jkowtko

I bought a set of Alpine S and just installed the rears tonight ... figured out how to install these new 6.5" speakers in the stock mounts and thought I should share:

After removing the door panel, I removed the stock speaker from the door. Note the connector wire -- that looks like 16 gauge ... not too shabby for stock speaker wires


The connector looks pretty firm, and the wire is short, so I want to try to reuse the connector if possible.


Male connector counterpart on stock speaker assembly.


The back side of the connector is two metal plates, with the wire from the coil soldered directly to them. My plan is to mount the new speaker inside this stock speaker frame and wire these connectors to the new speaker's terminals. Also note that this speaker is integrated with the frame -- they're not separate units.


From side view, if I could mount the new speaker on top of the main body of the stock frame, I should just about match the depth and protrusion of the stock frame. I did check window clearance by rolling the window down when I had the speaker out ... even at this depth of mounting there is almost an inch of space between the back of the speaker and the window glass. Furthermore there is a foam skin that stretches behind the speaker opening to shield from debris -- the new speaker will fit in that pocket nicely without stretching the foam.


There is a limit on the number of attachments per post, so this will be continued on the next post ...

jkowtko

Disassembling the stock speaker. First step, remove the top cover. It is glued on, but for me the glue was still pliable so I was able to gently pry it off with a screwdriver.


Here's the stock speaker with the front grill removed. Notice the lip around the edge -- that is something I will have to remove in order to lay the new, larger diameter speaker on top of the mount. Also notice that the speaker cone paper is glued directly to the mount!


Now, remove the stock speaker from the mount ... or rather, tear it out! Take care to cut out the cone but leave the rubber surround attached to the mount -- this ring of rubber will serve as a gasket when you fasten the new speaker to the mount. I did kind of a bad job on this speaker since it was my first attempt ... the second one was much cleaner.


The plastic struts on the backside, I clipped with wire cutters. The plastic broke pretty easily.


This is a key part of preparing the mount. In order to lay the speaker flat on the mount ... and to provide another 1/4" clearance of the front of the speaker from the door panel (which is necessary to prevent touching), I had to cut off the lip of the mount. I tried hacksaw, and exacto knife, and eventually discovered that my trusty tin snips did a great job at this. I have the angled tin snips which allows me to make the cut that much cleaner.


And the lip is gone. I had to do a bit of touch-up with the utility knife and a file, and again this was my first speaker (second one looks much cleaner).


... assembly on the next post ...

jkowtko

The new speaker slipped into the housing rather easily. I had to bend the metal tabs from the connector back in order to make clearance. Then I drilled some pilot holes just inside the frame perimeter for the mounting screws. The speaker fastens nicely to the frame.


On the backside, I soldered the connector tabs to the speaker tabs with some heavy gauge wire. The connector tabs stayed perpendicular to the door frame, the hole in the door is still large enough to clear these tabs. (Sorry about the fuzzy pics ... I didn't look at these until after I finished the job :|)


And ... the speaker installs exactly as stock, complete with wire connector. The only reason the mounting screws are shiny silver is because the dark screws that came with the speaker were too long to fit without hitting the door frame. With the door panel on I can't see them anyway.


I was very happy to be able to reuse the stock speaker frames, get the correct front and rear clearance, and be able to use the stock connector and avoid cutting the wiring harness. This can always be replaced with a stock speaker with minimal effort.

jkowtko

Fyi, I just did the fronts today ... Alpine SPS-610c.

Same deal for the main driver -- it actually fit inside the original mount since the stock fronts are 6.5 ... so no need to cut the lip of the frame.

I also managed to custom-fit the Alpine tweeter in the stock tweeter mount bracket by scavenging the outer ring of the stock tweeter. (That stock tweeter is real junk, by the way). Sorry no picks of this -- I was too tired to grab the camera this time.

Overall the system sounds much better! So much more detail -- especially the reverb -- than the stock speakers could reproduce. The speakers aren't shrill anymore and I can push up the volume another several notches now. By the way, I am still running off the internal amp on the Pioneer Avic z130bt and using all stock wiring.

I did lose some bass, mostly due to eliminating the coloration that the stock speakers add to try to sound good. On the fronts I was able to place the stock mount covers back on the speakers -- even though they did not set in all the way due to the Alpines, there was still enough room in the door cavity for me to do this. I can't be sure, but it feels like they added back some of the bass. I've saved the stock mount covers for the rears and will try to re-install those sometime later to see if that helps.

For $140 plus some elbow grease, this was a pretty good investment.

Next up, I will attempt to hide a shallow sub in the rear deck ...

GermanLuv

John,

Great Job! Great info! Thank you for taking the time to post this!

Cheers!

Greg

hanknum

Thanks for posting...new speakers are on my list.

BlkBenz8

So there was no need to rewire? will the stock wiring affect the output or quality of the speaker?

edgarinho10

Perfect! I was actually planning on the 610's myself for this week. Why the 610c's over the standard 610's?

GermanLuv

BlkBenz8

The factroy wiring is more than ample for every day use.
I doubt many will be able to tell the sound difference for everyday use. If it was 24 ga wire then id say yes for sure.

Cheers!
Greg

BlkBenz8

For sure, i am about to get my speakers replaced as well and i was told i had an option to replace my wires but if you say theyre more than capable to hold everyday use then i should be fine. Thanks!

efzauner

great job! You did it the easy way by destroying the oem speakers. Now you need to add a JBL MS8 and some real amplification and a subwoofer!

jkowtko

The SPS-610c is the component version for the front ... with separate tweeters to mount in the door triangles next to the side view mirrors. The SPS-610 is the single unit coax for the rear doors.

I will say that after a couple of days of listening, the speakers are a little on the bright side, with some sibiliance. However this might be a perception accentuated by the lack of bass ... so I will reserve judgement until I get the sub installed and have a chance to try to balance it out.

However, that's still much better than before -- When I had the stock radio and stock speakers in the car, I had to set EQ to Bass -3 and Treble +2 just to get the frequency response to be anywhere close to level. With the new head unit but still stock speakers, I was able to leave the Bass at 0, but still had to boost the treble a bit. Now with the Alpine speakers I am running flat on EQ, was originally adding Low level loudness boost, but I was getting a bit too much sibilance so turned off the loudness and am running flat but a bit lacking in bass. And I understand that speakers may start out a bit bright when new but should settle down over time.

Anyway, this system needs a sub so that is next ... (if anyone has a stock sub that they would like to sell me so I can use the mounting frame, please PM me).

Norwichdelta06

2 way speakers? I thought our cars used 3 way component speakers all around? Or am I wrong with that?

efzauner

why would you think this? in front there is the midbass in the door and the tweeter in the sail.
in back it is a full range. No tweeter

jkowtko

I think with the upgraded Bose or HK sound systems:

• In the front doors they ran coaxial, so along with the tweeters they could call that "3-way" since they have three speakers running off the same speaker leads.

• In the rear doors they probably ran coaxial. There were also surround speakers in the rear deck, but I thought those were run off separate "surround" speaker leads.

-- John

edgarinho10

My confusion with this was that I drive a 2 door and the SPS-610c are the size required for the rear of the door but without the need of bass.

I was directed towards the standard SPS-610 for the fronts and was curious if I was misinformed on the bass rear speakers without the addition of a sub since I don't know if it can be wired to the stock system.

jkowtko

Let me see if I understand this -- you have the 2-door, which has speakers in both front and rear of the doors, and I'm not clear on whether or not you have separate tweeters in the window sill door triangles. In this case:

• For the rear -- If you don't have a subwoofer installed elsewhere in the car (e.g. rear deck) you might want to try a pair of 6.5" subs in the rear door position.. Or, leave the stock speakers in place as they probably carry more bass (artificial, but still there) than the Alpines. If you do have a separate subwoofer, then using SPS-610 in the rear should add more vocal and high-end presence around you.

• For the front -- If you have the separate tweeters in the door triangles, then SPS-610c for the fronts. If you don't have separate tweeters and don't want to try to put them somewhere, then SPS-610 for the fronts.

I would assume that the rear speakers are set up on the LR/RR channels of the radio, and many aftermarket radios allow you to optionally configured the rear speaker channels as sub channels.

Also, this is all very subjective. You will see many people advising that car and door acoustics will often overshadow speaker quality and characteristics. Since anything aftermarket was not specifically designed and tuned for your car, you're going to have to play around with different configurations to see what sounds best to you. If you're a real audiophile I would expect to swap out speakers and/or alter configuration at least a few times before you come up with something you really like.

jkowtko

Update on the Alpine Type S speakers --

After a couple of weeks the speakers are really loosening up, the bass has come in a bit, not so "treblely", the sound is more well-rounded. These are pretty nice speakers for the money, and a surprising a amount of punch for 6.5" cones.

I can stilll hear what seems like non-linear response at higher volumes (20 or above on my Pioneer AVIC z130BT) ... there is still a noticable lack of very low end ... so I'm going to bite the bullet and install an amp, fresh speaker wiring, and a sub in the rear deck. The amp I have chosen is the Alpine MRX-V70, and I'm hoping the extra power (60Wx4) and the separate sub channel will smooth the response at higher volumes.

drho2004

thank you for the thread and pics! i have been considering doing the stock speaker swap as well. i have stock command and HK system. not sure if this make a difference but i heard the HK speakers are not standard 4ohm but 2? if they are then just swapping out the speakers and running off the stock amp should be ok. thanks for any input

jkowtko

Putting 4 ohm speakers on your HK amp certainly shouldn't hurt the amp, but it should lower the volume significantly. I've never done a mixmatch like this so someone else will need to comment ...

Doesn't your HK system also have a center speaker in the dash and rear surrounds in the hat tray? Or is that just the Bose system?

Glyn M Ruck

Great posts JK. Good choice of speakers.

Also remember that Polk make direct drop ins to fit the standard mounts.

drho2004

Hello. yes it has a center speaker, no surrounds though. The only speaker in the rear hatch is the stock sub.

SeaCoupe

Here is another route to go when installing speakers.

I upgraded my sound system back in 2004 to a MB Quart set of seperates that I had in my previous car. The previous install used MDF mounts and I was content to listen to music. When I moved the system to my Coupe, I was hugely unhappy. It really didn't make sense to me. Since I had the work done at Al&Eds...AVOID THEM LIKE A PLAGUE...I opened the doors up to see what could be done. Once I saw the speakers were on a plastic mount, I knew what the issue was. Those plastic mounts color the sound. They are convenient for installing, but the worst kind of mounting surface for an audio application.



So I went about making some MDF mounts using the stock plastic mount as a template.





I had to trim the door car a bit to allow for clearance of the larger MDF mounts that I made.

Just this simple change of mount improved the mid bass response, and gave me a truer response to the music. I had hated the color I got from 800 odd Hz to some 2,500 Hz. My Quarts sounded like Quarts again.

Currently I'm running a Polk Audio Momo seperates that I like even better.

jkowtko

Can you provide more detail on the coloration you spoke of? I assume it is at the upper end of the woofer's range?

And what do you think it was about the plastic mounts that caused this? Flexing, vibration of, or reflections from inside the shell of the cylinder? Low mass? Lack of sealing to the inner door chamber? And at what volume?

The plastic stock mounts I reused seem pretty stiff, and they are pretty well sealed -- in the back against the foam panel attached to the door, and in from front under the speaker by leaving the foam surround of the stock speaker in place. The only differences I have noticed between these speakers and my B&W Matrix 804 home speakers are a bit lower volume in the snares, and some sibiliance on the very high end, which is evidently a known characteristic of these speakers. I'm still not going to make a judgement on my mounts until I have the external amp in place and am feeding 60w per channel instead of 14, over 14AWG wires.

But in the meantime your comments and explanation would be very helpful.

Thanks. John

SeaCoupe

Wow, comparing off axis response to an on axies B&W that I assume you have taken some effort to setup and all the differances you hear are lower vol. in snares and some simbilance?! I wish I had your hearing. I'd be a much richer man. You have thrown out quite a few slang terms in audio. The biggest differance I can tell you to look for is decay. How long does the note play, does your door vibrate? Is there a muddy response because the last note hasn't finished and the door is vibrating it on? A MDF mount will have far more mass, and therefore lower the amount of decay.

This conversion from the stock mount to the MDF mounts were done years ago. I'm afraid, I don't have my detailed listening notes to give you real concrete specifics on my play material and the differances I noted. However in RTA results I was peaky with the plastic mounts from 800 to 2.5k. The MDF mounts toned this down and as I mentioned my Midbass improved.

I should also say I have my doors dampened and a rear diffuser behind my speakers. If I were to anything else, I would get rid of the stock plastic cover and go to a fabric grill. There is just too much deflection of the notes being heard.

These are just my thoughts, and I don't want to be seen as pretentous at all. Biggest differance to get would be time alignment and dampening of the door.

E