Hi all, joined this forum as I have owned a Focus ST and a Mondeo Titanium and have always used forums as the ford community are usually very helpful and full of knowledge.

Long story short I bought a 2009 Qashqai 4 months ago and joined a forum who's members are lets say not in to modifying or making any tasteful changes. In terms of forum its pretty poor for info compared to the likes of Ford ones.

Moving on to the question. The standard sound system is very poor, I want to change my speakers but I don't have the time, budget or knowledge to fit a proper system like subs, amps or comps. Please note my knowledge is extremely limited when it comes to audio stuff. I think I need 2 way coaxial but I'm unsure of that and still have no idea of what sensitivity/watts/ohms/Db/2 or 3 way speakers I need.

Not the best but the budget is £100 for the speakers, ideally I want all 4 changed in the hope the sound gets better. Im not looking for amazing out of this world sound just something that will improve whats in there currently half decent bass and mid if possible or just general good all rounders. Something like the Mondeo or Focus factory Sony System. The speaker size is 6.5" 17cm being run on a standard head unit (Nissan Connect).

The car does have tweeters mounted up on the dash which are factory installed not after market.

I don't want to change the head unit as it has a good sat nav system and I want to keep it as standard looking as possible. I am unsure of the power that the head unit puts out but obviously it wont be much.

Bit of a tough one but any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I did read that someone fitted 4ohm speakers and they are very quiet.

If you already have tweeters, you don't want coax. They would lead to either having 2 tweeters running parallel, at reduced power, or the one in the coax being deactivated if there is a crossover. Depending on where exactly the factory system is lacking, you can either upgrade the woofers or the tweeters or both.

The Ford systems are eq'd (frequency corrected) to the speakers and the cabin. I don't know what Nissan does - if it is the same with them, even nominally better speakers can give a worse result (if the frequency response is corrected where it is not necessary).

You can try (and err) yourself, or find a trustworthy shop (or mate) who knows what they are doing.

With the last upgrade I did myself, only changing the tweeters helped a lot for clarity and reduced distortion at higher levels.

If you are looking at new woofers, the available depth is a major criterion in selection the correct replacement.

If you already have tweeters, you don't want coax. They would lead to either having 2 tweeters running parallel, at reduced power, or the one in the coax being deactivated if there is a crossover. Depending on where exactly the factory system is lacking, you can either upgrade the woofers or the tweeters or both.

The Ford systems are eq'd (frequency corrected) to the speakers and the cabin. I don't know what Nissan does - if it is the same with them, even nominally better speakers can give a worse result (if the frequency response is corrected where it is not necessary).

You can try (and err) yourself, or find a trustworthy shop (or mate) who knows what they are doing.

With the last upgrade I did myself, only changing the tweeters helped a lot for clarity and reduced distortion at higher levels.

If you are looking at new woofers, the available depth is a major criterion in selection the correct replacement.

Thanks for the reply. After reading that I think I am going to take it to a shop. There is one down the road from where I am so might go in and ask as I am struggling to understand being new to audio equipment etc. Thanks for the response.

Factory fitted is usually pretty rubbish (the Ford Sony system is a pleasant exception), and speakers are often the weakest link, so upgrading the speakers often makes a certain amount of sense. That said

• If you want more bass (you don't particularly mention that, but people often do), ideally you would want bigger speakers (more cone area) and/or a bigger volume of air behind them. Either of those could be difficult. (There probably would be some difference in the bass output changing one brand of speaker for another, but probably not 'night and day')
• Factory fit speakers are often poor in frequency response, but efficient (and cheap). Replacing with something else usually gets you a flatter frequency response (yay!), but you need to turn the volume up a bit to get back the old sound levels. That's fine, if you can turn the volume up, but if you are already at or close to the max of the headunit...well, that's less desirable.
• Fitting bigger speakers (say, 6x9 ellipticals replacing 6" circulars, or something) has a place, but can be difficult in a factory fit system, without ripping everything out and starting again. You may (...or may not...) be able to fit bigger speakers in to the door cards, but that would take a bit of re-engineering (and model-specific knowledge), but adding, say, and extra pair of speakers in the parcel shelf area would take a bit more doing (probably need an extra amp to drive them), but would have more potential.
• Some speaker manufacturers have 'model specific' speaker upgrades (eg, Pioneer, Alpine, etc, etc); this is probably the kind of mild upgrade that you would like, but you are very much at the mercy of the installer/supplier to recommend something to you; if you go to a 'bad' supplier, they probably won't deal with whoever has stuff for your car and just tell you that you can't get anything for that vehicle.