Andre The Giant

Hi everyone, I have found a thread which explains that I can just remove the 4 inch speaker without removing the door panels and it works. Only one problem when I look at the wiring of the 4 inch speaker I am a little baffled, I am used to seeing a positive and a negative lead, not + & - on same pin on both leads at once !

If I do not want to use the crossover in the doors, can I still use these wires without removing the door panels, or must I remove the door panels and use the wiring stating before the crossover for this 2 way component built in configuration.

I am installing a set of Polk DB301 2 way coaxial speakers.
Also which colour is positive on this picture, is it the ones with the stripes ?

davek9

I would suggest you run new wires not that hard using a stiff pull wire, the old wiring is thin stuff for today's power.

Also removing the door panels is easy enough to do, as the wires go between the two speakers with a frequency limiting R/C network.

EDIT: and your most likely are not going to use the Factory Front / Rear Fade switch right?
I just disco the old wire (leave it in place) and run fresh right from my head and Amp units.

Dave

Andre The Giant

Thank you Dave. The other problem I wanted to avoid is going in the back of the head unit again, it's difficult with big hands ! I agree with you that fresh speakers will be 1000 times better than the old thin wiring, but currently I have replaced my rears with Polks 6 inch coaxial, bass is not much better than original , but somehow I expected that because of the lack of space back there. Currently my Kenwood head unit is using the factory wiring for all speakers even the new Polks in the rear, which I bypassed the hatch speakers so I am currently running a 6 speaker configuration. There is no external amp on this setup, I will only use an external amp for my 12 inch sub, for getting some bass, right now it's like listening to a small ghettoblaster ! Not very impressive. I am just looking for a decent sound with some bass, I do not want the neighborhood to hear me coming from a mile away ! .

If the panels are easy to remove, how to get them off, remove screw from locking **** then screw from interior handle and then it clips off ?

I might just cut the original wiring before the crossover and start from there.

The reason I do not want to go in the back of the head unit again is that the last time I had lots of FUN ! I was doing this in my garage sitting in the front seat.

davek9

I think Dwayne did a great writeup on panel removal, (pic's included) there are some hidden screws & bolts.
But they only take a few min's to remove w/o damage, 10 mm socket a Philips screw driver along w/ a plastic panel puller.

Remember that thin wire drops more voltage than thick wire, so less power gets to the speakers
(monster made a lot of $ on that kool aide)

Andre The Giant

I quickly looked and did not find it, but I figured it out myself with the lead of removing the cap on the door lock button.

When I decide to purchase a 5 ( 4 + sub) channel amp with at least 75 watts RMS per channel, then I will rewire everything.

I just finished installing the front speakers, it turns out that I did not even have to remove the door panels to disconnect the adapter plugs for the tweeter. Here are some pics.

Thank you again Dave.

The only thing which is very tricky if you want to keep the stock look and grills is to remove the plastic ring around the original 4 inch speakers, it tends to break easily.

davek9

Great glad you found a workable solution.

Also I know your sig is "Andre the Giant", but Gigantic pic's, way too hard to view, I'd suggest you edit them (resize) before uploading

Dave

Andre The Giant

Yes Dave I agree, I did not think of it at the time since I was in a bit of a hurry.
Next time I will reduce them, I never realized that my cell took that size of pics !

safulop

Can you tell me, what is the trick to removing the midrange without removing door panel? I have to check my wiring because the passenger side one is not working anymore.

Andre The Giant

If you mean the 4 inch speaker, all you have to do is (pre S4) is unscrew the grill off, remove the 4 screws and then you will get what you see in the first pic posted.

dr bob

Sean--

Predominant failure mode for door speakers is damaged wiring where it passes through the hinge section at the front of the door. Wiring all passes through that plastic guide tube. Go with full-size modern wiring from source to speaker, and live happily ever after.

You'll have the door panel off, because speakers that "stop working" are very rare. Failure mode for speakers is foam (or paper) surround support for the cone fails due to age and heat. The voice coil still moves the middle of the cone, but with uneven support the sound is distorted a lot. Run it that way long enough and the friction between the moving coil and the magnet will cause a real failure. Speakers can be quite easily repaired when it's just the foam that's failed.

The Forgotten On

Great job on getting the 4 inchers in the door. I never could figure out how to get the rings off of the old speakers.

I will say this, modern speakers love an amplified signal that is around as strong as their rms rating (match both the amp and speaker's rating per channel).

Because of this the speakers you have won't sound as good as they can without the proper amount of power. This was the issue I faced with my system after I put it in without an amp.

The sound improved a lot when I finally put an amp in there. So lack of power is probably where the lack of bass comes from in your system.

Pretty common and will be easily fixed when you put in a 5 channel amp, I would put in larger wires as they older ones may melt with the amount of power an amp can put through them.

14-16 gauge wire is usually the standard of speaker wire you can get, anything bigger is a waste of money. Our cars came with something around 20-22 gauge.

Just make sure the new wire has a lot of fine strands of pure copper, not that copper clad aluminum crap.

safulop

OK mine is an S4 so this means removing the whole panel? Some PO already installed a big power amp in my car and wired up the speakers; the passenger 4-inch one quit after some ham-fisted mechanic had the door panel removed for unrelated reason, making me think that probably just the wiring came out of the speaker connection. Truth is, I've run the stereo this way for a long time, I can't actually hear any difference because the tweeter plus rear full-range driver provides the complete sound output. The 4-inch is superfluous from an audibility perspective, you can't hear whether it's present or absent.

bureau13

You should definitely be able to tell the difference between a functional and non-functional midrange driver in the front of the car. If you can't, and this is the way the stock setup works (I've never heard it stock) then that is a very disappointing audio system...

Andre The Giant

Maybe someone else who has done some work on those 4 inch speakers can chime in for the S4, but there is a good chance they might have to be unscrewed also, just not sure.

Good luck, and yes it's better to have good wire installed, but in my case I got lazy for now.

safulop

I agree; I *believe* the reason is that the tweeter plus rear driver provides all the sound needed from the passenger side. The 4-inch driver is just another sound source for the midrange and bass that the rear speaker a couple feet away is already providing.

I bet that a passenger seated next to the dead speaker can tell. But from my side of the car, the image is fine. I can even get a phantom center image if I put my head into the middle of the car.