WHEN OR WHY SHOULD I CHANGE THE SPEAKERS?
If you’re planning on keeping the stock tape deck then there is nothing to be gained by changing any of the speakers as you are limited by the low power output of these units. The OEM speakers have had a lot of money spent on getting the most out of them when fitted to the car they are made for, and there is also a very savage EQ curve built into the deck’s amp to make the most of the environment and
limited power output.
In almost all cases fitting universal replacement speakers will result in a worse sound than before, if you need to put new speakers in and want to keep the stock source unit then replace with the same OEM speakers, the main reason for this is that they are less efficient and therefore make even worse use of the very limited power available.
Even if you add an outboard amp to your stock tape deck, the speakers still respond surprisingly well. They won’t be a lot louder (maybe just a little bit) but the bass will be a lot better controlled and the overall sound will be a lot crisper, and the much later onset of distortion from the higher power output will make them less fatiguing to listen to.
The standard bass/mid drivers can handle quite a bit more power than the tweeters can, so if you want it loud to keep up with a big powerful subwoofer(s) then the tweeters will be the first to suffer any sort of damage, this can also happen from too little power driving them with even a high powered aftermarket CD deck, so now is the time to think about upgrading your speakers.
HOW BIG ARE THEY?
VW’s official size is 168mm, but to all intents and purposes they qualify as 17 cm, or 6 ½ in in old money. It’s one of those odd speaker sizes that all the manufacturers agree to disagree about, 6 in or 16 cm will fit no problem, but some 16.5 cm are the same as some 17 cm speakers, and to confuse things even more some American made 16 cm speakers are 6 ¼ in across, but all will fit with a small amount of work with a drill.
HOW MUCH MOUNTING DEPTH DO I HAVE?
The standard spacers sit 38mm above the inner door skin, you also have another 50mm behind it before you hit the window retaining clamp,and the rubber sealing ring is 25mm from speaker to door card.
So using aftermarket spacers you have a total of 113mm (ish) from the window clamp to the inside of the doorcard. Don’t forget to allow for cone movement when trying to squeeze very deep speakers in.
HOW MANY ARE THERE?
At the very least in any mk.4 Golf or Bora if you have a Beta tape deck you will have two pairs in the front of the car consisting of the mid/bass driver mounted at the very bottom front corner of the doors, and a tweeter mounted behind the triangular sail panel that backs onto where the door mirror is mounted.
If your car has a Gamma tape deck you will also have the same fitted in the back of the car, if it’s a three door they will be mounted as shown below on a very flimsy pressed steel bracket that is about as much use as a speaker enclosure as a paper cup.
If it’s a five door then they will instead be mounted at the base of the doors with the tweeters just forward of the inner door handle, this much sturdier mounting of the rear speakers in what is effectively a proper sealed box explains why the five door cars make a lot more bass than the three door cars do. In this configuration they do make surprisingly good use of the very limited 7 watts RMS/channel they have to work with.
WHAT CAN I UPGRADE TOO?
Unless you’re on a very limited budget and need a very cheap and quick fix for a blown speaker, then don’t fit coaxial (two way) or triaxial (three way) because unless you buy very expensive ones the smaller sized tweeters will never give you the smooth top end detail that component ones will, and also they’ll be buried deep in the door and aim most of their output at your ankles.
The normal sizes are as given already, but you can fit up 20 cm or 8 in speakers directly into the front doors (NOT the rears) and still keep them hidden under the standard door cards, this size with some sound deadening to the inner and outer door skins can produce some very nice sounding tight and punchy bass that will play loud if you don’t have the room for a subwoofer in the boot.
Some (if not all) new shape Beetles (mk.4 platform in case you didn’t know) have 8in speakers fitted as standard in the front doors, so if you want stay faithful to VW as much as possible, then this could be a good way to improve the sound and keep the car OEM.
WHAT DIFFERENCE SHOULD I HEAR WHEN I CHANGE THE SPEAKERS?
To me an all OEM system (tape deck, CD changer and two or four pairs of speakers) has too much of everything but is actually missing a lot as well.
The bass sounds too bassy, the midrange sounds too middley and the treble sounds too trebley no matter what you do with the tone controls. It’s sort of like listening to a good pair of speakers that have had curtains pulled across in front of them and had the tone controls turned up to try and make them sound better the other side of the curtains.(That is actually a gross exaggeration, but it gets the point across.)
Open the curtains and turn the tone controls down to flat and you get an idea of what an aftermarket set of component speakers driven by a good amp and higher quality source unit sounds like.
The music will now have detail that it didn’t have before (the delicate and low level sounds will all be identifiable as to what they actually are), the bass (or midbass) will be properly controlled and start and stop when it’s supposed to, the midrange dynamics will be quicker and have more “snap” than before, and treble will be extended upwards enough to let us hear the very important harmonics that give music the life and presence it has when played live.
Another thing you may notice when listening to OEM systems is that they sound good when played at low volume on simple pieces of music such as just drums and bass, but turn the volume up on complex musical passages consisting of everything and everyone playing at once, and they just collapse into an unidentifiable mess where everything blends into everything else.
The better the speakers, the louder you can play these complex pieces and still be able to identify the individual instruments (only if the original recording is good enough of course), and you can also listen at high volumes for prolonged periods without the fatigue that normally goes with listening to cheaper speakers.
Or to put it another way you only hear the music and not the speakers or where they are.
WHAT SPEAKERS SHOULD I CHOOSE?
This is an almost impossible question to answer that isn’t always decided based on price or past experience, what sounds good to one person may not sound anywhere near as good to someone else, only you and you alone know what sounds best to you, no one else in the world can tell you otherwise.
It is common practice for people to recommend what they have in their own car as being the best they have ever heard, the only way you can tell if they’re right is to sit in the same sort of car you will be fitting them into and listen to them with your choice of music, but please be aware that how they’re installed and set up can make a bigger difference than what make or model speakers you’re listening to, so they could sound even better with some tweaking.
Price is not a guarantee of better quality and therefore better sound, the DLS components I have in the front of my car sound very good (they want to for £600!), but I’ve heard cheaper speakers that to my ears sound better, and more expensive ones that don’t sound as good, again all possibly down to install and setup.
Don’t get hung up on the absurd hype that is power handling, one manufacturers 50 watt RMS speakers could play louder than another’s 150 watt RMS speakers, running them on clean undistorted external amplifier power will see them playing louder and cleaner than running them from even the very best high powered head unit.
A known brand name is NORMALLY a reasonable guarantee of getting a set of speakers that will perform as well as you expect.
The following brands are known to be good and can be relied on give good enough sound quality to satisfy most tastes……..
DLS, RE, Hertz, Rainbow, CDT, Diamond, Vibe, MB Quart, JL Audio, Orion, Alpine, Fusion, SPL Dynamics etc etc, the list could be a lot longer but as with any consumer products always buy from a genuine authorized dealer in case you need to call on the protection offered by having a proper warranty, be very wary when buying from some of the sellers on sites such as e-bay.
As a general rule of thumb very cheap component speakers under about £50 would be better suited to being used with a high powered head unit, above that they can be safely used with an external amp. This doesn’t mean you can’t amp the cheaper ones and they won’t benefit from it, but if you want to and want real sound quality then you’re better buying the more expensive sets.
WHAT SHOULD I LOOK FOR WHEN CHOOSING SPEAKERS?
Apart from the brand names already mentioned, an RMS power rating of up to about 150-200 watts is about as much as you can use in a motor vehicle, significantly more than that will be the work of science fiction writer and not a speaker manufacturer.
A cast basket (the metal frame that holds the magnet and cone in proper alignment) is considered to be better at getting rid of heat than pressed steel is, and as it will be less resonant it should sound more musically accurate.
The cone can be made from almost anything as no one can agree whether there’s actually a best or worst material to make them from, paper, carbon fibre, Kevlar, aluminium or a bizarre composite of all of them have been used successfully to make some of the worlds best speakers.
The voice coil needs to be a decent size if prolonged listening at high volume levels is needed, 25mm or bigger would be needed to have a decent thermal power handling rating, as would a vented pole piece (the hole in the back of the magnet) to get rid of heat build up as quickly as possible.
Soft or silk dome tweeters of 25-30mm across are considered to be the most accurate in terms of smoothness (female vocals etc won’t make you cringe), whereas metal or plastic domes tend to sound a lot brighter which may be an advantage on some types of music, but can be fatiguing to listen to for extended periods, and can’t always be tamed by attenuating the treble.
The passive crossovers (normally a plastic or metal box with a row of terminals along one end) supplied with all component speakers are needed to split the audio signal and feed the lower frequencies to the midbass driver, and the high or treble to the tweeters. Good passive crossovers will have a switch that allows you to attenuate the tweeter levels in equal steps to allow adjustment to compensate for differences in tweeter placement.
Please note that it is a common misconception that passive crossovers cut the sub bass off being fed to your speakers, this isn’t so and if you’re using them with a subwoofer you need to switch on the HPF (High Pass Filter) to reduce the risk of damage that can be caused by feeding them too much low frequency information.
HOW DO I INSTALL THEM?
The standard speakers have their own built in mounting spacers to clear the window at the bottom of it’s travel, and are pop riveted to the inner door skin. These rivets will need to be drilled out with a drill big enough to take the head of the rivet off, I normally use a 6mm or bigger for this. If you find the rivet spins while doing this, try pushing a large flat bladed screwdriver under the edge of the mounting flange and levering gently away from the inner door skin while pushing reasonably hard with the drill.
If the speakers you’re fitting are very shallow they can be screwed directly onto the inner door skin, but as you’re very limited with mounting depth when doing this you won’t be able to use anything that will have any real power handling.
Autoleads make plastic spacers under the part number SAK-3103 for 16/17 cm speakers (front and rear doors), and SAK-3104 for 20 cm speakers (front doors only) that come with everything you’ll need to fit them. You can screw them in place with the provided self tappers and Spire nuts or bolt them through the original holes, use the appropriate sized pop rivets or turn the whole thing round a little bit and drill new pilot holes for self tappers.
(This shows the 20cm adaptors in place)
An improvement in sound quality could be made by making your own much more solid spacers from MDF, which would need to be painted to stop them falling apart when they get wet, or marine or birch ply would be even better still. It would also be an advantage to make the spacers deep enough to bring the speakers as close as possible to the grill on the doorcard, if they’re too far back a lot of the sound from the speaker will get lost and not make it into the real world.
If you have a three door that never had rear speakers fitted, you will need to buy the mounting brackets from VW and rivet or bolt them in place.
The brackets have the following part numbers.....
Left hand......1J3 035 243C
Right hand....1J3 035 244C
Any decent sized tweeters will mean you’ll need to be a bit more inventive when you fit them, the space behind the sail panels where the stockers are fitted doesn’t have a lot of spare depth so you’ll probably have to mount them externally. You may be lucky and get away with using the supplied flush mounting kit, if not you’ll be rubbing down filler for a few hours to make everything blend in seamlessly.
But…….in my opinion this isn’t the best place to mount tweeters, far from it in fact.
The drivers side tweeter will only be a matter of a foot or so from the drivers right ear, the left tweeter about three feet away from the drivers left ear, more about how to deal with this problem can be found below.
The crossovers can go almost anywhere and not affect sound quality. I normally mount them as shown to the inner door skin with self tappers, the wiring to them can be run from the amp (almost certainly in the boot) and into the door through the very generously sized flexible rubber boot, and then through the solid plastic conduit that brings the existing wiring loom into the space between the inner skin and doorcard.
They can also be mounted in the boot near the amp, or even under the dashboard as they don’t get hot in the way amp’s do so don’t need air flow around them for cooling.
WHAT DO I DO NEXT?
Check and recheck all your connections to the amp, speakers and crossovers paying particular attention to the phasing of the mids. We may need to play around with this later but it’s good to get everything the right way round to start with.
Set all the tone controls (bass, mid and treble or equalizer) to flat or zero, the sub should be off or disconnected and the amp’s input level or gain should be set to it’s minimum (anticlockwise) setting and the HPF (High Pass Filter) should be set to about 80Hz.
Choose a piece of music that matches the limits of your “normal” listening habits, i.e. the most bass heavy or dynamic type of material you’d normally listen to.
Turn the head unit up to about ¾ of it’s maximum volume setting and slowly turn the amp’s input level (gain) up until the speakers JUST start to distort and then back off a little bit.
Now slowly turn the HPF crossover point DOWN until the speakers just start to distort again, the aim is to get it as low as practically possible to pull the bass forward, but high enough to still protect them from damage from over-excursion.
Play with these two settings to get the crossover point as low as possible and undistorted sound at the ¾ volume setting.
Bring the sub into action again with it’s LPF (Low Pass Filter) crossover point set just below that of the mids in the last step, this is called “underlapping” and helps to avoid muddy or boomy bass at the crossover point. So if you have the mids playing down to 70Hz, try rolling off the sub-bass at about 60Hz. Adjust the input level (gain) of the bass amp so that it doesn’t overwhelm the mids and tweeters, and maybe if you feel it needs it tweek the tone controls or equalizer to give it that little bit extra. Or try different tweeter levels via the crossovers built in switches or jumpers, maybe having the closer drivers side attenuated more than the further passengers side.
As with bass speakers, mids and tweeters will sound different when run in, typically in the region of 20 hours or more, at which time a final tweek may be needed to get them sounding just the way you want.
WHAT ELSE CAN I DO TO IMPROVE THE SOUND?
PLAY WITH TWEETER POSITIONING
Because of the unequal path lengths from each tweeter, the furthest one will always be quieter but more on-axis than the closer one which will always be louder but more off-axis, not ideal if you’re used to listening to good home hi-fi setups that has you directly on-axis to and an equal distance away from both speakers.
The idea is to keep on-axis to both speakers and to equalize the path lengths as much as possible, one way to do this is to mount them in pods down on the kick panels aimed asymmetrically so they both point straight at the driver’s ears, despite common sense telling you that the sound should seem to come from down there it in fact will sound as if the all the speakers are on top of the dashboard. This is due to lots of complex psycho-acoustic stuff that goes back to our days as tree dwelling barbarians.
A practice now gaining popularity is mounting them about 1/3 of the way up the A pillars firing towards each other. This method isn’t one that I get on with for a couple of reasons that I won’t go into here, but as it seems to work for a lot of people, then maybe there’s something in it?
But of course it would be foolish to take my word for it as these are just my opinions and shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Get some Bluetack or similar and try the tweeters in different positions from the kickpanels right up to the A pillars until you find the sound that suits you and you alone.
ANGLE THE MIDS UPWARDS
If you’ve never done any door builds before, this could be the excuse you’ve been looking for. A significant improvement can be made by moving the mids out from being buried behind the door card where some of their output gets lost and bringing them out into the cabin and angling them up and back towards the listeners ears.
This will of course mean cutting your door cards so it would be a good idea to get some spare ones in case you don’t get it right or change your mind.
There’s plenty been written about using MDF, fiberglass and filler to make custom speaker mountings that will come up with a Google search, so I won’t go into any detail here, but it is one of those very neat finishing touches that makes your car uniquely YOURS and not quite the same as anyone elses.
GO ACTIVE
Instead of the supplied passive crossovers we can go fully active, which means giving each speaker drive unit it’s very own amplifier channel.
We used to need a separate active crossover before the days of well featured headunits and amplifiers having them built in, this isn’t so now as any decent source unit will have at least two RCA outputs with high and low pass filters already built in, meaning we can build a three way or even four way system with no extra equipment needed.
A four channel amp that can high and low pass at about 4 KHz would do for our mids and tweeters using the headunits high pass filter if it has one, if not we can use the amp to high pass the mids and the tweeters.
You will probably already be using a dedicated amp to power the subwoofer, so we now have full control over all the separate parts of our sound system, but please be aware that although we now have a lot more chance to tweak it to get it just right, we now have a much bigger chance to get it totally wrong as well, so if you do end up with it sounding worse than before stick with it and start again from the settings you had first.
When setting up an active system the same applies as did with the passive system, all the tone controls should be set to flat or zero, and all the amps input level (gains) should be set to minimum and only turned up as far as needed. You won’t make it louder by maxing everything as I see very often, all that will happen is you’ll make the noise louder and not the music.
THAT’S ABOUT IT
This guide applies to two way systems which make up about 95% of all the speaker upgrades in cars.
The only way up from here would be to spend more money on better speakers, you could go for a three way system with separate midrange speakers that give a lot more presence and snap to the dynamics, or instead of the tweeters we could fit a set of waveguides or HLCD’s (Horn Loaded Compression Drivers).These offer the ultimate in fast dynamics and stereo imaging in a way that conventional tweeters never can, but at a price of up to £800 for the very best full bodied horns. They are mounted under the bottom of the dash as they use the curve of the lower dashboard as a continuation of the mouth of the horn.
Some useful background information about choosing and installing the right amp can be found HERE.
Chris.