jedcred

I'm working on installing new speakers in my C230 SC. I'm trying to find out if there is a crossover for the front speakers, and where it is. It should be there, as there are 4 pairs of wires from the HU, yet 6 pairs of wires in the doors. The question, however, is where? If there isn't one (which I could see MB doing for frugality's sake), could someone please confirm this?

BTW, I would guess that the situation would be the same for the coupe and the sedan, so please respond even if you have a sedan. Also, the setup is an aftermarket stereo added to a standard sound setup, so no BOSE.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. - A search yields many people asking this question, with no answers provided. :p

W0n6_3d4n

So wat are u trying to do?? As far as i remember i did not see any crossover on my stock sound, maybe there is one but i couldn't be bother looking for one. What speaker u get??

jedcred

I got Infinity Kappas for the front and the back. I'm thinking there isn't a crossover 'cause there is a resistor set on the tweeter, which means to me that it decreases the signal to the tweeter, effectively tuning out the lower range. What do you guys think?

rubensans

I also haven't find the crossover, but you will need to put the crossover box with the Kappa's.

Best Regards.

W0n6_3d4n

Did you bought the infinity as a component?? If not then u need to get either a passive crossover (easiest) or an active one.

jedcred

The fronts are Kappa 60.5CS components, yes. I'm still trying to decide where to put the crossovers themselves: in the door or in the dash somewhere. If I put them in the dash I have to figure out how to get to the rubber gromit that runs wires through to the door, which I'm not exactly sure which panel it's behind.

The really difficult endeavor now is getting the tweeters to fit, as Infinity has hemispherical tweeters, not flat ones like MBs. I intend to cut a hole into the plastic tweeter holder and use Infinity's mounting hardware. It may look silly, but I'll post pics later to get your opinions. All I know is that it will sound a hell of a lot better. :p

BTW, if anyone's opened up the foot panels before, has anyone noticed where the split between two to four wires occurs (since we're assuming no crossovers)? I'm considering putting the crossover right there and foregoing the process of running new wires. It would make it much easier and it would give me somewhere in the dash (where the split probably happens) to place the crossovers. Better yet, if anyone has a blowup picture for the wiring or a wiring diagram, that'd be great...

Tishers

You sure it's a resistor? A resistor will knock the level down but it won't affect the frequency response of the tweeter as compared to the regular speakers.

Crossovers are usually LC (inductor/capacitor) setups that have bandstop or bandpass (hi or low) characteristics that allow high frequencies above a certain range to go to tweeters or other crossovers that allow low frequencies to go to woofers or subwoofers.

I would expect that a crossover is going to have several discrete components. I guess some places can do the el-cheapo and use a resistor only to knock down the level to the tweeter (or to balance impedance by making the combination of a tweeter or speaker look less like 1/2 the resistance)

jedcred

Well, it's definately a 3k ohm resistor there according to my multimeter. You're right however: it'll lower the signal but do no filtering. I'm trying to figure out if this is their solution or if it is in addition to a crossover.

Moviela

I have looked at the schematic for the radio and see four outputs on eight wires. For D2B cars there are two speakers in the front doors for the radio, and a third speaker may be present for TeleAid. Ignore the third speaker. There is a connector (x35/1 for left, x35/2 for right) between the radio and the speakers that is a simple 'Y' to make four wires in the door for the two speakers. H4/1 is the left front door speaker, and H4/23 is the left front door mirror triangle speaker. The X35 connectors are located in the door sill under the door.

The schematic does not show a crossover, but the device you see on the tweeter might be a resistor in parallel with a capacitor, using the speaker voice coil as the inductor. Crude, but effective.

The rear doors are single speakers, with a similar 'Y' connection that feeds a "Bass module loudspeaker." D2B has a single cone with two voice coils, while MOST has two speakers. The bass module speakers are shown on the schematic as simple speakers, but may have an integrated amp. The dual coil speaker smells like Bose, while the twin speaker subwoofer barks like Harmon-Kardon.

When you change speakers in the car, keep in mind that active filters are incorporated in the amplifiers to equalize the sound in the car. I connected my pink noise genertator and looked at the sound field and found it to be quite flat. Observing the signal from the amplifier, the high frequencies were boosted to the rear channels (possibly due to the lack of tweeters), and the 300-3000 Hz range was boosted, possibly to make the telephone sound better.

Lint-pickers would need an equalizer to flatten this out, but the new speakers may match the old ones close enough so you don't notice. The most important test is your own ears. If the speakers sound good to you....it doesn't matter how much they cost, or look.

Good luck!

jedcred

Wow, thanks Moviela, exactly what I was looking for!

amdeutsch

You will find that even passive components have a resistance to them. Don't let a VOM, DVM fool you into thinking something is there. Verify. HTH

W0n6_3d4n

I put my Crossover on the door, it's glued. My Dyn tweeter also larger than the stock one, you mean like this??

jedcred

That's exactly how my tweeter turned out when I tested the mounting in the right-side tweeter housing, and I think it looks quite good (especially with the color-change Infinity logo there). My only concern (being at work right now, and having done the cutting here) is whether or not it will fit, as the mounting hardware is deeper than the depth the tweeter housing provides.

W0n6_3d4n, where in the door did you find room to glue your crossover? Inside the door or between the door cover and the door?

jedcred

Scratch what I said earlier: I found the perfect place. If you remove the door sill and front kicker panel, there is access to much of the car's wiring there. Having found the X35 plug (as posted by Moviela, a blue plug, BTW), I found the perfect place for the crossover: in the front under the kicker panel in the wire conduit. There's just enough space for it. I can just clip the wires from the plug and wire them right into the crossover. Easy!

Sooner or later I'll be taking pics and posting instructions for all this crud. I will! :p

HoustonC230

A little late, but....

I've got the same components... mounted the x-over in the door w/3m double stick tape... tweeter mounted behind the stock grill, using "duct seal" It's essentially a sticky caulk that comes in brick form... but works great for the application. You can get it home depot, in the electrical section.

I found the infinity's to be a perfect fit... a little adjustment to the mounting holes, but no mounting adapter needed. Clears the window by like 1/8".

jedcred

End result: everything is in there and works. The crossovers fit in the wire conduit underneath the kicker panel; however, on the drivers side it is much harder as there are more wires, so I pulled the wires up and tossed the x-over underneath them. The "mounting hardware" that I used (abeit incorrectly, though it worked) was the rings they give with the speaker mesh. If you take out the mesh, then flip the ring over, it works as both a spacer and adaptor. However, the only way to use the existing screws and holes is to secure the rings on the outside perimeter, not through any hole on the ring (too small). Washers help here, though you cannot use washers on the lower left (in the front) and lower right (in the back) as the door panel won't fit. Other than that, I'll see if I can't get a set of instructions with pictures up soon.

On a side note there is a bit of hiss from the front tweeters on both sides, but I'm attributing to the stereo for now, as when I change Equilizer modes, it comes and goes.

jedcred

UPDATE: Turns out the wire conduit under the kicker panel wasn't the best idea at first glance. Since power wires run down both sides of the car, and the x-overs brush right up to them, I was getting some feedback in the tweeters (high-pitch whine). My solution was to grab some soft foam (the kind multiple hard drives or cd-roms are shipped in, not styrafoam), and stuff it as a spacer between the power wire, which runs along the bottom of the conduit, and the x-over. It does bulge a little bit, but once the kicker panel is in place you really don't notice it.

Just for future reference. :p

jan ken po

Dumb question jedcred...Is you HU still stock or no? If so, you just did simple speaker replacement?? Thats what I'm looking to do to.

jedcred

No, my HU is not stock: it's a Pioneer. There really won't be much difference in the speaker swap with a stock HU and what I've done; however, you should note that the 90-watt (or something like that) amp in the stock HU is not going to push the speakers enough to get worthwhile sound out of them; the 200-watt (50 per channel) is doing a good job of it, but it could be better. Going aftermarket really only takes away your display and wheel controls, two things I don't really care much for. If you need the wiring diagram for the radio from the '02-'04, PM me and I'll email it to you.

The one thing I really love about this speaker swap is not only the more clear sound I get, but the fact that the sound stage has been raised to the level of the tweeters. It really sucked when you leaned your left leg against the door and lost some sound on the left side of the car, or had a passenger whose legs did the same thing on the other side. Now all the higher freqencies come out of the tweeters, and the lower freqs, which your leg doesn't do much to block anyway, come out the bottom. That made the whole effort worth it for me.

bcruz

Do you have pictures for the X35 plug?

JT-WALTERS

Nailed it.