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Hello All,
So i have been slowly working on the countryman on the weekend, One of the projects i been working on was replacing the unseat speakers.
Currently have a woofer on order, but was working on removing the old ones,and confirmed that the base speakers in my countryman have glued in woofers. In an effort to separate them it was working on removing the enclosure but ran into the problem that the hole in the floor mat is not large enough to remove the enclosure. In the pictures attached, Figure 1 is the woofer with the grill removed. Figure 2 shows as far as im able to easily move the flooring out (it seems not to budge any more past this). with the green lines represents the edges of the enclosure. So far ive been able to get it only partially out but it seems like its to wide to fit in the hole.
I was looking for pointers or recommendations on how to remove the enclosure. I think im not approaching this correctly
I can't specifically help you with removal. But I will offer up this thought. Leave them be, return the replacements if you bought them and install a real sub-woofer in the car. The under seats are mid bass and not real subs so you will never get the full sound out of them. I went through similar replacement with my under seats but it didn't sound great until I added a separate sub and amp in the back of my F56S.
Hey Moocher, thanks for the reply! Ah didnt know they were mid bass, thats really good to know. i few weeks ago i was exploring putting a lay-flat floor into the trunk or adding a box on the side for a larger sub (currently we have a well and not the factory lay-flat trunk option) but unfortunately my wife vetoed the idea as she wanted to keep the trunk as open as possible for the stroller and other items.
Orginally i was looking to improve sound quality thinking that this might be a good compromise,but it sounds it might not be the best option.
One recommendation that was offered when talking to crutchfield was the Focal FDS 2.350 amp, (with a focal FDS 4.350 to drive focals IC100's).
Down the line i was thinking of going with this option (as i dont feel comfortable installing an amp myself, so going to have it installed at a later date) and have it paired with the speakers. Hoping that this will give a much fuller sound even though its not going to be the most optimal set up.
Last edited by DNytAftr; Jun 6, 2020 at 09:02 AM.
Reason: Edited for clarity
while i appreciate, and don't specifically disagree with Minnie about not replacing the underseat woofers.....but I would not discourage replacing the subs from a logical standpoint, depending on what your exact intentions are.
prior to adding anything, those underseat subs, while of course not rattle your neighborhood loud, i thought did provide a respectable amount of bass for being a -factory- setup. and with their placement underneath you do "feel" the bass more than any door speakers, which gives that perception of "decent bass".
to me, replacing those underseats wouldn't be a -bad- thing at all, but i also wouldn't buy $300 replacements if you weren't going to be powering those 8s with an aftermarket amp. I hear the HK amp is 360 watts.....for 10 speakers. do some math and assuming an equal distribution of wattage and impedance across all (which probably -isn't- the case), and you're at 36w per speaker, including each sub. that's really not alot. However, if the factory sub has say an 83dB sensitivity, and you're putting in a sub that's got a 91dB sensitivity, the replacement sub is going to sound and feel (on your rear end that's planted in the seat) almost twice as loud at the same volume setting because it's ALOT more efficient. this doesn't mean you'll get to that neighborhood shaking bass level though, that doubling is human -perceived-, not scientifically measured to a specific standard (acoustic energy doubles every 3dB, but that's not the same as what you -perceive-)
I would equate changing the subs without an aftermarket amp to that of adding a jb+. you can get a little better performance, but it's not a tune, and you haven't changed out anything else, so it's not going to be "omg" better.
but i digress.
I'm somewhat in the same boat, although i have added an alpine 500w amp and a aging rockford 15in p3d4 in a 30hz tuned box (yes, it's tuned low, the response fall off is drastic down there, it needs the help!), which used to be one of my two home theater subs (i'm in a condo now, so they've just been sitting). and it sounds -wonderful-. feel it in your chest. everything shakes while in the cabin. ears pressurize. and what i really like is, with all the windows rolled up, you don't -really- hear it that much outside the car. all windows down, and yeah, you definitely can hear it.
based on other threads in here, i tapped into the wiring for the existing subs at the HK amp (located drivers side trunk area). power i ran from the engine bay. remote lead i tapped from the 12v plug on the passenger side of the trunk. amp right now sits in the trunk, which is essentially non existent with the almost 3cuft box for the 15 (if i recall the box volume correctly) back there.
the 15in rockford is -fab-u-lous- on the low end, but it starts to struggle with tight response in the mid bass range. this is why i got a couple kicker shallow 8s to go under the seat, and i have another alpine 250w amp that i'll use to drive those. i can then turn my low pass down for the 15 and let it handle the low-lows, and have the 8s handle more of the 'kick' drum mid bass.
i bought the 8s prior to taking out the factory subs and measuring and i'm seriously hoping there really is at least 2 and 11/16th in of clearance in those factory sub boxes. i see the earthquakes that some say are a direct fit are 2.25in deep, and appear to be bottom vented, so there has to be at least a little more room down there, so i think i have a decent chance they'll fit. otherwise i might be improvising and building a small wooden "ring" to attach to the factory box, then mount the sub to that to give me a little more mounting depth. it means the grill will have to stay off, but i think i'm ok with that. i'm hoping to get to that this weekend, but now i have a charging malfunction (*sigh*) that i have to deal with, which i don't believe is related to the amp
once all that is done, then comes the rebalancing of the sound. by turning down the bass on the head unit, that should result in slightly easier signal for the 4in-ers to handle, with the 15 gained up to grab the low-lows, and the 8s gained up to grab the mid bass. i'll still have the gap for the low vocal range, and i plan on swapping out some of the factory mains at some point, probably towards the end of the year. from what i've read, there will always be a gap there, but hearing that in the rears you can frankenstein a 5.25in in those doors gives me some hope of getting those frequencies at least closer to balanced with the rest of the sound.
also an important note that i found the hard way.....if you disconnect the wiring harness from the seat, you'll trip the SRS. even with the battery disco'd. at least that was my experience. to clear the seatbelt/airbag light you'll either have to go to the dealer or buy a ~$150-200 foxwell/schawben scanner that can reset the DME codes. a "regular" $40 odb2 scanner will not reset it. i was already planning on getting that scanner, so it wasn't that big of a deal for me.
I upgraded my system in my R55 with Arc Audio speakers in the doors and rear and put a 12” sub in a custom made Down firing enclosure to maintain my boot space all powered by a Arc Audio 5 channel amplifier.
I did the P300-12 in the trunk of mine, install was easy and straight forward but i ran into an issue. The speakerlevel input into the p300-12 was super hot. ended up having to buy and LC2i to calm that signal down so i could have a functional gain adjustment. These HK systems are badass oem sans bass.
