Okay, finally got round to doing something about the woefull units in the rear.

First off, I'm only using a HU for amplification so I haven't gone mad. I've chosen Sony XS-F1334 units, coupled with an adaptor ring from here:

http://www.iaperformance.com/catalog_subaru.asp

<Edit>

- try http://www.iaperformance.com/index.p...a62f8bdee61c8e

It seems to change, so if that doesn't work, try www.iaperformance.com and follow the obvious links.

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The 'speakers were chosen as they sounded the best out of Halford's selection (a good place to go and listen, although they'll sound different once in the car...) and also they are 'flat fronted', i.e. the tweeter doesn't stick out. Clearance between the 'speaker and door card is really an issue with the rears. As these are mounted low down I wanted to choose some which had a decent amount of treble, and (spec-wise anyway) decent bass response and sensitivity. According to Sony these put out 91dB (1W/1m) and go from 30Hz to 25kHz (why?). They can handle 40W rms, which suits my Alpine HU fine (60W 'not rms' per channel).

I got the adaptor ring from the states as they come with longer door skin fixings to give a bit more clearance. These took about a week to arrive.

Anyway, first off the door card has to come off. This is pretty similar to the front ones. I found it easiest to remove the screw behind the door handle flap, as arrowed, and lever the trim surround off carefully (didn't break anything this time...).




Then, lift up the flap in the arm rest remove the screw and lever the trim from that.




The window switch can be unclipped from the trim, which is handy as the window can then be lowered to check clearance. As the rear windows don't go all the way down I don't think this is a problem anyway.




Before the door card can be removed a small plastic screw and peg thing needs to be taken out, as arrowed.




When that's gone, unclip the bottom and sides of the trim and lift it off the door. Here we can see the OE 'speaker - I couldn't bring myself to photo the thing, it's utter rubbish. It weighs next to nothing, tiny magnet and plastic basket. In the bin!




Sadly, due to clearance issues, the spacer ring has to be pretty thin. Because of this the 'speaker screws must go into the metal of the inner door so it's butcher time. Poor scooby. I screwed the ring to the door, marked four places where the 'speaker would screw to (for some reason the units I used didn't line up with the holes already in the ring). I then carefully drilled through both the ring and the door with a small drill bit.




Here you can see where I've drilled through the ring...




...and these are the four holes in the door (gulp!). As you can see, probably not the best place to do it as there's not much metal around them:




Anyway, there's also not a lot of room for dynamat, but I stuck a bit on anyway, and cut around the three plastic mounting points.




I then carefully removed the inner portion (and, not shown, stuck some insulating tape to the bottom edge to prevent any danger of the 'speaker terminals shorting out).




For good measure I used some more dynamat on the door card, making sure it didn't add to any clearance problems. You can also see the two black elongated fixings which came with the rings and will hold the card away from the 'speaker. The bit of foam you see was on the cards already, probably makes sure the cards don't foul the 'speaker. In fact, the whole door card doesn't really fit very well before we do all this (never noticed before)...




So, all that remains is to crimp on some new terminals (according to someone else's site the vertical bit of the 'T' connector is the positive, despite the wire colours suggesting otherwise) and screw in the 'speaker. The ring came with screws which have some sort of drill end on them; this probably helped enlarge the pilot holes I'd drilled anyway but they were a pain to get in. Once fitted, however, the 'speaker is held very firmly.




I've only done one so far (hopefully the weather will be fine tomorrow), but it sounds good, and I can turn the HU up much further than with the old speaker (using the fader and balance controls to isolate the new unit).

Happy days!

 

It was about time you got your act together and got the rear speakers in:-)

I would be very interested to know how they perform in the car

Top pics and description as usual - nice work

 

Not surprised you like tyhe sound of the Sonys. I did open, and blind, testing in Halfords, and ended up with 4 new speakers for my UK classic, all Sony, none purchased from Halfords though

They were just the nicest sound, IMHO. And after all, isn't that how you're supposed to choose hifi speakers?

Alcazar

 

Well, still need to tinker with levels and EQ (as much as my HU will allow anyway).

I'm faced with the problem of fitting two totally different sets of loudspeakers in a car, driven by a HU which won't allow spearate EQ for the fronts and rears. The sound of each set is poles apart, not that it will stop me getting it to sound ace eventually.

Straight away the sound is louder, and despite running with -2 at 10kHz (my original setting to tame the Infinities) the treble has extra 'sparkle' (sorry to get all hi-fi mag speak, but it's the best way to describe it). This means sharp sounds have a more defined attack, and cymbols etc. sound crisper.

Bass is also more pronounced, which is always a good thing.

I've got a rattle from the near-side rear which I need to sort out (finger's pointing at the door card), but I haven't had much time.

Of course, ideally I'd set up a sub in the system and stop the bass going to the doors altogether...