Time for New Speakers?

I know speakers do nothing to add speed to a car, but mine is my daily driver. I knew that the right rear was not working at all and that the fronts made funny noises, I decided to pull one to see what was up.

I guess it is time to replace the speakers. I have read that with some work you can get 6x9s in the back stock area of a 944, but I wll proabably just get matching 4x6s in all locations. If I feel I need some base then I wll figure that out later.

I am betting all the speakers look like this.

It was cool to see a bit of history though as everything is labled as "Made in West Germany"

I got some random pioneer speakers that were less then $50 per set and some kid asked me if I had a sub.

Speakers are much better then they used to be, so grab what ever is cheap and don't worry about it too much unless your really into car audio.

RedS13Coupe wrote: I got some random pioneer speakers that were less then $50 per set and some kid asked me if I had a sub. Speakers are much better then they used to be, so grab what ever is cheap and don't worry about it too much unless your really into car audio.

I'm with Red13 on this one..

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/779/tuneage/

Good car audio is getting pretty cheap. The setup I just put in the Golf sounds better than the Alpine I had in my cars in the mid 1980s.

the head unit was upgraded sometimein the car's life. It is an Alpine CDE 7872. It says 50wx4. If that is true then I guess it is pretty good. It is aCD player and new enough to read teh mp3 disks I burn on my computer. so that's nice.

that reminds me of the speakers in my saab. The passengerside front (in the door, not in the dash) started to "fart" so I pulled the signal into the back speakers.

10 miles down the road the grill popped off the door speaker and the cone fell out

I'd say it's about time you put some new speakers in there! Infinity makes good ones. If you want crystal clear sound, get some decent speakers and then wire them up so that they're powered by a dedicated amplifier instead of the head unit. It's easy to do, not very expensive, and you'll wonder why you didn't do it before.

And pay attention to RMS Wattage ratings, not necessarily peak ratings.

For cheap and easy car speakers, I really like Infinity reference. Try ebay for some new surplus units. Inexpensive head units make great power these days, so an amp probably isn't necessary.

I have the infinity reference speakers in my Ti.. and the Kappas in my Saab. I have no complaints with either

FYI, this IS repairable. Not that I'd bother with those speakers but when the foam rots out on your home speakers, they cn be repaired. I used to do it for a living.

Been that route a few times with my 924's... the factory rear speaker options are limited. In thepast ive gone with infinity 4x6 plates and found them to be the best sounding over the kenwoods and other available 4x6's. stay away from even new paper cone speakers. Ive also tried 6.5" speakers mounted in the rear storage flap covers, these were better, bounce the sound off the hatch glass that way. 6.5" rounds can be mounted in the factory spots, but cutting will be needed and be wary of the mounting depth.

the best sounding option ive gone with is to use 6x9's in external boxes in the hatch, for the rear channel and 4x6 infinities in the factory holes. these were fed by a clarion with the z'enhancer eq built into the the head unit, with separate and filtered power, and upgraded speaker wiring.

acoustically, the 924/944 is horrible for music, but a good head unit with eq control and upper tier speakers can compensate with a bit of range tweaking.

SO I did some research, and the 924/944/968 was made for a 6.5 inch woofer. there is a cover and an adaptor plate for the 4x6 speaker back there checkit: Note, neither of these pics are of my car, just stuff I found on the interweb:

So with some MDF and a jigsaw you can cover the parts you don't want sound coming out of and mount up the 6.5 inch speakers.

From the same research it looks like the mounting depth is between 2.5 inches and 3 inches. I will be stalking Crutchfield's for some low cost 6.5 full range speakers.

Check out parts express, too.

Someone I know (in an internet way) on a local board had two sets of 6.5 in speakers in his basement. they are older (2004) but never installed so new to me. I got both. If I can not get the other (better) rear 4/6 to work then I will put the 6.5 in the front as well.

I took these and mounted them just like the picture above with some MDF.

I then took the working rear speaker and replace one of the front ones. here you can see the difference between them, The one unit is built much better and has a larger magnet.

Like I said I am going to see if I can get the other 4x6 making sound again, if not then the other set of 6.5 will go in front. (after some cutting)

It already sounds a whole lot better, it actually has a relativly decent base resonse.

Oh, I thought this was interesting, this is how th reas are mounted from the factory.

DrBoost wrote "FYI, this IS repairable. Not that I'd bother with those speakers but when the foam rots out on your home speakers, they cn be repaired. I used to do it for a living."

Would you know of a tutorial on line or is it simple enough to just tell me? I have a great old set of Onkyo speakers in my shop that have the same problem. I have been putting off buying new woofers so this may bee just the ticket.

Porksboy- it wouldn't hurt to call Onkyo direct to see if they have any replacement drivers available for the speakers. They are sometimes available and stupid cheap.

If you decide on extra bass, I picked up a Bazooka tube used for $50. It has a built in 50w amp, which is somewhat low, but since it has a tuned 4th order box it is efficient and works well. I only had to use a 10ga power wire, so it wasn't a huge weight penalty (plus I don't run rear speakers, so that kinda makes up for it). It has a plug to the box with audio, power & ground integrated, so I bungee it to my rear strut bad and it's a 30 second removal on Sundays.

I'm not selling it, it works great. Find your own on Ebay, haha.