Car Speakers

mikey72

rednose66 wrote: »

Magnet size isnt necessarily an indicator of sound quality. I went on a banger rally a few weeks ago in an old Volvo I got a pair of cheap 6X9's with the biggest magnets out - they still sound like cheap speakers though - worse than the much smaller 6.5 inch drivers that I ended up putting in. Other factors influence sound quality as much - design, the type of cone, cone material, crossover components, amoutn of air that the speaker needs etc. Unless you are wanting an audiophile type system - and you wont find one at £35 - stick to a good branded speaker. Ask around online for owners of similar speakers or owners of your car and find out what they recommend.

Nope, but it's a good general rule if you can't hear them first. The rest is a bit hard to judge from looking at them.
Maplin's used to be ok for speakers.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=37982

hewhoisnotintheknow

rednose66 wrote: »

RE Going to scrappys....... my alfa uses cheap paper coned 6.5 inch drivers in the rear shelf. Some scrappys want as much as £80 for these speakers which are really dire. I bought a set of decent JBL co-axials for half of that and they sound ten times better.

I would be very wary about buying speakers from a scrappy. Find the right size for your car and buy off one of the bigger audio dealers on eBay. JBL and Infinity in particular are cheap and offer decent sound quality.

what sort of scrappy do you goto, mine would say no more than 10 for a pair. When they ask what car they came out say something cheap like a fiesta, drops the price

rev_henry

Thanks for all your replies. Forgot to mention the car's already got a Kenwood aftermarket CD player, which I think is fairly basic but seems fine and has 4x45W output. Would you still suggest I get a new head unit?
Went into a couple of car audio shops today. In one the guy said I could upgrade the fronts but best was to put some 6x9s in. He offered me a set of Sony's for £60 including fitting, which seemed quite good. My reservation with 6x9s is that my parcel shelf is broken (ok, I just haven't got round to getting a new one for a few quid from a scrappy) but also I need to take the shelf out from time to time. I said this and the guy said he could put some male-female plug things on it so I could just unplug them, which I didn't know you could do. Then I went into Halfords (which I suspect isn't a very good place for such things) and looked at a few 6x9s around £50 mark. The guy there said that yes 6x9s would give the best improvement, but that I'd probably then come back and get some fronts as well as I'd find the stock fronts very poor in comparison with the new 6x9s.

I'm a bit less confident fitting 6x9s myself as it seems a bit more difficult and of course I would need to cut the parcel shelf up, which I'm certain I would make a mess of.

Thanks again.

hewhoisnotintheknow

cutting the parcel shelf to fit speakers will make your car more likely to be broken into

goldspanners

rev_henry wrote: »

T
I'm a bit less confident fitting 6x9s myself as it seems a bit more difficult and of course I would need to cut the parcel shelf up, which I'm certain I would make a mess of.

Thanks again.

its easy enough to do, some speakers if bought new will come with templates on the box to help you cut the holes ( or you could make your own templates to help.)
i would still advise wirring the 6x9's up to an external amp, they do work the amp in the head unit pretty hard if used often, and the headunit starts to over heat causing it allsorts of untold trouble.

anewman

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

cutting the parcel shelf to fit speakers will make your car more likely to be broken into

Unless you make it stealthy so people cannot tell there are any speakers in there.

rev_henry

Thanks again. Is it easy to rig up the wiring so it can be unplugged? Adding an amp and other stuff's beyond my budget atm really, and I don't think really worth it considering the age of the car etc. In halfords they also told me that the 6x9s would start to fizzle a bit at the louder end due to lack of power, as you said. I'm still rather unsure. Would I be ok with 6x9s and just the head unit? And how loud is loud exactly? I like the music loud but not stupidly loud.

Car getting broken into isn't an issue at all up here in Cumbria. Neighbour of mine (albeit this happened 20 years ago, but nothings changed!) once left his brand new MG with the keys in the ignition and the door wide open outside his house. Local bobby came by and asked him to please close the door, not because of security but because it was obstructing the pavement lol. Anyway, I digress...

anewman

rev_henry wrote: »

Car getting broken into isn't an issue at all up here in Cumbria.

Chavs are everywhere and they want your beefy 6x9's for their nova

rev_henry

anewman wrote: »

Chavs are everywhere and they want your beefy 6x9's for their nova

Haha... Or corsa. O wait I have one of those. Erm I appear to rapidly be falling into this category...

rev_henry

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/juice-6x9-450w-speakers_W0QQitemZ290313330225QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Audio_TV_Electronics_In_Car_Entertainment_GPS_Car_Speakers_PP?hash=item290313330225&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A1|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

What about these? Be quick, they're going in 10 mins!!!