audio system speaker mod improvement, cheap, inexpensive & easy

[slideadams]

I've had this over on the other forum for quite a while. Apologies for not getting posted here until now.

Very quickly--my bonafides: Pro-musician and audio professional--yes I make 100% of my living doing these two. Part of one of my degrees is live and studio sound reinforcement. I've also recorded/mixed & mastered numerous projects in my own home studio. I can't even begin to remember how many car stereos I've improved since my first car.

Many have stated how disappointed they are with the supposed hi-end, 11-speaker Blaupunkt unit. There are four simple things you can do to vastly improve the fidelity of the OE head unit and speakers while spending about $40. This works best for those of us who are on a budget and don't really care if the rear seat occupants have perfect sound yet. A quick search for the DIY for all the things I mention, a very small investment and a bit of your time will be all that is required.

1) Bias Bass-Boost Mod: turn it all the way up.

2) Disconnect the center channel on the dash. (it ruins stereo imaging, is way too loud and robs power from the tweets plus it is not necessary for OnStar--which plays thru the front door speakers too.)

3) Buy a pair of decent quality Mid-Bass 6.5" 4ohm speakers for the front doors. 4ohm is important because it kills two birds with one stone, not only requiring you to fade your signal to the front to restore symmetry from front to rear, but also sending more power to the tweets on the dash. I bought these: Lanzar VB64 with the following specs. Suggested retail for these is $40 per pair. Also, this model, I put in because I had them laying around. They are too deep and impede window motion. Make sure you find ones that are considered "slim."
Standard 6.5'' Size Fits OEM Cut-Outs
Special Mica-Poly Composite Cone
Non-Fatiguing Butyl Rubber Surround
High Temperature Voice Coil
High Density Barium Ferrite Magnet
Rubber Magnet Cover
120 Watts RMS Power
240 Watts Peak Power
Frequency Response:55Hz-6kHz
Impedance:4 Ohms

4) Set your Audio EQ to off and then dial into the head unit to manually set the EQ to the following settings:
Bass +1 or +2
Treble +2 or +3 (whichever you like best based on your top-end hearing loss)
Fader to the front +3

Enjoy!
PS: this will make it sound like you are standing in the middle of the band to whom you are listening, either onstage or in the studio.

[Calais57]

Is number 1: bias base boost mod referring to turning the gain on the amp up?

[todds87ss]

...and how is #2 done (I know; too lazy to search)?

[Chewy]

is number 1: Bias base boost mod referring to turning the gain on the amp up?

yes!

[JonnyG2132]

isnt turning the amp up all the way, wayyy too much?

[sp44]

isnt turning the amp up all the way, wayyy too much?

Not in this case.

[2StepsAhead]

Idk if its my hearing..but when I turned the bass bias all the way I thought the bass was a little boom-y and sloppy, I kinda liked it turned back a little...seemed to hit a littler harder and cleaner.

[Napalm]

if you use 4ohm speakers on the front you do end up taking away some of the signal to the sub amp. IIRC the sub amp is wired off the rear speakers, and using a normalizing circuit for powering the subs.

I have factory speakers and immediately noticed after modding the rear amp to about 75%, that shifting the f/r to one notch rear cleaned up the sub response.

But good read, cause I have been wanted to ditch the center speaker.

[dandragonrage]

The subs do not draw any notable power from the H/U. They are buffered in the sub amp. It's going to have an input impedance of at least 10kOhm, which is negligible. What speakers you run up front have absolutely no effect on what kind of power the subs can get.

Not like it really matters since they are junk anyway...

Also, do not turn the sub amp up all the way. Clipping, anyone? I would expect such sort of advice from a live audio guy, but if you care about sound quality, don't do that. Essentially, it's going to make it so that you can't turn the volume knob on the H/U up as much because clipping on the subs will start MUCH sooner, and your front speakers will thus be much less loud at that point. So you'd either need to clip your subs to get decent volume out of the front or you're going to have less max volume.

[Napalm]

I didn't say they draw power. I said the amp normalized the signal sent to the rear speakers. IE its not like they put in a dedicated signal line.

Granted I am assuming here, as that is exactly how the GTO was wired.

IE this is a wiring schematic from the early 90's of car audio. no dedicated signal from HU to Sub Amp.

[dandragonrage]

The only issue with this way is that the fader affects the subs. Having a dedicated subwoofer volume control would be better for sure but it's not the end of the world.

[JonnyG2132]

2) Disconnect the center channel on the dash. (it ruins stereo imaging, is way too loud and robs power from the tweets plus it is not necessary for OnStar--which plays thru the front door speakers too.)

How is this done?

Are the new front door speakers a must have in order to have this work? Or can I just do 3 out of the 4 options for now

[J Wikoff]

Aren't the premium and base stereo door speakers different impedance? I remember a thread where one guy had 4 ohm speakers on one side of the car, and 2 ohm on the other.

[dandragonrage]

How is this done?

Are the new front door speakers a must have in order to have this work? Or can I just do 3 out of the 4 options for now

I've read that you just pry the grill off but had little luck and didn't want to risk breaking anything. I'm running my fade all the way to the rear since my front speakers are run from a custom installed amp that taps its inputs from the rear speakers (at the stock subwoofer amp) anyway, so the front center speaker isn't doing much of anything anyway.

You can do all of the steps separately. But, in my opinion, the replacement front speakers are by FAR the best improvement you'll get. Though if you run something on the level of the Lanzar speakers the OP mentioned, you will simply have "less bad" speakers in the front. (They may be good enough for you, though - that's your decision to make.)

[J Wikoff]

Here it is.

http://www.g8board.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27019&highlight=speaker+passenger

[JonnyG2132]

I know nothing about audio. What are some good speakers that dont cost much that I can put in the front and rear doors?

[2StepsAhead]

Polk 651, they were on sale on amazon a little while back...I like mine, I dont have much to compare them to but they were definitely a noticeable improvement over stock.

[BluYa76]

Polk 651, they were on sale on amazon a little while back...I like mine, I dont have much to compare them to but they were definitely a noticeable improvement over stock.

Same here.

[dandragonrage]

Yeah, the DB651s are pretty good. The stock brackets up front don't allow a very deep speaker, though. You can go about 3/4" out beyond the stock bracket with a speaker ring, for the record. It will just barely have enough room without hitting the door panel. You will then be able to fit up to a 3" deep speaker. But you can find slim speakers like the DB651s that will fit.

[JonnyG2132]

I searched Amazon. which one would i get? So the best thing to do is get all 4?
Polk Audio DB651 6.5-Inch Coaxial Speakers?
Polk Audio DB651s Slim-Mount 6.5-Inch Coaxial Speakers ?
Polk Audio db651S - Car speaker - 55 Watt - 2-way - coaxial - 6.5" - silver?

[SRG963]

My OEM amp gain is set to half so the rear speakers don't bottom out, which they were.

Infinity 62.9i speakers also work well IMO. They are 2 ohm, and work well with the center speaker left in place.

[JonnyG2132]

My OEM amp gain is set to half so the rear speakers don't bottom out, which they were.

Infinity 62.9i speakers also work well IMO. They are 2 ohm, and work well with the center speaker left in place.

These? http://www.amazon.com/Infinity-629I-Inch-Two-Way-Spakers/dp/B0019G2HA0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1305987308&sr=8-1

[JonnyG2132]

I was told by an audio company before that replacing the speakers would do absolutley nothing to the sound of the car. The only way to enhance the sound would be to upgrade the amp and sub

[rjones916]

I replaced all my door speaker and tweeters with Infiniti kappas, and it didn't do enough for me, still sounded muddy and wasn't that clear sound I was used to, I had to go with a JL 4 channel amp to be happy. Now it's were I want it, wish I had more range on the stock subs, but don't want to add anymore weight or take up trunk room, so i'll live with it.

[JonnyG2132]

is your factory sub turned all the way up now?

[rjones916]

Um I didn't install the setup, a friend of mine does it for a living, so I do all his mechanical work on his car and he does my audio work, so it works out...but from what I remember my buddy telling me, he spliced the rear factory subs into the 4 channel amp because after you cut the signal to the rear speakers by installing an amp you loose signal to the factory sub amp, so you need an amp for the subwoofer to work again. So it was either buy another one or splice off the JL amp, I settled for the later, probably get a separate one sometime soon. Sounds good, not a ton of bass, but still has a good bass drop and the music is crystal clear. This is kinda like the amp I got, they don't sell my exact model anymore, I got it on closeout when a local place was going out of business a couple years ago...http://www.amazon.com/JL-Audio-XD400-Amplifier-4-channel/dp/tech-data/B0039AQVEM

[dandragonrage]

uhh, what he told you is kinda BS. You can tap that signal without disrupting the signal that goes to the stock sub amp. Not that I recommend using that piece of crap, but it sounds like he just cut the wires out of the stock sub amp harness and used them.

That JL amp is fine, but pretty much any amp will sound the same as long as it's capable of putting out the power you want at reasonably low distortion levels. You don't need to spend that much money on an amp. I paid less for my MB Quart Q4.150 which is a BEAST of an amp.

[GT-610]

^^^^^^exactly! I paid like 150 for my sony amp and its max is 1400w which is plenty for powering two subs without even having the gain half way up.

good recomendations,slideadams! one more note to anyone who puts 4 ohm speakers in,make sure they have high sensitivity as that will allow them to play much louder(with clarity) than the stock 2 ohm

[rjones916]

He told me he didn't like the way the stock wiring was and ran all new speaker wire, so maybe that's why? Not sure, just was happy to get it sounding better then stock and either way it sounds really good...I got my amp in one of those everything must go sales for around $200, has been good for me.

[JonnyG2132]

So when looking for speakers for the doors, I should look for 4 ohm speakers

[dandragonrage]

So when looking for speakers for the doors, I should look for 4 ohm speakers

4 ohm speakers are always a safer bet than 2 ohm speakers. 2 ohm speakers may or may not work. But there's a much sparser selection of them, anyway.

By the way, I repeat: your front speakers are the most important part of your audio quality... unless you're listening to bass-only music.

[GT Drew]

I hear the rear door speakers the most. They are the closest ones to your ears sitting in the front buckets with you head near of touching the head rest.

[dandragonrage]

I hear the rear door speakers the most. They are the closest ones to your ears sitting in the front buckets with you head near of touching the head rest.

Adjust your fader.