Rear Speaker upgrade

Just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for upgrading the rear speakers? Mine are original and sound like ass. I'd like to plug and play if at all possible and try to keep the cost down too!

Any suggestions?

I managed to get some JL audio speakers in the back of my GTA. I did not want to disturb the trim as it is a good fit and I managed it just about.

The standard GTA ones are very shallow so I just made a spacer out of MDF and the new speaker grills cover it up nicely.

So any speakers of that size class should fit as long as you try to keep them as shallow as possible.

I went for an amplified set up and managed to shoe horn about 600W in, so I cant reccommend any speakers that run off a head unit only. I am sure your local dealer would have plenty of options to listen to though.

Great thanks! Can you tell me which JL speakers you used?

They are discontinued now and were pretty expensive from memory (about £300 from the US) they were XR Evolution coaxial speakers. They would sound crap without an amp.

I think the size is 16.5cm. if you pop one of yours out you can check. It is definitely one of the standard sizes. The grills just twist out. I have my GTA ones in a box in the garage so give me a shout if it easier for me to measure one.

If I did it again I would get Focal speakers as that is what I have in the front (components). I think they do some that are made to be driven by head units so that could be a good place to start.

I would also suggest Focal speakers as well, I have just put a complete set in the A610. After hearing them on demo at Japfest years ago I put a complete set in my Esprit along with the very expensive Focal powered sub woofer the sound is very good indeed and I am going to put the sub woofer in the A610 as well when I get round to it. They just about fit using the original speaker covers after a bit of fettling.

If you dont want to modify the interior trim then you need to buy 13 cm speakers - they are old 5 1/4" ers, fronts are bigger 6" ers. Just get on line and buy a good make ( Alpine/Kenwood/JBL et al) I would suggest 3 ways and if your running a system without a stand-alone amp don't be tempted to go too heavy with the magnet size and wattage as you won't drive them properly. Something thats around 40-60 watts RMS (not max) would be good. Whole page here - you pays your money as they say.

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/speaker ... coax-(13cm)/?page=2&SearchSortBy=PLH

Thanks Guys, I'm running the modded OE stereo so I guess it's got reasonable power.

So I'm looking at 13cm rears so as not to mod the trim.

Anyone know the max height of the tweeter so as to be able to fit the original grills?

I have a feeling the grill sits almost against the speaker so the tweeter wont be able to stick out much.

The OE stereo wont be up to running decent amplified speakers. Admittedly it would probably sound better than what you have but it would be far from ideal and could be a bit of a waste of money.

For 13cm speakers I would imagine you would have to make an adapter plate to make the hole smaller. I put 13s in the front and did this.

Here is a picture of the 16cm speakers in place. you can make out the spacer because of the camera flash. I did no mods at all on the trim but as you can see the screw holes are out a little because I did not want to make any holes. The speaker fits great though.



This is what I have driving them and the 13s in the front (and also a Sub).
You can notice a big improvement in the sound quality when you start to really turn them up which is why I say I dont think the OE head will cope.



If it was me I would go and have a chat with a decent shop to get the right speakers because there are a lot that are designed to run off a OE head. And then order them online of course.

Thats a nice looking set up you have there!!

So the rears are 6.5" (17.5cm)? I want to keep the OE look but with a subtle upgrade of the old paper cones at the rear. I suspect anything is going to sound better to be honest. There are some shallow looking JBL's, Hertz and Infinity for not a lot on the old fleabay.....

Jon, the speakers I have fitted are 6.5" which I believe is 16.5 cm.

I have just measured the speaker I took out and it is 16.5 cm edge to edge. (that is to say the cone is smaller). I also checked the four I took out in total and they are all the same. The front and rears have the same part number. My car is a 1989 in case that matters.

I was lucky because the speakers I have a plain black grills so it does look quite OE (unlike the sub).

If it helps I just measured the depth of the Phillips speaker and it is 6cm. You should be able to check the mounting depth on the manufacturers website for the speakers that you like if it is not on eBay.

[stephendell]

These fit perfectly:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_265870

They are OK and cheap too.

They do some slightly better ones for the front with seperate tweeters if you can be bothered to fit them. Halfords don't seem to have any stock at the moment though.

Cheap is good right now, I just need something to get me on for a while. The rears distort badly and produce no treble at all meaning you end up cranking the fronts which ruins the sound stage. Especially on all my movie soundtracks

From memory.... long time ago since I changed them, mine were MB Quart. Direct swap but no idea if they're still made in those sizes.

http://www.mbquart.com/

I fitted 6.5" Pioneers in mine. Component Woofer, and separate tweeter module.
Fitted perfectly into the original hole, and the original cover fitted over the top too.

More on my Stereo upgrades here.
http://www.renaultalpineownersclub.com/ ... highlight=