Sounds of Summer

[GRL]

As the sun has made an appearance this week, I've been out on a few topless milk runs Got really fed up with the pathetic stereo yesterday. With the volume turned up enough to hear anything at @#mph the speakers bottom out and distort like crazy. Whipped out the rears and replaced with some proper 5.25" glass fibre bass units and added a capacitor in series to the front units. Tweak the EQ settings and PRESTO - clean, loud and all for an hour's toil in the sun

[iccees]

What speakers and what value capacitor etc?

[GRL]

The rear units were a couple of Vifa (glass fibre cone piston) 5" OEM units I had from a previous work project. PCD of hole fixings lined up exactly with original speakers. Any decent 5" unit will do just as long as it is well manufactured and doesn't have a co-axial tweeter fitted as these destroy the soundstage. One of my original units had a coil rub which won't have helped

I used two 80uF, 100Vdc caps in parallel (160uF) to the hot tag on the front speakers. Just enough to prevent anything below 60Hz getting through and also rolls the 60 - 250Hz bandwidth off a little which I had dialled out with the EQ before fitting the caps.

Also, bung a load of polyester wadding in the front 'enclosures' - this helps to clean the vocals up no end.

It's not perfect but it's a damn sight better than it was and I can't be ar#!d to faff with it anymore.

[emenel]

I know it's a subject that has been previously covered, but I would be really interested to hear recommendations for replacement speakers, head untis etc. I'm also keen to get an active sub to fit on the shelf behind the seats (Exige S2) and would be very grateful for any advice from anyone that has done this.

[iccees]

I'm a little confused now Graham. In your first post you say you wired the capacitor in series, and in your second you say parallel. I presume you havn't bridged form the hot wire to the common on the speakers so I'm thinking series is the way to go. Corect?

[minidiva]

emenel said:

I know it's a subject that has been previously covered, but I would be really interested to hear recommendations for replacement speakers, head untis etc. I'm also keen to get an active sub to fit on the shelf behind the seats (Exige S2) and would be very grateful for any advice from anyone that has done this.

Hey emenel, there was a really good thread about this a while ago when there seemed to be a bit of a purge of people fitting subs - have a look:

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=1&f=&t=239480&h=0

Hopefully you'll find it useful - It was a saviour for me as I didn't have a clue at the start! All I knew was that my music didn't sound quite right, now it sounds peachy. Hardly have the sub turned up, but it just fills that gap in frequency that the speakers just don't give out.

[GRL]

iccees: sorry to confuse you. The two 80uF capacitors were soldered together IN PARALLEL (to yield 160uF) and then connected IN SERIES between the positive connections of amp output and drive unit input. 1st order high-pass filter network.

[emenel]

minidiva said:

emenel said: I know it's a subject that has been previously covered, but I would be really interested to hear recommendations for replacement speakers, head untis etc. I'm also keen to get an active sub to fit on the shelf behind the seats (Exige S2) and would be very grateful for any advice from anyone that has done this. Hey emenel, there was a really good thread about this a while ago when there seemed to be a bit of a purge of people fitting subs - have a look: www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=1&f=&t=239480&h=0 Hopefully you'll find it useful - It was a saviour for me as I didn't have a clue at the start! All I knew was that my music didn't sound quite right, now it sounds peachy. Hardly have the sub turned up, but it just fills that gap in frequency that the speakers just don't give out.

Thanks minidiva, that's exactly what I was looking for. I'm not trying to turn my Exige into a mobile disco but it would be nice if my CD's didn't sound like they were being played down the telephone.