124: Fitting speakers!

[Lao Fu Zi]

Had my 124 (250D K-Reg) just over a year now. Nice (sony) stereo and changer, but GAWD did it sound terrible... Any attempt to drive the bass end resulted in blowing and clipping. Front speakers sound like carbon-granule telephone earpieces!

I put all this down to MB standard speakers being, er... well.... crappen~!

Pulled the plastic covers off the back speakers yesterday to find the real reason. Some DONKEY had fitted little 3" Pioneer drivers held in with two screws. BIG airgaps, little baffle effect, and speakers that just didn't have the displacement..... Hmmmm.....

Off to Maplins.... Bought some cheap Reisen 5 1/4 speakers. Used part of the packaging and a hot knife to make some 'risers' for them; GLUED and sealed into place with building adhesive. Plastic cover thingies re-fitted.... Looks as if it's never been touched. Sounds better (actually sounds not bad) But not quite loud enough..... Plan to relocate Pioneers up front...... BUT!

SO! the gameplan is.....

1) Fit under-seat SUB\AMP thingie; oddly enough under the seat! Ideally the back one!

2) Fit 3" Pioneers in dashboard sepaker position; they're not 'blown' and would be quite good speakers (properly fitted that is!)

3) Acquire small (circa 50W RMS Per channel) 4-channel Amp.

4) Use said Amp to drive small (3") Sony door speakers in t'doors.....

The questions I have are....

1) Will my sub fit under the back seat? It's 33.5cm(l) x 21.1cm(w) x 7.9cm(h)

I have other locations in mind; But I fancy having it in the passenger cab

2) How to I get the speaker grilles off up front?

3) Immediately behind my door pocket (front) and Ashtray (rear there's a space. It's just begging me to attack it with a 3" holesaw. Is this really a void I can 'rip into' though???..... The speakers I have in mind are the little Sony Xplod 3" units.....

I should perhaps also explain that I'm a qualified AV\Electronics Tech; so I'm no stranger to soldering and modding if that's what's needed.

TIA

Matt

 

[nicky]

Had my 124 (250D K-Reg) just over a year now. Nice (sony) stereo and changer, but GAWD did it sound terrible... Any attempt to drive the bass end resulted in blowing and clipping. Front speakers sound like carbon-granule telephone earpieces!

I put all this down to MB standard speakers being, er... well.... crappen~!

Pulled the plastic covers off the back speakers yesterday to find the real reason. Some DONKEY had fitted little 3" Pioneer drivers held in with two screws. BIG airgaps, little baffle effect, and speakers that just didn't have the displacement..... Hmmmm.....

Off to Maplins.... Bought some cheap Reisen 5 1/4 speakers. Used part of the packaging and a hot knife to make some 'risers' for them; GLUED and sealed into place with building adhesive. Plastic cover thingies re-fitted.... Looks as if it's never been touched. Sounds better (actually sounds not bad) But not quite loud enough..... Plan to relocate Pioneers up front...... BUT!

SO! the gameplan is.....

1) Fit under-seat SUB\AMP thingie; oddly enough under the seat! Ideally the back one!

2) Fit 3" Pioneers in dashboard sepaker position; they're not 'blown' and would be quite good speakers (properly fitted that is!)

3) Acquire small (circa 50W RMS Per channel) 4-channel Amp.

4) Use said Amp to drive small (3") Sony door speakers in t'doors.....

The questions I have are....

1) Will my sub fit under the back seat? It's 33.5cm(l) x 21.1cm(w) x 7.9cm(h)

I have other locations in mind; But I fancy having it in the passenger cab

2) How to I get the speaker grilles off up front?

3) Immediately behind my door pocket (front) and Ashtray (rear there's a space. It's just begging me to attack it with a 3" holesaw. Is this really a void I can 'rip into' though???..... The speakers I have in mind are the little Sony Xplod 3" units.....

I should perhaps also explain that I'm a qualified AV\Electronics Tech; so I'm no stranger to soldering and modding if that's what's needed.

TIA

Matt

have a look here first.....
http://www.stress-counselling.co.uk/COUNSELING.HTM

 

[Lao Fu Zi]

Hmmm I see......

SO, should I just wire the dashboard speakers up to the 'Phone then? :-?

 

[paulcallender]

Taking your questions first:

1. No, I don't think a sub, or an amp, will fit under the front or rear seat. However, there is plenty of boot space (do you have a saloon or estate?) to fit both of these items.

2. The covers are held in with plastic clips at the front and screws at the rear. I think a regular screwdriver will get them out, no need for a chubby.


For info (I have said it previously) 5 1/4" speakers fit into the front enclosures with a little trimming of the enclosure and the metal surrounding the speaker. Seal with bathroom sealant or similar for the best sound (wear gloves).

6 1/2" speakers fit into the rear doors.

I'd recommend components all round, there are plenty of places you can mount the tweeters. For example, on the roof, on the B-pillar trims, etc. I have 5 1/4"s in the front, 6 1/2"s in the rear, both components meaning 4x tweeters on the roof and B-pillar. And a 500W helper amp, powering a 12" sub-bass in a box in the boot. It seems to do in 99% of the situations, although I'd be interested in anyone else reporting fitting decent speakers into the front doors, since you'd have to work around the door pockets. Aside from building a speaker box for 6x9"s in the rear boot area, or pods at the side of the load area, I can't find anywhere else sensible to fit more speakers. So until then, around 700W and 9 cones will suffice.

 

[Bolide]

W124 audio

The dash speaker covers have a plastic trim strip at one side that pops out with care - there are the two crosshead screws (hidden by the trim strip) and two hooks (under the A pillar) holding the grille in place

3" speakers in there will sound pretty poor, I think. The glass makes speakers there sound pretty squawky so the smoother the speaker the better. Maybe a midrange unit with a separate tweeter mounted on the A pillar? Or Rainbow make some fullrange front speakers that are the right size and are meant to be good

There's no room under the rear seat unless you cut the foam away under the carpet on the driver's side. Passenger side has the central locking pump. This is true on the estates but I imagine the saloons and coupes are the same

It's very difficult to find room for a hidden woofer in an estate unless you give up the rear underfloor compartment on a 5-seater. 7-seaters don't have this option

I'd put in one or two pairs of very high-quality speakers with dedicated amps (ie not driven by the head unit) and one big woofer with its own amp

As ever it's "garbage in, garbage out" with audio so keep the quality up and the quantity down


Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[Lao Fu Zi]

Thanks for the replies guys...

I should of course have metioned that the car is a saloon.

What I'm after is a 'reasonable' sound rather than 'HiFi'. Personally I don't feel that a car is a viable environment for serious listening. And I really just want to address some of the basic issues that seem to plague most head units.

In order to reach acceptable volume levels the Sony head unit has to be run at about 75% volume. After about 30 minutes of this the unit starts clipping and distorting as the heat builds up; heat that's not easily dispersed in the dashboard of a car. Adding a small (50Wrms X4) Amp would solve this I feel as it would not be necessary to drive the head's amps as hard.

THAT amp definitely IS going in the boot, and I plan to drive four small-ish door speakers with it. The idea being to provide a little flat 'boost' to the overall volume.

The sub I've ordered is built into a plastic box, complete with its amp. It won't produce the gut-wrenching thumping bass most people associate with the fitting of such a device; but then I don't want it to I just want something that will lend a little 'presence'.

The head unit I'll let drive the newly fitted rear speakers and the dreaded dashboard 'schreechers'......

Speakers firing onto glass WILL indeed sound 'squawky' as the glass reflects back a lot of the HF. I don't plan on driving them to any great extent anyway. I normally have the back speakers providing most of the load, and will probably put capacitors in line with the front to keep the LF off these little speakers. They don't have the displacement to handle bass. With all due respect to Paul I really don't want to go down the route of hacking at the speaker frames and would rather just fit a smaller, good quality speaker that's properly baffled and sealed. The units I have in mind are actually co-axial mid and tweeters; So with a suitable rolloff they'll effectively become HF boosters to the nice-but-slightly-wooly rears.

SO! I take it the area behind the door pockets on the front and the ashtray on the rear doors IS a void I can fit a speaker into?

 

[paulcallender]

The 5 1/4" into the dash is probably the single most significant thing you can do to upgrade the sound the stereo makes. If you want to stick with 3", then fair enough......

 

[Chazchuzzlewitt]

A company called MAC audio makes high-quality custom fit co-ax speakers that drop into the dash with no further mods needed; they're reasonably priced too.

The car is pretty poor place for acoustics to start with, and 3" drivers are never going to be able to reproduce a full frequency range or handle full power without a cross-over without resorting to distortion.

I'm a broadcast sound engineer, so fairly fussy about sound- but I can't be bothered spending loads of money in the car. Some dumkompf had put 3" speakers in the dash when I bought the car and they sounded awful.
Now I run a mid-range Pioneer MP3 head unit, Blaupunkt co-ax 12cm speakers in the dash and Sony 13cm co-ax's in the rear doors and I'm finally happy with the sound it all makes- but sometimes I just like to listen to the noise that 6 cyl engine makes

 

[Lao Fu Zi]

I'm in broadcast myself Chaz;Though I'm a cameraman rather than a sound engineer, I've a bit of a music background too, and actually teach post-production sound (I also lecture part-time at Stow); I probably am fairly fussy about sound; like yourself I don't rate cars as acousic environments. Actually I don't think I've ever met a recording or broadcast engineer who does!

Bear in mind my plans for the system; I don't EXPECT the dash speakers to reproduce the full range OR full power. 5 1/4 would be an option if that's what I was hoping for . But I personally feel a dashboard has too many air passages through to the cabin to work as an infinite baffle; and those same air passages are unlikely to be effective tuned ports! At least not if what one is looking for is a flat frequency response.

I've heard many car systems which suffer from (what is to me) a very odd 'lumpy' bass response up front. And from an engineering point of view one possible explanation is the insistance of some installers on using the dashboard as a LF baffle.

The speakers I have in mind for the dash are mids with a co-axial tweeter; they ARE designed to take the full range, but of course a 3" speaker ISN'T likely to have the displacement to do this effectively. So the LF will be filtered off them, leaving the sub to handle the bass with a little help from the rears in the upper LF area (Again I'm planning on a rolloff around the 100Hz-120Hz mark). One problem I do have with the rears I've just fitted is that to get a decent HF response the system has to be driven to the point where it becomes sybilant. I put this down to the original speaker pods in the car (which I fitted the new speakers behind) masking the HF. With the controls flat it sounds 'wooly'; remove the speakers covers and it all brightens up again (but ain't pretty what with al that foam, polysyrene and building adhesive!!)

Hopefully the little speakers up front will balance this out; the 'fader' control on the head being a means of balancing between the two.

Sadly I don'y have a 6 cylinder engine to listen to and am really just trying to drown out the coffee-grinder noise coming from the diff :-D

 

[Chazchuzzlewitt]

You're more committed than me! - if I wasn't so lazy I'd be doing similar to you- mid/HF up front and save the full range speakers/lower-end reproduction for door/rear speakers. At some point I may re-do the lot to roll-off the LF to the dash speakers, as the mid/HF reproduction from them is actually pretty good.

Your background is interesting btw- probably know more than me- being (fairly) young I'm always still learning in sound!

The european 124's seemed to get crappy sound systems- I guess the 'premium' sound was a costly extra. My US car had a 6 speaker system which I think was standard over there.

 

[Lao Fu Zi]

Bear in mind I've put up with the awful sound from that system for over a year now Laziness I do well! :lol:

I don't think there's any area of the AV field where you stop learning :lol: And one of the major things I have learned over the years is that there's are very few 'absolutes' where subjective matters are concerned. I started messing with audio equipment when I was about 11, so I've done my fair share of 'daft' experiments in the 32 years since . ~Discovering along the way that many of the rules just DEMAND to be broken Bottom line is if it works for the user and sounds pleasing to them; It works!

Anyone wishing to experiment with tailoring the frequency response of a loundspeaker could do worse than look here

http://www.bcae1.com/passxovr.htm

I dare say that link's popped up in the past but well worth repeating IMHO. A simple capacitor could be all that's needed to get the 'rattle' off those fronts. Thing with car audio systems is that they're an area where you can afford to forget all about 'technical perfection' and just have a bit of fun building something that makes YOU happy!

 

[paulcallender]

I agree its a very subjective thing. You can set up a stereo to sound just right to your ears, then a passenger sits in the car and complains there is too much treble....

I am just giving details of what's worked for me. I was offered the advice that you really need bass at the front, as well as the back, hence the fitting of 5 1/4"s into the dash. You don't really need treble at the back, so the rear speakers play a less critical role, they simply add volume to the system though. It really does pay, to get the speaker installation right, without decent speakers in a car, then you're never going to achieve a quality sound.

 

[Chazchuzzlewitt]

it's true about spending a bit more to get decent quality speakers, though it's amazing how cheap reasonable quality car speakers are these days.

low-mid range is what you'll mainly be hearing from 5 1/4" speakers, a 5" driver is probably realistically only going to be able to handle frequencies down to about 100 and maybe 80hz without starting to distort. Thankfully in the car it's less critical than at home 'cause you've got plenty of other noise going on.
But you're right- a 3" speaker is going to be much worse as it'll bottom out much sooner trying to reproduce anything resembling 'bass'.

low bass is non-directional, that's why you can stick a sub-woofer pretty much where you like, at home and in the car.

Proper reproduction of High and Mid frequencies is more critical to the ear, and placement is of course more difficult to get a good balance.

I'll stop now- I think I've even bored myself...

 

[television]

Had my 124 (250D K-Reg) just over a year now. Nice (sony) stereo and changer, but GAWD did it sound terrible... Any attempt to drive the bass end resulted in blowing and clipping. Front speakers sound like carbon-granule telephone earpieces!

I put all this down to MB standard speakers being, er... well.... crappen~!

Pulled the plastic covers off the back speakers yesterday to find the real reason. Some DONKEY had fitted little 3" Pioneer drivers held in with two screws. BIG airgaps, little baffle effect, and speakers that just didn't have the displacement..... Hmmmm.....

Off to Maplins.... Bought some cheap Reisen 5 1/4 speakers. Used part of the packaging and a hot knife to make some 'risers' for them; GLUED and sealed into place with building adhesive. Plastic cover thingies re-fitted.... Looks as if it's never been touched. Sounds better (actually sounds not bad) But not quite loud enough..... Plan to relocate Pioneers up front...... BUT!

SO! the gameplan is.....

1) Fit under-seat SUB\AMP thingie; oddly enough under the seat! Ideally the back one!

2) Fit 3" Pioneers in dashboard sepaker position; they're not 'blown' and would be quite good speakers (properly fitted that is!)

3) Acquire small (circa 50W RMS Per channel) 4-channel Amp.

4) Use said Amp to drive small (3") Sony door speakers in t'doors.....

The questions I have are....

1) Will my sub fit under the back seat? It's 33.5cm(l) x 21.1cm(w) x 7.9cm(h)

I have other locations in mind; But I fancy having it in the passenger cab

2) How to I get the speaker grilles off up front?

3) Immediately behind my door pocket (front) and Ashtray (rear there's a space. It's just begging me to attack it with a 3" holesaw. Is this really a void I can 'rip into' though???..... The speakers I have in mind are the little Sony Xplod 3" units.....

I should perhaps also explain that I'm a qualified AV\Electronics Tech; so I'm no stranger to soldering and modding if that's what's needed.

TIA

Matt

Drive 3" speakers with a 50w amp?, If I were you I would go back to basics and learn about how sound travels and something about accoustics.loadings on amps using crossovers.

 

[Lao Fu Zi]

A match strikes, strains of 'in the hall of the mountain king' fade in.........

I probably shouldn't' rise to the bait...... :razz: But ;-)

If you were me 'television' you sir would ACTUALLY know what you're talking about....

Did you miss the bit where I pointed out that I am a trained AV technician? Or the fact I lecture part time at one of the country's leading colleges? And if you doubt me you're perfectly welcome to phone Stow college and check!

FYI Trained AND qualified, to quite a respectable degree level. Add to that some 30-odd years of practical experiment and 25 years professional experience and further training. Including many years as technical director of various broadcast facilities. And yes that role DOES include designing and specifying the various BROADCAST sound facilities needed by such facilites.

Jings I've even DESIGNED and BUILT from scratch the monitoring systems at two broadcast recording studios!

The size of the speaker cone has very little (if anything) to do with its power handling capabilities. Which actually is a basic factor you would readily appreciate were you anything more than a 'barrack room engineer'. That single comment exposes you! This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I expect from 17-year old NQ year students who have gained most of their audio experience attempting to dislodge the rust from their Vauxhall Corsas by acousic means. Or from the salesmen and 'wiremen' that inhabit many of the 'ICE' departments in the car accessory and electronics stores masquerading and 'experts'!

There are good reasons why different size drivers are used for different purposes.... And large drivers DO have some drawbacks!

As to my learning "about how sound travels and something about accoustics.loadings on amps using crossovers."

These are among the things I am actually paid to TEACH to HN students on SQA accredited courses..... i.e. legitimate courses run at a properly acredited institute of further education (as opposed to some dodgy in-house training fiasco run by 'big speakers are us')

These are courses that lead students onto the second and third years of degree courses or directly into the broadcast industry. And the authorites wouldn't let me do that unless I was PROPERLY qualified to teach these things! I am also REQUIRED to teach to a curriculum that is well designed, researched and agreed by REAL experts.

FYI many 3" drivers are capable of handling 50W. I have a pair of Sonys right here on the desk in front of me which will take 150W peak and EASILY cope with a 50w amp running at 'full power'. Not that running an amp at anything LIKE full power is really a very bright idea! I've NO intention of running that amp flat out (knowing something about acoustics and loading you see I know that would be counter productive) that 50W is to allow the amp headroom. At maximum volume that Amp will be running at 60-70% of it's rated continuous output. And, as these speakers are intended as re-enforcement to the main system they will be perfectly adequate in that role....

Of course I AM actually planning on just playing music through them. Not attempting to 'impress' my 'wee pals' back at 'Dixons' or the other filing clerks 'wiff the size of ma speekurzz'. Nor do I feel the need to drive around the streets with the noise of a fax machine giving birth to a photocopier booming out all over the place.....

Now, if you've some sensible comment to make please do so with some civility. You're perfectly entitled to disagree with me. But don't even THINK about telling me I don't know the basics of a field I've spent all my working life in. That's just damned cheek!

 

[paulcallender]

Well said. I hope you also agree with me, that while its good to draw on technical expertise, music/audio is somewhat emotive or fickle and people have different opinions of what sounds 'right'. For example, you could use a 1/3 octave equaliser on each speaker in the car, and make it respond in a totally flat way, so it reproduces the exact music from its source. Then you could set up another system with technical imperfections, and you could find someone who thinks it sounds better in an objective listening test.

Of course, even the best quality stereo, will never be as good as having Kate Bush in your passenger seat, singing "Wuthering Heights" to you whilst you're driving to work in the morning!

 

[television]

Rising to the bait

When you have been at the top,you do not rise to any comments otherwise you dig yourself further in the hole.
You do not know who is reading these forums
I have not said how good I am,for I am still learning and I must have missed the A.M.I.R.E. F.I.S.T.C. R.TECH.ENG. T.ENG:CEI after your name.
Thank you for making me laugh, buying speakers from Tandy and talking in Music power,I need say no more.

 

[paulcallender]

I'm not an acoustics engineer, but I'd have thought that a speaker's physical limit in power handling, is due to the displacement at the edge of the cone with the frame; and also its sensitivity (a less sensitive speaker would draw proportionately more power for the same level of volume). So, if you designed and constructed a 3" speaker differently than a cheap, basic design, then it could be made to handle more power. Or you could simply make it less sensitive. Oh, and I never doubted it was a 50W RMS value....

television, I'm interested in details of your install, please let us know what you have in your car. As previously stated, I regularly travel with Kate Bush in mine

 

[television]

Kate bush,she is good

In my SL it is the Bose system fitted at works as I did not or would not spend £65 grand on a car. In my everyday car a Volvo V70R that has a Bose dolby pro logic with some 17 loudspeakers scattered around,its much better than the one in the Merc. I am 70 and as a sound eng(only part time now) I still have good ear's up to 12k I do not play around much these days but I used to, Back in the seventies I had an XJ12 with Yamaha NS1000 speakers in the back, A Yamaha CA1000 running from an inverter,but they were not very good back then spikes made the grounding hell. But after 2 weeks I took it all out as I could not think where I was going.Like you I did not want high power,just a nice sound.I also do not like making hole in cars. I really do hope that you get a sound that everone likes.

 

[paulcallender]

On a slightly different track, has anyone successfully fitted 5 1/4" or 6½" speakers in the front door panels of the W124 (estate)? Yes, I already have speakers in the dash; and the rear doors; and a sub-bass. But I have a spare 300W (peak LOL, 112W RMS) amp from a previous car and so I'm half way there in a little upgrade.

I personally rate Alpine for head units and speakers; although I've heard good things said about Infinity speakers. I'm just running out of room to fit them now!