W124 speakers upgrade

[telletubby]

The dash mounted factory speakers on the W124 are pretty inadequate and can easily be 'popped' if subjected to too much volume.
I'm thinking of upgrading the speakers in my estate car and wondered if anyone can recommend a good arrangement. If possible i'd like to do it without massacring the car too much. I carry dogs fairly regularly so can't devote floor space in the boot floor area. Any thoughts welcome (except sell the car!)

 

[television]

Do a search here,,this has been up quite a few times,,I know that Bolide has posted on this.

The only way that I though when I had mine, was to put bass/mid drivers under the dash on the under panels and convert the top dash units to tweeters, this would leave the car intact.

 

[telletubby]

Thanks Malcolm, yours sounds a good suggestion. if I'm going to start hacking holes in the trim the dash under panels are much better than the doors!

 

[television]

Thanks Malcolm, yours sounds a good suggestion. if I'm going to start hacking holes in the trim the dash under panels are much better than the doors!

Lets look at the way sound travels, bass and mid range sounds dis purse around the car, high frequencies only go in a straight line. the 110cm speakers in the dash are too small to handle any power, so if the ones under the dash were joined directly to the radio, all you need to do is to run two cables up to the existing speaker with a 2 mfd paper cap 250v cap in series with one lead, this will stop bass notes from reaching the dash speakers.

Do observe polarity of all of the wires for both speakers, if you do not, it will be out of phase and indistinct .

 

[wireman]

I have some 100mm sony units in mine and they are fine, well capable of taking the 30w rms of my stereo, more to the point they have nice to listen to characteristics.

I made an adaptor plate to reduce the std MB hole to fit the smaller speakers out of parts of the plastics grile assembly suplied with the speakers, its glued into the existing hole and the speakers are bolted onto these plates.

They cost £20 a pair from CPC, Sony XS-F1025, cpc code CP04382.

Beware of the limitations on depth behind the speaker magnet, its very small on the 124 and any more than 40mm or so depth will be troublesome.

Malcolm,
Is 2u not a wee bit light weight? the cut off frequency will be around 20kHz with a 4ohm speaker. If needeed I would go for an LF cut below somewhere around 100-200 Hz with a 200uF/50v cap of the bipolar (non polarised) electrolytic variety.
I have not found any need to provide bass cut on my installation.

 

[television]

Malcolm,
Is 2u not a wee bit light weight? the cut off frequency will be around 20kHz with a 4ohm speaker. If needeed I would go for an LF cut below somewhere around 100-200 Hz with a 200uF/50v cap of the bipolar (non polarised) electrolytic variety.
I have not found any need to provide bass cut on my installation.

No,,a 1 or 2mfd paper works fine,just been down and tried it to refresh what I used to do in the 50's A tweeter needs to run at higher than 2khz

 

[Bolide]

I have the Rainbow drop-in replacements and am working on a DLS package to replace the front speakers

I think most people won't won't the expense & hassle of cutting up door cards so a good pair of front speakers plus a small bass box is what I'm working on

I do recommend using an amplifier - most head units can't deliver enough undistorted output to make speakers work well

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[megah0]

I have a set of unused blaupunkt drop in replacements potentially going spare.

 

[television]

I have the Rainbow drop-in replacements and am working on a DLS package to replace the front speakers

I think most people won't won't the expense & hassle of cutting up door cards so a good pair of front speakers plus a small bass box is what I'm working on

I do recommend using an amplifier - most head units can't deliver enough undistorted output to make speakers work well

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

Yes an amp is needed as the average radio cannot drive a crossover network, adding a tweeter is a poor mans way of getting better HF