Amplifying headrest speakers

[Jeo]

Howdy all,

While talking up my future plans in my garage thread, I remember that I had been meaning to ask about this for a while now but never actually did. Has anyone amplified their headrest speakers? and how exactly did you go about doing it?

Would you run each of the four speakers of their own channel? or would it be better to clump the two left hand speakers and the two right hand speakers to one channel each?

I'm currently using a four channel amp. Two channels are bridged to run the sub, the other two run the fronts.

Obviously I'll need another amp, but just tossing up whether to get another four channel amp to run the headrest speakers; or to get a single channel amp to run the sub, using the two freed up channels to run the headrest speakers.

Cheers,
Joe

[Juffa]

would it be better to clump the two left hand speakers and the two right hand speakers to one channel each?

Cheers,
Joe

I think this is how the factory wiring is set up. I assume you have or are planning to upgrade the current head rest speakers as they will not take a lot of power.

I will probably get shot down in flames, but I have not used my head rest speakers for close to 10 years......do they really make that much of a difference?

J

[Jeo]

Yea sorry, forgot to mention that part. I was planning on getting new speakers for the headrests.

The car was running the stock headrest speakers when I first got it, to which I was fairly indifferent about at the time. Then when I replaced the front speakers, added the amp, etc; I didn't bother connecting them back up.

The problem then was that I found I had to have the music much louder than I used to, particularly when the roof was down. So about a month or so ago I reconnected the stock headrest speakers, running just off the head unit. While I didn't need to go quite as loud anymore, it sounded horrible compared to the really nice amplified AVIs I had in the front. Unplugged them after a week or two.

Then again, it will completely ruin the reasonable sound stage I do currently have.. ahh decisions, decisions. There's an ACT club run this weekend, I'll have to see if anyone else has upgraded their headrests and we'll run from there.

[Jeo]

Just for the information of others contemplating this themselves..

I did end up having a listen to a car that had an amplified set of aftermarket speakers in their headrests, and I wasn't a fan. They were far to bright and overpowering for my tastes, but that may have just been how the owner had them setup. Either way, he loved them.

Since there were too many factors that were different to how I would have used them, I decided to basically disregard that and talk to some of my local car audio stores and get their advice.
One of them was nice enough to let me test fit and listen to a couple of sets of speakers, physically in my own car. Best way to audition speakers EVER! Tried every combination of wiring the speakers to the amp, played with crossovers and equaliser settings for about an hour or so, nothing sounded quite right. It was about this point that the installer who was helping me said that he had installed headrest speakers in a number of MX5's over the years and never like the end result.
Always nice to have the person with experience agreeing with you