Alright, having fixed all the mechanical / electrical issues with my car, and having begun to do some cool retrofits, I thought it was a good time to upgrade the crappy factory sound system (non-bose). Liking the practicality of my car and the factory look and feel of my car, I wanted this to be an epic upgrade, without sacrificing the coolness or function. By that I mean, I did not want to have speakers too big to fit in the door, causing the windows not to be able to roll down all the way, or to have an enormous subwoofer box in the trunk, or to get an uncle ben's bistro express rice cooking aftermarket headunit. I love the look of the becker head unit (and that it works with my factory 6CD changer in the trunk), and as my sound system currently is, the head unit does not need to be replaced in order to have an epic sound system, which is good news for those looking for an upgrade but keeping the headunit.
The Parts:
CT25MC03
CT25MC04
CT25MC10
Those are the speaker pods, for front doors, rear doors and hat shelf respectively. Punch those into ebay, they are part numbers, and you can buy them, they are very cheap, and much easier to use those than trying to remove the factory speakers from the factory pods.
Polk Audio DB501 - rear doors
Polk Audio DB651s - front doors
Polk Audio DB1001 - tweeters
Earthquake Sound SWS-6.5x - Hat shelf
Kicker CX300.1 - subwoofer amplifier
Kicker CK8 - wiring kit
Rockford Fosgate Speaker Line To Female RCA Adapter
StreetWires FSAFS40 Fuse-AFS-40 Amp
Now, if you are waiting to do a similar procedure, it takes about 4 hours for the doors, 2 hours for the tweeters, and 6 hours for the subs + amp. So break this job up into parts so you don't go nuts.
Front doors - pain in the #$^@
The pain with installing the front door speakers was the the speakers don't fit in the speaker adapter, the speakers are too small. To make them work, I grabbed a hacksaw, and sawed into the metal rim around the speaker, opening up 4 tabs that I then drilled a hole through to pass the screw, doing that made the speaker fit. Then I used the included gasket, as well as some hot glue to make sure the speaker is sealed well around the adapter, you don't want air to be whizzing through there. I also used the included foam to seal up some funny volumes around the perimeter of the adapter. I also tried to put a foam strip around the speaker, to improve mid-bass, but the cover would simply not get back on. Turns out you really don't need it anyway. Putting the adapter with speaker into the front doors is easy, and you don't need to cut out the baffle, the speaker fits as it is a slim-mount. I just soldered on the factory connector to the speaker, making removal if needed very easy.
Rear Doors - Also pain in the @$#^
I begun by simplying my life. I used a propane torch heated exacto knife to cut away the excess plastic preventing you to reach 2 of the 4 screws. Use your head here, cut out as little plastic as possible, and keep in mind it will all be covered up by the cover later anyway, so don't worry about it looking bad. Make sure you are in a well ventilated area, melted plastic smells terrible! This time the speakers were a perfect fit into the adapter. I just used some hot glue to seal up the gaps between speaker and adapter, then soldered on the factory connector, pop into the door and it's done! I also put the included foam strip around the speaker, this time, the cover will go back on no problem.
You can actually see in the picture below, I melted off a bit too much plastic to the top right of the speaker, but it's ok, it's still covered by the cover, just be careful! (Luckily on the other door this didn't happen)
As it is now, you will notice a huge improvment in the quality of the sound, these speakers are very good, and very sensitive too! 91dB front and 93dB rear, so you will need to use much less volume coming from the headunit for the same level of sound as compared to the factory paper speaker. The tweeters in these speakers make the highs sound much clearer.
Tweeters - still a pain in the @$%#^
Now, an often overlooked part of a sound system upgrade are the tweeters. Tweeters will really tie everything together, and make the sound feel in your face! Begin by popping off the grills on top of the vent. Sadly, the Polk's do not fit under the grills in their factory shroud. So ou have to delete the shroud. Do so by exacto knifing the adhesive on the back, and gently pry off the plastic tabs. Eventually you will have all the plastic tabs off, and the metal grill off too. Be extremely careful and gentle, as exposing the tweeter means you are exposing the very sensitive textile dome. Now, the factory tweeters are crap, and you can't even hear them they are so weak, just pull them out of the grill, they are held on by tabs. Then with your friend the heated exacto knife, you will have to melt off most of that holder. Keep in mind, you need to leave it enough depth so the tip of the dome does not touch the grill. Mine ended up touching just a tiny bit, I left it there. The best way to hold the tweeter to the grill is with hot glue, get nice and all around. Be sure that you file away any sharp edge of plastic that was left by knifing through. Also, you will have to file the inside diameter of the hole, to make sure it lines up with the part of the tweeter that isn't hard. You will also have to kep in mind the alignement, the tweeters are much bigger than the factory ones, so just first give it a test run with a pit of glue and make sure they fit back into the hole.
Now you will also have to solder on the included high pass filter. The yellow wire is the +3dB boost, cut it to have no boost (I cut mine, and istead adjusted the tweeters with the radio, just giving it +1 notch of treble really brings out the 6 total tweeters). Again, I used the factory connector, to make removal easy. I just tucked it all into the dash when I was done, the filter won't move around much in there.
Once it's all tucked away, no one's the wiser!
Apparently something's living rent-free and enjoying the included salad package in the garage...
At this point, once the speakers have had the chance to break in, you will be like wow! this sounds amazing! But you will also find the lack of bass disturbing... I'll write a reply to cover the sub-woofer installation in a few hours, need to get a few things done now!
The Parts:
CT25MC03
CT25MC04
CT25MC10
Those are the speaker pods, for front doors, rear doors and hat shelf respectively. Punch those into ebay, they are part numbers, and you can buy them, they are very cheap, and much easier to use those than trying to remove the factory speakers from the factory pods.
Polk Audio DB501 - rear doors
Polk Audio DB651s - front doors
Polk Audio DB1001 - tweeters
Earthquake Sound SWS-6.5x - Hat shelf
Kicker CX300.1 - subwoofer amplifier
Kicker CK8 - wiring kit
Rockford Fosgate Speaker Line To Female RCA Adapter
StreetWires FSAFS40 Fuse-AFS-40 Amp
Now, if you are waiting to do a similar procedure, it takes about 4 hours for the doors, 2 hours for the tweeters, and 6 hours for the subs + amp. So break this job up into parts so you don't go nuts.
Front doors - pain in the #$^@
The pain with installing the front door speakers was the the speakers don't fit in the speaker adapter, the speakers are too small. To make them work, I grabbed a hacksaw, and sawed into the metal rim around the speaker, opening up 4 tabs that I then drilled a hole through to pass the screw, doing that made the speaker fit. Then I used the included gasket, as well as some hot glue to make sure the speaker is sealed well around the adapter, you don't want air to be whizzing through there. I also used the included foam to seal up some funny volumes around the perimeter of the adapter. I also tried to put a foam strip around the speaker, to improve mid-bass, but the cover would simply not get back on. Turns out you really don't need it anyway. Putting the adapter with speaker into the front doors is easy, and you don't need to cut out the baffle, the speaker fits as it is a slim-mount. I just soldered on the factory connector to the speaker, making removal if needed very easy.
Rear Doors - Also pain in the @$#^
I begun by simplying my life. I used a propane torch heated exacto knife to cut away the excess plastic preventing you to reach 2 of the 4 screws. Use your head here, cut out as little plastic as possible, and keep in mind it will all be covered up by the cover later anyway, so don't worry about it looking bad. Make sure you are in a well ventilated area, melted plastic smells terrible! This time the speakers were a perfect fit into the adapter. I just used some hot glue to seal up the gaps between speaker and adapter, then soldered on the factory connector, pop into the door and it's done! I also put the included foam strip around the speaker, this time, the cover will go back on no problem.
You can actually see in the picture below, I melted off a bit too much plastic to the top right of the speaker, but it's ok, it's still covered by the cover, just be careful! (Luckily on the other door this didn't happen)
As it is now, you will notice a huge improvment in the quality of the sound, these speakers are very good, and very sensitive too! 91dB front and 93dB rear, so you will need to use much less volume coming from the headunit for the same level of sound as compared to the factory paper speaker. The tweeters in these speakers make the highs sound much clearer.
Tweeters - still a pain in the @$%#^
Now, an often overlooked part of a sound system upgrade are the tweeters. Tweeters will really tie everything together, and make the sound feel in your face! Begin by popping off the grills on top of the vent. Sadly, the Polk's do not fit under the grills in their factory shroud. So ou have to delete the shroud. Do so by exacto knifing the adhesive on the back, and gently pry off the plastic tabs. Eventually you will have all the plastic tabs off, and the metal grill off too. Be extremely careful and gentle, as exposing the tweeter means you are exposing the very sensitive textile dome. Now, the factory tweeters are crap, and you can't even hear them they are so weak, just pull them out of the grill, they are held on by tabs. Then with your friend the heated exacto knife, you will have to melt off most of that holder. Keep in mind, you need to leave it enough depth so the tip of the dome does not touch the grill. Mine ended up touching just a tiny bit, I left it there. The best way to hold the tweeter to the grill is with hot glue, get nice and all around. Be sure that you file away any sharp edge of plastic that was left by knifing through. Also, you will have to file the inside diameter of the hole, to make sure it lines up with the part of the tweeter that isn't hard. You will also have to kep in mind the alignement, the tweeters are much bigger than the factory ones, so just first give it a test run with a pit of glue and make sure they fit back into the hole.
Now you will also have to solder on the included high pass filter. The yellow wire is the +3dB boost, cut it to have no boost (I cut mine, and istead adjusted the tweeters with the radio, just giving it +1 notch of treble really brings out the 6 total tweeters). Again, I used the factory connector, to make removal easy. I just tucked it all into the dash when I was done, the filter won't move around much in there.
Once it's all tucked away, no one's the wiser!
Apparently something's living rent-free and enjoying the included salad package in the garage...
At this point, once the speakers have had the chance to break in, you will be like wow! this sounds amazing! But you will also find the lack of bass disturbing... I'll write a reply to cover the sub-woofer installation in a few hours, need to get a few things done now!