Clearwater Headrest speaker install - '90 Na6

wassup · Postby **wassup** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:05 pm

Hi all,

This evening i installed a set of the Clearwater Headrest speakers and thought i might share my observations and a few pics of the install process.

Overall a very easy process. It took me alittle under 3 hours with distractions in between. To be honest the most time consuming part was running the cables under the carpet along the central turret and out the seatbelt bolt area's.

Removal of the center console and tombstone is well documented as is the actual installation process of the speakers (the installation guide is detailed) so i wont go into this.

Key tips are to take your time with the zips on the headrests and also the removal and reinstallation of the center console and tombstone. Given the age of all NA's the plastics etc are pretty brittle. Replacement parts for these particular area's arent cheap also!

My assessment of the upgrade, a big thumbs up! Its not going to win any SQ competitions but the speakers get pretty loud and sound pretty decent, unless your expecting bass, in which case you maybe disappointed. Adjusting the fade back to the front speakers shows just how good the headrest speakers are as the 2 speaker setup suddenly sounds very flat and directional.

Hopefully the weather this weekend will be nice enough to get the car out for a drive with the top down so i can see how much better it is at speed!

I hope this helps anyone considering a headrest speaker upgrade or is wanting to get a feel for the installation process.

===================================
Picture of the kit as it arrived from Clearwater. The kit comes with both a full harness and half harness that can be used if your Mx already has the cabling under the seat. Clearwater
recommends the use of the full harness as a number of Mx's have been known to have left the factory with incorrect wiring which results in poor SQ.

Picture of the Clearwater harness plugged into the back of the headunit. Its a plug and play affair and couldnt have been made easier. The speaker terminals are also a no brainer
with different sizes for each polarity to ensure you dont wire it wrong!

Full harness plugged in and ready to be tucked under the carpet.

taping the harness to a straightened coat hanger makes running the cables under the carpet easy. It also helps when running the cable up each seat back.

Cable comes out where the seatbelt bolts are located and runs straight up the back of each seat

I was sure my car wasnt pre-wired until i found this cable!

Peeling back the headrests uncovers the places for the speakers

Coat hanger once again helps get the cable from the back of the headrest to the front.

emily_mx5 · Postby **emily_mx5** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 10:11 am

How good are they! I did this on mine as one of the first mods, and I couldn't recommend these enough (apart from bass ofcourse)
Now we wait for summer

Jace · Postby **Jace** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:15 pm

So you've now got a loose wire running up the back of each seat? Or can it be ran within the seat?

I'm considering buying splits and chucking the tweeters in the headrests. AFAIK generally the idea with tweeters is to have them pointing at your ears.

Might get too much left treble and not enough right treble though, that's my worry. Stock door speakers are well and truly past it.

emily_mx5 · Postby **emily_mx5** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:56 pm

So you've now got a loose wire running up the back of each seat? Or can it be ran within the seat?

On mine it is within each seat.

wassup · Postby **wassup** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:10 am

Jace wrote:So you've now got a loose wire running up the back of each seat? Or can it be ran within the seat?

I'm considering buying splits and chucking the tweeters in the headrests. AFAIK generally the idea with tweeters is to have them pointing at your ears.

Might get too much left treble and not enough right treble though, that's my worry. Stock door speakers are well and truly past it.

The cable runs up the back of each seat internally, check out the last picture. Otherwise it'd look way to ghetto

As for tweeter placement. The correct way is actually to have them located as close to the mid bass woofer in the doors. Typically within a few inches pointing rearwards. Treble is way too directional so probably wouldnt be best suited to locating in the headrests.

The clearwater kit is stereo in each headrest.