Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:34:30 -0400
Reply-To: Edward Maglott <emaglott3@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Edward Maglott <emaglott3@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Cheap front door speakers sound Great!
In-Reply-To: <996824.41555.qm@web83604.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Well I "ran" right out and bought some of these and they are already
here. How did you get the old speaker out of the enclosure? Mine is
an 86 Wolfsburg and it looks like it has the speaker glued into the
enclosure. The enclosure is held to the door with the big threaded
ring. Seems like I've read in the past about people braking the old
speaker to get it out? good/easy way to do this without damaging
the enclosure?
Thanks,
Edward
At 07:38 PM 10/9/2010, Richard Koerner wrote:
>After the last few roadtrips, noticed that the front factory door
>speakers (25 year old Blaupunkt) were sounding weak and fuzzy. I
>have a second pair of 5 1/4" speakers mounted down by the footwell,
>but the fuzzy speakers were annoying. Did hardly any research to
>find 3 1/2" speakers for to replace the factory ones (I'm not a
>serious audiophile...just want it to sound "pretty good"). Found
>these Legacy 3 1/2" 120 Watt Co-axial speakers on Amazon; bought
>from CarAudioDeals, $11.23 + $3.73 shipping.
>
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002M792S/ref=oss_product
>
>Removed old Blaupunkts...sure enough, the paper cones were
>split. Installed the new Legacy's...NOW we're talking!!! I think
>they sound really good, amazing actually. Plenty of base, good
>highs, look like solid speakers....especially for under $15 for the pair.
>
>Some installation caveats:
>
>1. The speakers come with side mounting tabs.....no problem, just
>fold these back.
>2. The tweeter extends beyond the rim of the main speaker by about
>1/4". The original speaker grills are slightly convex...but not
>enough...the tweeter will rest on the interior of the grill. So I
>made a "spacer washer" out of an old neoprene wetsuit, about 3.5" OD
>and 3.2" ID, and used 2 layers of 1/8" thick wetsuit, glued
>together. I epoxied this spacer washer to the mounting face of the
>new speakers, and then applied more epoxy to the face of the spacer
>washer and placed inside the speaker grill enclosure and let it cure
>to mount the speaker in the grill enclosure. I think you can buy
>spacer washers if you want; or, you could probably build up
>thicknesses of cardboard or something to achieve the same
>effect. Anyway, it all worked just fine, solid, no buzzing. And it
>fits the factory plastic shell on the door panel. Of course no
>problem with the window cranks either since using the factory grill.
>
>Very impressed by the sound...can really turn it UP if I want
>to...and I do a lot of driving with windows rolled down. By the
>way, my radio is from a Honda Civic that I got on ebay for about
>$10...nothing fancy but a good unit, LCD display matches the
>instrument cluster clock, looks "factory" except that it says Honda
>on the cassette tape door (need some black paint and an artist's
>brush to take care of that I guess).
>
>Extremely pleased with the final result....should last for years.
>
>Rich
>85 Vanagon GL
>San Diego
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