The kenwood WILL give you an improvement in sound. Possibly alot depending on the model. Just don't expect them to match Focals.

Glad to hear it went well for you. That switch came all apart on me (and a couple others) what a pita that was..

did you finish? How ya like it?

 

I finished. It is OK. i am not all that impressed due to what i think comes down to the amp and the frequencies that are being sent to the speakers. i wish i would have listened to the HiFi again before the job. I have not driven yet, only auditioned while parked in the garage.
One regret.....i wish i would not have snapped on the door handle surround because i think i want to get the car tinted and that was the most difficult thing in getting the panels off.

 

Nice gallery shots! Thanks

Carl

 

ok so i installed some new speakers in the fronts today a set of polk mmc650's which has a crossover like a componet but the tweeter stays on the speaker. and a set of 3.5 polks for the top. ive only done the passanger side...ran out of time.

Heres the problem, if i turn the radio up two loud, all speakers stop working. I have to take out the fuses for the radio and put them back in to get it to work. None of the fuses are burnt out. I sodered everything it all has good connections. the only thing i can think of was i didnt put the bass blockers on the 3.5 that came with the speakers.

so anyone have any idea what i screwed up.!?

 

oooh and i have the boost system.

 

Sigh... I hate being THIS guy: I love technology and use a LOT of it, but the workings of installing a car stereo are pretty foreign to me. I lot of these posts with Ohms and Watts cause me to go: Ohhh? What? (Ok, lame joke, sorry.) Anyways, I have read this entire thread and now have a bit of a headache. Here's my situation, can someone help me out?

I have the nav system, Hi-Fi w/Ipod and Sirius. I do notice that on some music the system I have is a bit... buzzy? It's more acoustic stuff with a lot of natural bass, I find synths/dance-y stuff the bass is decent.

I don't think I need a lot more volume than the Hi-Fi system provides. I just want good, clean sound. I think the Hi-Fi sounds pretty decent already aside from these occasional issues. The resolution provided by having 6 speakers up front, including the mid/highs being up closer to my ears make the car sound LOADS better than my Honda's system (which I had upgraded, but only so much can be done with speakers down by one's feet).

So, my first thought is I need to upgrade the front speakers, leave the back well enough alone for now, and see how it sounds. However, as I said, I'm not a car stereo guy. The idea of pulling my doors apart on a car still under warranty is a bit nerve-wracking. I'd do it if it were straightforward enough that a novice could do it, but I don't know if that is indeed the case.

So, my questions:

1. Are the instructions I'm reading on here more for the advanced/handy type? Or could someone like me handle this upgrade?

2. What speakers would provide the kind of clarity I'm looking for? Again, I don't need to be deafened by my music. (A little volume moderation goes a long way towards being able to enjoy music at ANY volume further down the road, after all.)

3. I am thinking a speaker swap will take care of my needs. I would welcome any alternative suggestions or ideas.

Thanks,
JMelrose

 

I swapped out my rear speakers with Infinity Kappa 693.7i and am not happy with the result. I think the crossovers in the HIFI amp do not work well with the Kappas. I suspect I need to have a pro put in a new amp and replace the front speakers. I was going to attempt to replace the fronts myself, but the issue with the amp makes me think it wouldn't be satisfactory.

 

I have the Kappas also in the rear, I do like them but am not happy that only the low freq get thru. Yes, a new amp for the back would be nice to get all freq thru the Kappa's. That is my only want out of the Kappas. But for right now, they will do with the low freq's.

JMELROSE: The front are a easy swap, just make sure yoou get the 3.5" that fit cleanly. I put some Infinity 3.5" in the front and I had to do some dremeling. I work in a shop so this kinda work is not difficult for me. Everyone has there own learning curve. The other spkr you can put up to 6'.5" in. they were easier. the drivers side is where the pain in the as#$ is. The small side mirror control is a pain in the but, but doable. All in all, I changed out all my spkrs, and everything sounds alot better. The front tweeters I need to take out there crossover, it causes crackiling at times. Good luck. Need some help, fly me down and I'll do it for ya. See my gallery for pics.

 

yup, ever since I replaced my rears I've been stating that it is a waste to do so unless you are going to feed them with an aftermarket amp. I have focal 6x9's powered by the stock amp and am not happy with how they sound. I just put the fader almost all the way forward though and rock on ]

Much better to not worry about the 6x9's and spend the cash in getting much better speakers for the front.

 

I just brought home my Mini which spent the night at the local high end car audio installer's were she was outfitted with Focal 165VR3's in the front, Focal 690CV1 (6x9's) in the back, a JL Audio 300x4 in the boot and a Dynamat Extreme job very much like Robin's pictures. Originally I was going to tackle the Dynamat & Speaker swap myself but after reading many of the posts here I felt I needed the amp as well. Amp installation was more than I wanted to take on so, I took all of the speakers & the Dynamat which I had purchased from varous eBay vendors down to the Earmark Audio (Plano, TX) and let them do all of the work.

Listening to it on the drive home was, in a word - AWESOME!

I dropped by a couple of times yesterday during the install and we discussed a few issues:

1) They did not Dynamat the front doors. Removing the inner trim and outer section of the door interior (which you do for the speaker swap) reveals no place to put any Dynamat. The only option is to completely remove the window cartridge assembly competely gutting the door. Without a manual the installer estimated that to be about 4-5 hours labor per door! He said he thought that since the little door is pretty much filled with internals (like the window cartridge) it was unlikely that Dynamat would do much there. So we agreed to use the entire Dynamat bulkpack on the rear and floor.

2) Though others have mentioned sticking amps under the seats the availability of that space is entirely dependent on what features you have. If you have Bluetooth, DSC, etc those spaces may be taken as they were with my car. We therefor opted for a non-stealth boot install on the passengers side. They built a bracket for it and bolted the amp vertically on the pasenger's outside wall of the boot. They did a really nice job so it does not look too bad.

After all is said and done I could not be more happy with the sound of the Focals driven by the JL Audio amp! It is by far the nicest system I have ever had in one of my cars.

Now let's see what am I doing @ the computer? There must be someplace I need to drive right now...

 

allright pdoyle!

Those focals can really sing eh?

sucks about the doors. I was planning on dynamatting them until I realized how much a pain it would be. I DID put a "deflex pad" behind the door woofers though which helps some. Google "deflex pad" to read about them.

 

I am sorry if this has been convered but i cannot find it. Has anyone installed anything under the front DRIVERS seat? I have DSC and a large plastic cover on the passenger side but it seems that the drivers side is clear. Unfortunately, there is a low hanging bar under the seat that slides back and forth with the seat and my amp wont clear it. the only way that it will fit is if i cut the carpet and find that there is something there that i can remove to give the amp more clearance.
thanks

 

How do you remove the battery cover?
I have removed the 2 screws and the rubber trim. It is pretty loose now but seems to be held near the wiper. I looked at Real OEM and could not find the part. Also have looked at Aaron's pics but it just shows it in his hands.
thanks

 

What's everyone paying for the Focal's? And which series are you going with? My local Tweeter carries them and I'd like to see how they sound in store. Thanks

 

Focal 2-way fronts

http://cgi.ebay.com/Focal-Polyglass-...QQcmdZViewItem

Focal 3-way fronts:
http://cgi.ebay.com/FOCAL-165VR3-POL...QQcmdZViewItem

 

Anybody bought from that seller? I"m seriously thinking about replacing just the fronts of my lame HiFi with these - seems like a straight-forward job with all the info in this thread, even for a car audio ignoramus like me. So, for a shopping list, I think I need:

• Focal 165VR3 (comes in pairs, right?)
• Deflex pads (just for woofers?)
• Extra 'pop-clips', in case I break any (I'm assuming the Mini parts department will know what these are)

Anything else?

Pasta

 

I haven't bought from him but he has almost 9000 feedbacks and his rating is very high.

 

The 165VR3 is a pair of three way speakers. you will get 2 of each: 6.5, 4, tweeter, and crossover network.

I agree that you will need extra plastic clips. It seemed to me that there were multiple types. i had white ones and red ones behind the doors. i dont know if they were the same or not. I broke several of them. you might want to get about 6-10 of them.

You will need a soldering iron, solder, a heatshrink tubing.
wire cutters
crimp tool for speaker leads
crimps in 2 sizes. One for the positive lead, and a smaller one for the negative lead. The 6.5 and 4" speakers need these. The tweeter is hard wired.
I used a few different sizes of flat blade screw drivers with and without heatshrink tubing to cover it so that i did not scratch my plastic.
hot glue gun for the tweeter.


I personally feel that the audio quality did not change enough to justify the cost of the speakers. You really need a real amp to push them.
Good luck!

 

Even with the HiFi amp? Thanks very much for the info, but now I'm not so sure I should do this. MotorMouth's ecstatic report after replacing his fronts was really my motivation. I was thinking $500 and a Saturday afternoon would be take me from mediocre sound to really good sound.

 

Put the front focals in with a HiFi amp and the sound will indeed be MUCH improved. Even better with an aftermarket amp (edit: ok, WAY better). don't bother with the back. just fade mostly forward. My first post back when I had just puy in the fronts was exactly how I felt.

 

Any suggestions for a straight replacement of the HiFi amp, in the same location/enclosure? One that would justify the trouble & expense? I'm really not interested in non-stealth installs or custom enclosures.

MM, you mentioned mounting the Focal crossovers in the dash, after stating you didn't use them. Are you using them now? It's my impression that I do not need to run any new wires, and only need to make cuts to existing wires at the speakers.

Maybe I should wait to see where Robin & DyeLooper end up with amping the Kappa 693.7i. It might be nice to swap out the rears too, when swapping out the amp. But this is sure starting to sound expensive, and probably too much for me to handle on my own.

Thanks,
Pasta

 

If you have the Park Distance Control, it plays through the rear speakers only. I discovered this when I had my rears disconnected.

The HIFI system seems to have crossovers in the amp or head unit. I'm told that adding another crossover in sequence will lead to an unknown crossover frequency. So, you want speakers without built-in crossovers.

Just received Infinity Kappas for the front. I'll report as soon as I get them installed.

 

The Focal 3 ways are my recommendation for a straight speaker replacement. The HiFi amp has crossovers built into it (and a capacitor for the tweeter - does the same sorta thing). I was not using the focal crossovers until I added an aftermarket amp.

It's not too much trouble to swap them. If I remember right it took about 3 hours total. The hardest part was that dang mirror control on the drivers door. Buy the speakers on ebay for MUCH cheaper than in a store.

 

How do you tell genuine Focals from counterfeit on ebay? Supposedly, there are a lot of Focal counterfeits around.

 

all I can say is buy from someone with high feedback - and a lot of it. I've bought two sets from different vendors and got the real thing each time.