Front and rear speaker recommendations

[pp205 17]

Hi guys, I have had a browse in relation to speakers but I’m looking for both front and rear speakers that are currently available that are decent but don’t require any modification at all to fit. 

 

What I’m not too bothered about is that they are top quality, I’m looking for good value as for the last 10 years I have had one speaker that works and three that have worked intermittently. So I am finally changing the worn wiring and replacing the speakers that are ‘dodgy’ but also relocating from the parcel shelf to the standard position following the purchase of a standard parcel shelf.

 

So any recommendations are welcome,

 

Thanks 

 

Simon 

 

 

[Gaz205 50]

I bought mine from halfords, they did the exact sizes, think they were around £18 a pair. They were some own brand but came with a length of wire and screws 

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Best I have had in a 205 are some Infinity components. With careful fitment you can reverse anything you do to fit them. I put the crossover unit inside the door casing then ran a wire back through the hinge gaiter and put the tweeters at the base of the a pillar on double sided foam tape. Sound great, really decent bass from the drivers whilst good clarity from the tweeters.

[allanallen 528 2 Cars]

Do you run rear speakers as well Tom? I know you’ve got a subwoofer in the boot, looking at putting a sub and possibly rear speakers in mine as the crappy front 2 way things are pretty terrible. 

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Yes, ghetto 6x9's butchered into the rear shelf in the 1990's styleee!

 

What I was pretty impressed with was the head unit to be honest. I had a selection of antique Panasonics from the late 90's, including a cassette player that was £300 at the time. I bought myself a modern Sony for about £110, higher output as you'd expect from being more modern, but what is really good is some of the signal processing built in. Before I got the sub, you could run the rear 6x9's as bass speakers only, cut all mid and treble and allow them just to handle bass. A good improvement.

Then once I got the sub the head unit can then provide a high pass filter to take the bass away from all of the speakers and let the sub handle the bass.

The other massive improvement was some good front door speakers though TBH.

Maybe all that is standard fayre these days but certainly I was bloody impressed with it from a cheap head unit. It can do Bluetooth phone calls as well and is reasonably effective even in a very noisy 205.

[ian010778 21]

I've run Infinity Reference series in a couple of cars including my 205. The 5.25" components are great but I mounted the tweets next to the woofer on the forward section of the speaker grille using the anglable(?) pod they are supplied with - clear line of sight up to the centre of sunroof and they sound great but I am now on the lookout for some grilles as I want a more standard look. I also mounted the passive crossover in the door.

 

I've never bothered with rear components in the 205 as I believe the cabin's too small but in the past I have run an enclosed JL 12W0 sub in the boot off a bridged Phoenix Gold ZX200 with an Alpine TK401(?) powering the Infinity components. The Phoenix Gold had an LPL out and I ran it back up the car and swapped the cigarette lighter for a bass knob! It was a lovely set up but I took it all out years ago when I started to need boot space leaving just the Infinity’s wired straight into my Alpine (CDA-9837) head unit - still a good sound but I do still miss a bit of something extra so will probably amplify them again at some point just to lift them a little more.

I do have a pair of Alpine strontium magnet 8” single channel woofers that I had mounted in the parcel shelf of my old 4 door Escort, alongside everything else I’ve mentioned – now that was a force to be reckoned with but I didn’t want to cut my 205 shelf up when I bought it so the 8” never made it in to the pug adn I honestly don't think they would have added any quality in the smaller cabin - just more noise.

 

Our 206cc has an OE JBL sub box in the boot that, I think, contains two 5" subs with a 100w amp'. I'm thinking about doing something similar with my 205 when I get to the interior but instead of installing a box, maybe using the standard rear speaker positions for a pair of 5" subs as the direction won't matter - issue is mounting depth though as compact subs often require a big space behind and of course I'd have to do some 'tasteful' work to make some sort of enclosure in the existing spaces as I prefer a sealed box sound to that of free air or ported.

So to answer the question – I wouldn’t bother with rear components and I’d whole heartedly recommend a well amplified pair of Infinity components. I also have good experience with Phoenix Gold components too but Infinity all the way for me.

 

Ian.

[pp205 17]

Thanks for the help guys, I’ve ended up just buying some pioneer speakers for the front and rear that have just gone straight in with no hassle

[Richie-Van-GTi 72 2 Cars]

On 7/14/2018 at 4:24 PM, pp205 said:

Thanks for the help guys, I’ve ended up just buying some pioneer speakers for the front and rear that have just gone straight in with no hassle

Which ones did you buy? My car has no speakers at all for comparison, although I rarely have music on it would be good.to put a set of speakers back in during resto

[pp205 17]

I got 4 x Pioneer TS-G1332i for £45 on eBay. Nothing special but fit with no hassle, do the job well enough and certainly better than when I had just one speaker working previously!