the MDF, but 99% of the time as long as you buy the correct size speaker they'll fit straight in.

[michaelhayler17]

Indeed, didnt want to spend more money on something that had less than what i already had, so didnt bother.

Thats good to know, after wiring it up i dont want to be making mounting frames and drilling any extra holes obviously.

Just seemed to me as im gonna taking things apart there i could kill a couple of birds by doing other bits, thanks for the advice, really helpful.