Door speakers blown. Replace? Posted on behalf of mikilla

Post by **matthew1** » 20 May 2011, 08:34

Both passenger door speakers are blown so I need to replace them is there a speaker I can replace em with or will I loose my bass? And has anyone tried adding bass shakers to the stock system?

** Posted on behalf of MVS member mikilla **

Post by **ojdorson** » 20 May 2011, 09:52

I put in JL Audio TR600-CXi. They are great speakers and fit pretty well - I had to cut off a few of the clips on the speaker grilles (just one side of the clip, they still hold very tight). I've since read that you want to remove the "bucket" behind the speaker as it's tuned for the old drivers and will limit performance of the replacements.

Pretty much any speaker will work, so long as it's the right size. The problem is the rear doors are some weirdo size. 5.25" is the closest thing without going over. The ones I used are 6", but this size isn't very common and, as mentioned above, they did interfere with the grilles a little.

These two threads have a lot of good information...
Volvo 850 speaker replacement.
http://www.volvo-forums.com/t21128-ster ... -wagon.htm

As for bass shakers - no, but I've certainly thought about it. I'm sure there'd be a way to mount them to the seat frame underneath. Thanks for reminding me - I've got a wagon and would like some more bass without exposing anything in the cargo area.
Parts-Express has a ton of options, including an $11 one. Worth a try, at that price! http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet ... er=300-388

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 22 May 2011, 04:54

Buy some from a scrap yard, $1 per drive unit your just can't beat that.

mikilla · Post by **mikilla** » 22 May 2011, 05:16

I think im just gona replace all the door speakers and front tweeters and leave the back deck speakers because they're still good and just add bass shakers on the bottoms of the front seats on the back of the backseat.
do you think I need an amp to put the bass shakers? There only like 25 watts eah the ones I want to get and ill be adding 4 and just wire them into the door speakers

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 23 May 2011, 06:25

never mind the 25 watts business. its the sensitivity which matters.

Post by **ojdorson** » 23 May 2011, 11:04

Actually, it's kind of the IMPEDANCE that matters. Sure, the sensitivity tells you how efficiently your amp's wattage will get converted to sound, but the impedance determines how much wattage your amp will produce and how likely it is to BLOW UP. If your bass shakers are 16ohms, then it won't add much load if you wire them in parallel with the existing speakers - it will drop the total impedance from 4 ohms to 3.2 ohms. http://www.bcae1.com/spkrmlti.htm

Your factory amp will run a little hotter and it's up to you whether you want to add an amp. Since those shakers are only rated at 25 watts, you can get away with a very small amp like http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet ... er=265-079 or something like this might be perfect http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-EXM-202-Power- ... _500wt_991

Also, keep in mind that speakers with a higher impedance will see LESS watts from your amp, so a 40watt amp rated for 4ohm speakers would end up at around 5watts per channel with a 16ohm load. http://www.bcae1.com/spkrimp.htm

I'd probably get four of the small shakers for each seat and wire them in parallel for a 4ohm load. I'm pretty sure you could get four of those shakers mounted onto each front seat frame. Then, that Sony amp I linked above would put out it's rated 20wpc and see it's designed for load.

That Volvo-forums link I gave you above suggests that the factory speakers have the following impedances
Dash: small 1-way 8 ohm peaker
Front door: mid 1 way 6 ohm speaker
Rear door: mid 2-way 8 ohm speaker
Rear pillar (wagon) or Rear shelf (sedan): 8 ohm speaker

Boy, now that I've gone through this exercise, I might just do this myself!