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[easty64]

hi guys & girls
thinking of changing the door speakers on ma 2.2cd 52 plate does any one know the speaker sizes please
cheers ian

[TheBoy]

cant remember size, but depth isn't much. Why change?

[easty64]

hi
the passanger door front and back are very distorted when the volume is turned up

[TheBoy]

hi
the passanger door front and back are very distorted when the volume is turned up

If its a std headunit, its likely thats where the distortion is coming from.

The std speakers aren't bad for a std fit, and wouln't have thought facelift ones are that knackered yet.

[easty64]

cheers mate
have the headunit from ma vectra to put into it a have the facia plate if a can get the car to go

[Admin]

It is as TheBoy said. The distortion is caused by the (small) internal amp on the headunit being overworked as the sound is turned up.

The standard speakers are very good and respond well to a much stronger (and cleaner) signal.

An aftermarket headunit will be much better, assuming it is a decent make, but even then you are looking at a max of 22w rms.
By the way the standard unit will be producing around 10w rms.

[Dave DND]

Change the speakers !!

They are made from inferior quality paper cones for a few pence with a design brief from Vauxhall (and any other manufacturer) to cover the noises that the car made and to stop the customer grumbling about that annoying rattle.

I can understand and fully appreciate the desire to retain the looks and functionality of a standard head unit, but the speakers, no, they are not even fit for the bin.

As rightly pointed out, the head unit is of fairly low power, and should you want to boost this by adding a small amplifier, its very easy to do or if you simply wanted to add some better quality speakers, thats also a very easy option.

Don`t go overboard with the power rating of the speakers, but that said, most of the spakers advertised these days have unrealistic power ratings - and generally are shown as one of the following.

Rms power (or) Max power (or) peak Power (or) Max bull**** power (or) chavs look at this

which can be shown as

20W   or   60W    or    120W   or   150W    or   300W  (for the same speaker)

Its bloody awfull I know, and it really doesn`t help you, but its what appeals to the muppets that come in the shops, they cannot see past a large power figure and the so the Manufacturers advertise accordingly.

Our best selling speakers here for use with Non-Amplified head units are undoubtedly Clarion and I would be more than happy to advise if you let me know what sizes you require.

 8-)

[Admin]

I know this is your business Dave, but I don't agree.

The standard speakers in the Omega are much better quality than many others I have seen.

They sound so much better when given a decent signal and have the lower frequencies filtered off to a sub. I used an Alpine MRV-F407, (old V12 series, proper Alpine amp, far superior to the stuff of the last few years) and I was astonished at how good they sounded.

Prior to this I was going to replace them but I found I didn't need to.

I always feel you should upgrade a car system in this order:

Change the headunit first for something decent (Pioneer,Alpine etc).

Next amp the system (30w rms per channel will be fine for the door speakers) and add a small sub.

Finally change the speakers if you are not satisfied with the sound they are producing.

[Martin_1962]

I found an improvement with Infinity 605CS

[Dave DND]

I know this is your business Dave, but I don't agree.

Good, I would hate everybody to agree with me and hope that everybody makes up their own mind.  

The standard speakers in the Omega are much better quality than many others I have seen.

No, they are still unbelieveably naff paper cone speakers - they may do their job ok, but they were designed and installed for a purpose, and sadly that was not to reproduce accurate sounds in a car - they were put ion there because people are fickle and would not buy a car that did not have a sound system. If they were any good, there would not be a business in aftermarket sound systems.  

I always feel you should upgrade a car system in this order:

Change the headunit first for something decent (Pioneer,Alpine etc).

Disagree - the power of 99.9% of head units out there will far exceed the power rating of the oem speakers. if the speakers go bang, then the head unit will follow almost instantly.

Next amp the system (30w rms per channel will be fine for the door speakers) and add a small sub.

So you have just magnified the problems above by tenfold? The speakers couldn`t even handle the power of the new head unit, and you have just increased that!  

Finally change the speakers if you are not satisfied with the sound they are producing.

At this stage everything will have gone bang.  


If you cannot afford to change the entire system in one go, and not everybody can, then the advice that we would offer is the following for those that are starting from scratch with both OEM head unit and speakers.

Always remember, that whatever the head unit is, the sound reproduced is only ever as good as the speakers will permit, and they can only play a sound that is clearly defined by the head unit. in other words, there are a lot of weak links. No point having mega speakers if you have a bog standard head unit and vice versa.

Add a small amp and a sub. Doesn`t have to be anything that fills the boot, but the first sounds to distort as the volume is cranked up is the sub frequencies. A small 8" sub will add a certain "richness and depth" to the sound, and is one of the reasons everybody raves about the BOSE system - (unplug the BOSE sub and it sounds truly awfull.)

I can hear the arguments now - Boom Boom Boom, I don`t want my car to sound like that  

It shouldn`t - forget the sounds from the Chavs - if you have ever experienced a truly balanced sound system it will make the hairs stand up and give you goose bumps all over - Jazz and Operatic music can sound just as awesome with a sub as the latest Club sounds. Find an established car audio shop nearby and ask to hear their demo car - and a tip would be to take along your own music  

Next, the speakers. At the end of the day, its unlikely that a standard head unit will damage them if overdriven, and at normal volumes will offer loads of improvement.

If you cannot afford to buy good front and rear speakers, spend the money on better fronts, ideally component speakers with seperate tweeters and cheaper rears. After all, where are YOU sitting. (Forget the arguments about sound staging etc, if you are doing this on a budget then you should be approaching this in a different way). With the majority of the sound coming from the front through the good speakers, the rears will act as nothing more than a rear fill. You would even be better off spending all the budget on an excellent set of fronts and leaving the OEM ones in the rear for now, and upgrade them later when you can afford to.

Finally go for a decent head unit - too many options to go through, but choose wisely - spend a bit of money on a decent brand - avoid the eastern imports and tacky gadgets. the rest of your system by this time will ahve now been upgraded and ready to make the most of your final purchase.  

Everybody will have their own opinions on this, and that is a good thing, but please do not ignore the comments from the experts, after all, we are only experts after having done this for so long. . . . .

 

[Martin_1962]

How do you rate Infinty stuff then?

[Dave DND]

How do you rate Infinty stuff then?

I used to rate Infinity quite highly back in the late Nineties when we were quite a large Infinity dealer. The sound was very crsip and clear.

However, purely from from a Main dealer point of view, the build quality was awful, the reliability was terrible and we had to go through half a dozen boxes of stuff before we found a complete set that was worthy of selling, else it all came back under warranty. for every good box sold over the counter, at least three sets went back to the Manufacturer !!

Most of the dealers of the time were of the same opinion, and if you have an old set that are running, chances are, its one of the good ones and it should last for a long time.

The brand has changed hands and distributors so often, that we gave up trying to keep up with them, especially as there was so much other worthwhile stuff to choose from.

All said and done, we liked them,
(but wouldn`t put them in our own cars !!!)

[Martin_1962]

Mine are 5 years old and been in two cars

[rickyboy]

I think the front speakers ain't bad in the mig but notice the rear speakers distort quite badly.  I'm about to change mine - definitely paper p*sh.

[russzero]

hi .. dont think ive posted this before .. please remove if i have.  
interesting reading.  anyone know how the -rear spkr grills- come off ... or will it have to be the panels ? hoping its just the grills. tried pulling the grills today but they seem locked in. the old Cav rear shelf grills were just snapped in .... easy. ive 2x twin cone spkrs that are just waiting to drop in there.
the spkrs  look easier to fit than the Cav. i had to make aup a special baffle to fit 2x 10,s on the back shelf. sounded ok. nothing to write home about.
well .. hope someone can give me a clue ... before i force something and break the lugs or something.
thnx  russ    
ps. oh yeah its a gls omega 2ltr ... bog std version ...