Guth

In the past I've always left my car audio systems alone. I'm considering replacing the factory speakers in my 99.5 A4 with some aftermarket units. I've read good things about MB Quart speakers and see that they make a direct replacement (Autobahn line?) for the factory units. I want to leave the factory head unit in place.

Does anyone out there have any experience with such a swap. Did you have to add an amplifier (hard to install?). What about crossover units (once again, hard to install?). And finally are there replacements for the stock rear speakers (with the attached amp)?

Thanks for any input!
...Guth<p>

siberian

It's easy to swap just the speakers, but in all honesty, if you just swap speakers and run them off the head unit, you probably won't notice much, if any, of an improvement... even on top of the line speakers. And you'd be wasting your money. A big part of the limitation of the sound is due to the lack of good clean power from the source, as well as the fact that the stock speakers have no cross-overs.... which means those itty bitty little 4" speakers in the doors are being fed low frequency signals that they couldn't possibly reproduce. That's why you get that nasty distortion when you try to turn the volume up beyond a whisper!

Take a look at home stereo stuff for instance... you can take a set of $5000 dollar Tannoy monitors and hook them up to a $200 dollar Sony stereo from Best Buy and the speakers will sound like sh*t... but if you hook them up to a good high power amplifier.... whoa! they suddenly come to life. Inversely, you can take a piece of sh*t pair of $300 Infinity speakers and hook them up to a good amp, and even THEY will sound much better.

The same thing applies to car stuff...

If you are only going to swap the speakers, then I would not recommend going with top of the line stuff... the cost would not justify the modest, if any, improvement you'd get, unless you plan to add an amp later on... then by all means, get some really good speakers. High end speakers in general really benefit from higher and cleaner power supplied by an external amp.

If anything, go with a moderetely priced mid-entry level set that has a crossover... (like the Quart Autobahn). Then you can filter out the low stuff and play them a little louder and cleaner... but then you loose a little mid-bass.. and that's another can of worms!

RKA

Let's say...
You had a $200 quality Sony receiver (yes, that one with all the dancing lights!). :-)

Hook that up to a $100 set up speakers, then hook it up to a $200 set up speakers. Your performance gain here would be better going with the speaker upgrade rather than the amp upgrade.

Now, I still agree with Siberian. The factory speakers still have some merit (as factory speakers go). Start with a good 4 channel amp. It should have crossovers in it. Install is not too difficult, and if you search this forum, somebody put a nice how-to on installing your amp.

As for your question about replacing the rears with amplified rear speakers...you're out of luck. You will need outboard amplification for the rears (hence the 4 channel amp).

RKA

He's got some good tips on purchasing aftermarket, and upgrading. It applies to people on most budgets, and it should get you started, and thinking so you don't throw your money out the window!<ul><li><a href="https://www.audiworld.com/forum/m/audio/msgs/2222.phtml">https://www.audiworld.com/forum/m/audio/msgs/2222.phtml</a</li></ul>

Guth

<p>

Foo

but the overal sound quality would/will be improved... Granted it wont play as loud and in trying to peg your head unit you can damage the new speakers (depending on the model and power requirements) this is a perfectly fine way to improve the sound in your car.
Your analogy is not correct.

Sorry man.

Darren

siberian

..if you spend extra money on REALLY high end top of the line speakers, like Quart Q series or Diamond Hex, or Boston Pro.... I seriously doubt it would be worth it unless you plan to upgrade the amp. Instead, what I was trying to say is to go with Quart Audobahn instead of Q, or Diamond Motorsport instead of Hex, or Boston Ralleye instead of Pro. Otherwise you'd be wasting your money. A good system is only as good as the weakest link. If you have great speakers and sh*tty amplification.... well, then your great speakers will only sound average. Instead, I'd just buy "really good" speakers and have them sound average. Remember, garbage in, garbage out. If you feed a sh*tty signal to a great speaker, it's not going to improve that signal... it's only going to re-produce it more accurately... so what good is accurate garbage?

I'll use another anology... it would be like buying an Audi S4 (at sticker price) that has a Chevy Chevette engine in it. Sure, you could tell all your friends what a cool car you have, but then when it comes time to smoke that 3-series off the line..... well.... see what I mean?

For the time being, I have a 30watt-per-channel amp running my front stock speakers. Sure, it is crossed over, but even when I disable the crossover and run it full range, it still sounds WAAAAAAAAY better than the stock speakers running off the head unit. I'm not saying those speakers are any good, I still think they suck, but I am saying that the sound CAN be improved if you improve the signal.

siberian

what you're comparing is still a budget system upgrade.... $100 dollar vs $200 dollar speakers isn't much of an upgrade. BUT, $100 dollar vs $2000 dollar speakers..... now THAT'S a big difference. However would YOU spend $2000 dollars on a set of speakers to be run off an el-cheap-o $200 dollar Sony receiver? That wouldn't make much sense would it?

The whole point I'm making is that it makes more economic sense to pay attention to the relative quality and cost of all the components that make up your system. Especially when you are on a budget. It just doesn't make sense to pay all that extra money for super high end speaker upgrade only to degrade the sound with a crummy receiver. You'd be wasting all that extra money on benefits you'd never hear anyway. You'd be better off with a modest middle-quality "good" speaker upgrade. If you keep the stock receiver and no amp, you'll reach a point where no amount of extra money spent on speakers will improve the sound any more. The trick is to find that point where you've improved the sound with BETTER than stock speakers, and stop there.

Let's use this comparison....
Let's say you had a Yugo that could go no faster than 75 mph and it's time to buy new tires. You could buy a complete set of good quality tires that are appropriate for the car, for $250.00. Barring any mental problems, would any normal logical person spend $900 dollars on a set of Z-rated Pirelli racing tires because they think they're going to make the car go faster?

Pelican Pete

He is not advocating spending tons of money beyond your budget on the audio system.

But everything he has said makes complete sense.
Heck -- I toyed with the idea of getting good speakers in my car and running them off the factory amplifiers.

For the same amount of money, I ended up buying an amp instead, powering the stock speakers.

It is a tremendous improvement !!!
And not terribly expensive either.

(Well I am starting to go overboard, but the core system is actually pretty reasonably priced.)

True, I do have high-end aftermarket speakers on order. But the stock speakers driven with an amplifier is a much bigger upgrade than putting better speakers and driving them with the crappy stock headunit power.

By the way -- audio performance is a dangerous hobby (just like engine tuning).
Once you start, it is hard to stop -- because every upgrade accentuates the weak links in the rest of the system.

Have fun,
Peter
98.5 A4 1.8tqms GIAC 1 bar
JL Stealthbox, PG XS4600, Concert stereo with line-outs
Focal 130k hopefully soon !

M.S.G.

Siberian is right, don't get top of the line speakers if your not going to upgrade the head unit.