Wigeon Incognito
New member
The interior rear quarter panels in my S2 were looking tatty as whoever owned the car before me had clearly removed them at some stage but simply sliced through the vinyl rather than peeling back the window seal to carefully remove the tucked under edges.
Anyway, rather than leave it or bodge it I decided to get some fresh panels and replace all of the speakers whilst I was in there as 4x6 all round isn't exactly a good recipe for sound quality as many of us know.
So, in the front I went like for like sizewise and installed some 4x6 Alpine SXE-4625S 2 ways but also put 100Hz bass blockers on them as their range is quite high up (90Hz minimum) and the old speakers always struggled with bass.
In the rear I took advantage of the cutouts for 17cm speakers and mounted some Pioneer TS-G1701i dual cone jobbies. I decided I didn't want 2 or 3 ways in the back as I prefer my high notes to come from the front of the vehicle so I just wanted these to deal with the low end. I also blocked the holes that used to house the 4x6 speakers with some thick card (well, the cover of one of my girlfirend's hardback books - it was in the garage so I'm crossing my fingers she'll never know) that I cut to shape.
My final 'improvement' was that rather than use the basic style of rear panel again I used 968/10 speaker panels as their speaker grilles are better placed for using the larger rear speakers.
Clearly better/more expensive setups can be installed as can bigger speakers/subs etc but I didn't want to cut any metal or modify any trim.
The result is fantastic, real night and day stuff. Whereas previously I'd have to keep the volume and bass down to avoid crackling/distortion now I can play what I want as loud as I would ever want and still retain quality. In fact my ears currently hurt from the testing process earlier when I was hunting for vibrations so it certainly goes louder than I would ever want to have it and without any distortion too!
Just thought I'd share as speaker setups are often mentioned on here.
Anyway, rather than leave it or bodge it I decided to get some fresh panels and replace all of the speakers whilst I was in there as 4x6 all round isn't exactly a good recipe for sound quality as many of us know.
So, in the front I went like for like sizewise and installed some 4x6 Alpine SXE-4625S 2 ways but also put 100Hz bass blockers on them as their range is quite high up (90Hz minimum) and the old speakers always struggled with bass.
In the rear I took advantage of the cutouts for 17cm speakers and mounted some Pioneer TS-G1701i dual cone jobbies. I decided I didn't want 2 or 3 ways in the back as I prefer my high notes to come from the front of the vehicle so I just wanted these to deal with the low end. I also blocked the holes that used to house the 4x6 speakers with some thick card (well, the cover of one of my girlfirend's hardback books - it was in the garage so I'm crossing my fingers she'll never know) that I cut to shape.
My final 'improvement' was that rather than use the basic style of rear panel again I used 968/10 speaker panels as their speaker grilles are better placed for using the larger rear speakers.
Clearly better/more expensive setups can be installed as can bigger speakers/subs etc but I didn't want to cut any metal or modify any trim.
The result is fantastic, real night and day stuff. Whereas previously I'd have to keep the volume and bass down to avoid crackling/distortion now I can play what I want as loud as I would ever want and still retain quality. In fact my ears currently hurt from the testing process earlier when I was hunting for vibrations so it certainly goes louder than I would ever want to have it and without any distortion too!
Just thought I'd share as speaker setups are often mentioned on here.
