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replacing factory speakers


harrydog

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Does anyone know, or can anyone take an educated guess as to the power (watts) of the stock stereo in the Legacy/Outback? I want to replace the speakers but I don't want to buy something that requires an aftermarket amp to sound good. By listening to various speakers at the store I can probably get a good sense of how they'll sound in my car as long as they are being driven by something with a similar power rating as my stock system.
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The speakers are 6 1/2 inch speakers, front components. They are Panasonic speakers and head unit. I dont know the power rating on the speakers, but the HU is a 120W unit.

If you were to upgrade, I would recommend going for something like Infinity with an amp mounted in the trunk. But thats just IMHO.

If I pass you on the right, I'm flipping you off.
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You are going to need to put an amp in, without it you will have a nice clean sound but not very much bass, you will lose the "full" sound. The speakers will probably be getting about 15W instead of the 100-200 they potentially could. I re-did my stereo with eclipse speakers and it sounds very good.
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I think the factory speakers are really cheap paper cone units and I was hoping that replacing them with something better would improve the sound quality. I don't need extremely high volume and I don't want booming bass that can be heard 3 blocks away. I realize that an amp would allow me to use the best quality, best sounding speakers. If just replacing the speakers will not improve the sound, then maybe I will add an amp. Where is a good place to mount an amp in an Outback wagon?
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Just replacing the speakers, like mmm def said, you will loose the full range sound. While sounding infinately better, it will loose a lot of range. You may not like loud booming bass, understandable, but at the same token, if you dont have any bass you miss a lot of the sound. So it would definately be recommended to get an amp as well.

As for placement, cant tell ya there... I have heard suggestions of ppl putting an amp above the spare tire where that foam tray is. That sounds like a nice clean spot to me.

If I pass you on the right, I'm flipping you off.
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anyone look at the Polk dB series? They have a 6 1/2 woofer set with tweeters and you can just get the 6 1/2's for the rear. I have the Polk RTi series at home and love them! Very very very clear and crisp with a full range of tone.

 

Polk dB series....

 

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-LyhWHEcKdKJ/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?wm=fp&I=107DB6500&g=52000

 

8 reviews...all 5 out of 5.

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i had the polk db's in my lexus, they sounded good but didnt last very long....apparently they dont like getting wet from a leaky window...go figure

 

I can vouch on this. Had the old Polk MM6500 (swivel tweets) and the woofer's basket gets rusty and then gets into the spider :( It did sound great but just did not last long

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I can vouch on this. Had the old Polk MM6500 (swivel tweets) and the woofer's basket gets rusty and then gets into the spider :( It did sound great but just did not last long

 

curious if the dB series is even the same construction?

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First off the stock speakers are probably built to handle 15-30w max. And I suspect that's all they're seeing from the factory HU. And yes, replacing just the speakers will make a DRAMATIC improvement in your sound quality. Adding an amp to that will give you a more dynamic sound even if you're not going loud because you'll have greatly improved headroom. If you're using some sort of sub w/it's own amp (such as the factory setup), I wouldn't bother adding a front amp until you're ready to get serious about the system.

 

Polk Db's are a respectable sounding speaker IMO - FAR better than stock. I'd go for the Coax's before the seperates in this case. You shouldn't have any issues with them falling apart like the other posts here unless they're getting wet on a regular basis - but then that will happen to any speaker not designed for a marine environment.

 

That thing about "losing full range sound" mentioned above, I've no idea what that's about. If anything, the frequency response of respectable aftermarket speakers will be much better than the stock frisbees. The one area to watch is the effeciency of the new speakers. Look for a Sensitivity rating of 90db or more & you'll be fine. Any shop will have that spec for their speakers, and 90 is the most comman number.

 

You can use most any 6.5" driver in the doors with a 1/2" or 1" spacer ring.

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First off the stock speakers are probably built to handle 15-30w max. And I suspect that's all they're seeing from the factory HU. And yes, replacing just the speakers will make a DRAMATIC improvement in your sound quality. Adding an amp to that will give you a more dynamic sound even if you're not going loud because you'll have greatly improved headroom. If you're using some sort of sub w/it's own amp (such as the factory setup), I wouldn't bother adding a front amp until you're ready to get serious about the system.

 

Polk Db's are a respectable sounding speaker IMO - FAR better than stock. I'd go for the Coax's before the seperates in this case. You shouldn't have any issues with them falling apart like the other posts here unless they're getting wet on a regular basis - but then that will happen to any speaker not designed for a marine environment.

 

That thing about "losing full range sound" mentioned above, I've no idea what that's about. If anything, the frequency response of respectable aftermarket speakers will be much better than the stock frisbees. The one area to watch is the effeciency of the new speakers. Look for a Sensitivity rating of 90db or more & you'll be fine. Any shop will have that spec for their speakers, and 90 is the most comman number.

 

You can use most any 6.5" driver in the doors with a 1/2" or 1" spacer ring.

 

the polks have a sensitivity of 92dB....pretty high. One benefit of higher sensitivity is that you'll need less power to make them as loud.

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I'm thinking I'll replace just the front speakers first, to see how much of an improvement they make. Then I might replace the rears later. Any reason that it would be a problem to replace the fronts only?

Also, does replacing the tweeters make any sense?

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Good call - in the money invested vs. returns realized ratio this will yield the highest benefit. I'd axe the stock tweeters, they'll just hurt the SQ anyway (they're really cheap & in a wierd place). Definitely go to a shop & audition several speakers as they'll all sound different & speaker choice is highly subjective.
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Not really. The 200w capacity bit has nothing, or very little, to do with speaker sensitivity. A lot of people make that mistake, thinking if a speaker is "beefy" enough to handle lots of power then needs a lot of power. Usually untrue. The highs & lows part is about frequency response, which is generally consistant from 1w input to full power capacity. So if it puts out a flat response at 50w it will do the same at 2 watts. Sub bass is a bit different b/c the lowest frequencies take a lot of juice to be audible, but the HU restricts those frequencies below 60hz anyway.
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And here's a bit more from my infinitly useless bay of knowledge (sorry, bored today) -

 

The objective measurement of a speaker's efficiency is the sensitivity spec. They test this by putting a mic 1 meter from the speaker & running a test tone thru it with 1 watt. The result is expressed in db's, which are logarithmic. An 86 db speaker is half as loud/efficient as a 96 db speaker with the same power.

 

Power handling ability is mostly about construction quality - the voice coil, the spider, magnet power & cooling ability.

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Boulderguy-about the "full" part, you can put a set of 200W speakers in with no amp and a stock head unit and expect to have the highs and lows? I doubt it, it will have a clean sound but won't hit very hard at all. Right?
i wouldnt expect it to "hit" at all, when just refering to the front stage. the speakers upfront should only be used to produce mid-bass/mid/high frequencies, leave the lows to a sub. sure, you can get a small amount of low bass from your front stage by sacrificing power handling and the mid/upper range of sound, but it wouldnt even be comparable to a crappy sub with not alot of power. there is no way a 6.5 inch speaker can produce any sort of real bass, plus decent mid range frequencies. the larger range of frequencies a speaker is asked to produce, the worse overall (accuracy and loudness) it will play all of those frequencies (especially if the size of the speaker is not optimum for the application). you shouldnt expect front stage speakers to create low bass, its not what they are designed to do.

 

and boulderguy is right, simply replacing the stock speakers would be a huge improvement. adding an amp would make it even better, as would an aftermarket headunit or a jl cleansweep.

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i wouldnt expect it to "hit" at all, when just refering to the front stage. the speakers upfront should only be used to produce mid-bass/mid/high frequencies, leave the lows to a sub. sure, you can get a small amount of low bass from your front stage by sacrificing power handling and the mid/upper range of sound, but it wouldnt even be comparable to a crappy sub with not alot of power. there is no way a 6.5 inch speaker can produce any sort of real bass, plus decent mid range frequencies. the larger range of frequencies a speaker is asked to produce, the worse overall (accuracy and loudness) it will play all of those frequencies (especially if the size of the speaker is not optimum for the application). you shouldnt expect front stage speakers to create low bass, its not what they are designed to do.

 

and boulderguy is right, simply replacing the stock speakers would be a huge improvement. adding an amp would make it even better, as would an aftermarket headunit or a jl cleansweep.

 

Uh...in the correct enclosure a 6.5 woofer can drop serious bass. At home I have the Polk RTi8 floor speakers. (1" silk tweeter and (2) 6.5" woofers) And they drop serious bass from my Yamaha reciever pushing 90Watts to each. :icon_bigg

 

http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/products/individual/floorstanding/rti8/

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