Considering it was powering the stock speakers the sound quality increase was surprising, but eventually I wanted something better.
This was running fine until recently when the amp finally gave it up (im thinking it was 12 years old?). Just the excuse I needed
I set out looking for a half decent 4channel amp and some good splits for the front.
Got quite a good deal from a local Pioneer independent on a 4channel amp and a surprising deal on a pair of Focal splits.
I mounted the amp to an angled board on the battery cover. Its still easy to remove if I need access to the battery etc.
Its ok for the moment but I will revisit this as im not totally happy with the mounting location (juuuust doesnt fit in the tunnel)
The door speakers were a bit more elaborate.
First the wiring is difficult. The grommet through to the door is actually a plug. Theres no room to run a new cable through there. I considered running the cables out through a grommet into the engine bay through to the front fenders and into the door grommet that way but seemed it too much effort. So I simply ran new cables either side of the plug and soldered to the factory cables (figured 6inches of smaller cable would be fine)
Also the factory cable is simply spliced to two cables for the speaker and the tweeter, so the full range is going to both midrange and tweeter.
Door skins off
Theres a huge amount of depth in the door cavity. 110mm!
The door hole is also 8inchs wide so made some baffles from MDF with some foam to stop any rattles etc
The new tweeters mounted to the factory mount via super strong double sided tape.
This is the factory speaker mount that the 5x7inch speaker sat in. It forms a water protection as well so I modified these to mount inside the cavity the protect the new speakers
Mounted inside with double sided tape completely sealed to the door
One mistake was forgetting to leave room for the door hinge stopper (or whatever it is called)
When I closed the door it extended out and hit the rain cover.
I cut the cover back to avoid knocking it off completely
Mounted the crossover in the door pocket and ran the cables under the skin into the door
All mounted up
With the door skins back on you cant see that anything is different.
The sound though, WOW! I hear a lot of people say its not worth upgrading the system in a convertible but the sound difference is huge.
At less than 80ks its massively better than the factory setup, on the freeway you've got to push the volume up (understandably) but still quite decent and the clarity is still excellent at higher volumes.
Was it worth the money? Yes, Its not a comp spec or high end setup for audiophiles but its a massive improvement over factory. I would highly recommend doing it.
Done over 500ks around the country side since putting it in and still sitting snug in its spot. Very happy for a dodgy knock up job.
