REAR SPEAKER REPLACEMENT 1988 300CE (& OTHERS ?)

[stormtigers]

Hi Guys Well there has been many questions posed about what we can replace in terms of rears speakers in our beloved W124's. As a general consensus though, MB (and other Euro manufacturers) opted for a weird *** size 13cm or just under 5.25 inches. Rainbow speakers etc often suggested as direct drop in's but not readily available here in Oz and a bit on the expensive side ! Well thanks to some detective work and other posts with some suggestions such as ".....I had absolutely no issue installing the 5.25" speakers in the rear deck. All you need is to have the stock speakers on hand...If you are all right with sacrificing the old stock speakers, there is a simple way for installing the 5.25" replacement speakers to the rear deck: Turn the stock speaker magnet-side up on a hard surface. Hit the magnet with a hammer until the speaker begins to slide out of the plastic mounting bracket that was attached to it. Remove the speaker from the factory mounting bracket and, put the new 5.25" into the bracket. Drill holes into the original mounting bracket and screw the new speaker onto the bracket. The bracket raises the speaker enough out of the rear deck that the speaker magnet will fit fine and you won't need to cut or drill any metal...." Egad you uncouth brute ! Hit it with a hammer ???? Okay the 300CE Rear Parcel Self Speakers (and MAYBE other models I do not know) come fitted into a nice plastic mounting bracket which lifts the speaker away from the metal cutout and angle's it towards the front. Clever design - why send the sound up into the rear window after all ! The speaker is very easily removed as it is held in place by two sprung plastic clips which are moulded into the mount plate (see picture) Once the clips are released the speaker simply falls out - no need to wack the damn thing with anything whatsoever. Now what you are left with is a plastic mounting bracket with a variety of small protrusions that help elevate and secure the speaker in place. The standard speaker has extra cutouts in its metal frame to ensure optimal placement in this bracket. (see pictures below). So what about a reaplcement ? Well basically anything that has a circumference around the same as the existing speaker will fit. There are still any number of 5.25 inch speakers out there Infinity, Polk, Soundstream, Cadence, Clarion, Boston, Kenwood BUT my weapon of choice in this instance is the PIONEER TS-G1343R. Inexpensive, 2 way13cm 140watt max ! TS-G1343R - 5¼" 2-Way Speaker with 140 Watts Max. Power | Pioneer Electronics USA To make these baby's fit into the standard mounting bracket is quite easy. See those 4 sets of screw locators (the 2 prong things) around the outside ? They are light weight metal (unlike some other brands which need grinding) and with 3-4 bends of a pair of pliers they break off. Done in less than a minute ! Now before you try and fit them into the plastic bracket you need to remove the top 2-3mm off the 2 small plastic poles on the inside of the bracket ! Attach the speaker wires before mounting the speaker into the bracket and ensure that the lugs are sitting flat so that they do not hit on the plastic bracket . So now with a bit of gentle persuasion you should be able to fit the speaker into the mounting bracket with the wiring lugs passed through the bottom and accessible. Make sure you lock the speaker into the bracket with the 2 sprung clips ! Despite having a tweeter in the centre you can see from side on that the speaker sits beautifully in the MB mounting bracket and will not make contact with the speaker cover which incidentally has a molded circular shape in its center which conveniently sits right above the tweeter ! So that's it ! Put the darn things back in, wire em up and off you go ! I am very pleased with the bass ouput considering they are only 5.25 inch speakers. Cheers

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[Shoomakan]

You're a saint. Wish I had seen this before the stupid audio guy BROKE the 2 plastic circles you're talking about.

[stormtigers]

Originally Posted by Shoomakan

You're a saint. Wish I had seen this before the stupid audio guy BROKE the 2 plastic circles you're talking about.

Oh POOP !!!! ANy chance of getting a couple from the wreckers ?

As a matter of fact I had bypassed the plastic baskets myself as I was all fired up when I first bought my car and purchased a load of Soundstream equipment. I had a car joint put them in but the one thing I do know is that the rear 5.25inch Soundstream speakers wouldn't have mounted into the plastic basket as they were too deep ! i.e the metal sides protruding down toward the magnet were too wide to fit into the enclosure.

Had I not unfortunately had one DUD speaker at the rear I would probably never have discovered how to do all this. The dud speaker works but vibrates too buggery making listening a chore whenever there is too much bass !

So I started looking for some replacements and rainbow's were way over priced and difficult to source here in Australia. Then I happened on a post somewhere on a forum (not ours I think) which is where I got that quotation about hitting something with a hammer to get the speaker out of the enclosure. It rang a few bells about the plastic basket on my original rears.

So I pulled out the old original speakers, worked out how simple it was to get them out of the enclosure, and started surfing quite a few audio websites and comparing fitment specs etc. Found some Cadence speakers that were great and about $139 BUT they had same problem as the Soundstream (too wide too fit).

Then I visited about 4 different car shops before and finally found the Pioneer which incidentally were the first one's I had written on my list !

I took the basket and the original speaker with me for comparison and held the new one's up against the original. BINGO same circumference and it was fairly obvious what needed doing to make them fit.

The second speaker took all of 10 minutes to install into the basket ready to go back in the car !

Pioneer have been somewhat misaligned due to the size of their company and sometime's blah--blah offerings. But quite honestly of all the 5.25 inch speakers I listened too, Bose and Polk included, these one's had the best "boom boom boom" bass for the size. And a bargain price too boot !

[Saijin_Naib]

Rockford t142c and t152c work great.

I did not use the plastic bracket however, as the stock speakers are still fully together and in my closet intact.

I had to insulate the rear deck with duct tape and such to prevent it from grounding out the speakers which is slightly scary since the gas tank is right there :P

[stormtigers]

GUYS , If you can be bothered here's a little iphone filmclip of a drive down the freeway towards Melbourne with the stereo going including the new speakers. Whilst the sound isn't perfect I think it gives you an idea of the results the new fitment gives.
(I like this iphone filming thing - might do some more LOL)

300CE New Rear Pioneer Speakers

[chlippo]

Am i mistaken or it is true that at the rear of a W124 sedan you can 4 (round) speakers?
Didnt do mine yet, but i will replace all the speakers (dash, front doors,rear doors and rear) install an amp and thats it.

[stormtigers]

Originally Posted by chlippo

Am i mistaken or it is true that at the rear of a W124 sedan you can 4 (round) speakers?

Huh ? Not following did some words go missing ?

[chlippo]

I meant that there was space to install 4 (circle shaped) speakers

[stormtigers]

Ahhhh sorry - look to my knowledge some sedans had 2 in the rear door and maybe 2 in the parcel shelf. I guess it depends on your particular model fitment etc. Not sure a standard MB Amp would be gutsy enough to power more than 6 and I recall seeing somewhere 6 speaker stereo mentioned.

These Pioneer's are certainly not the top of the range but for someone needing to replace the standard MB speakers within reasonable budget restraints - they are, IMO, perfect and as I mentioned do have good bass which seem to be sadly lacking on others.

A wise man once told me, when you go into an auto store and want to hear some speakers make sure they are not amplified as the results can be easily tweaked and manipulated to make the output sound better than what you install may be able to reproduce. Listen to them un-amplified, no headunit tweaking or amplification whatsoever. Then you get a true picture of the standard speaker output.

I did this with these and some JVC 5 1/4 speakers and the bass difference was huge. The JVC's had virtually none with standard ouput. As I didn;t want to go sub-woofer etc - these one's were a perfect solution and the fitment was a dream as I have said above.