Speakers

Tips for upgrading your car’s speakers

Upgrading your speakers is often the single most effective and rewarding sound quality improvement you can do, since the OEM speakers fitted to most cars are usually very poor in quality and performance – being built to a budget and not being focussed on sound quality.

How do I know what sized speakers fit my car?

Replacement speakers are available in a myriad of shapes, sizes, styles and types to suit virtually any automotive application. The speaker mounting locations in your car will vary, and have limitations in their shape, diameter and depth that govern what types of replacement speakers will fit easily. Sometimes it may be preferable to perform custom fabrication work to allow the speakers you desire to be fitted to your car, but for most vehicles you should be able to find a straight drop-in solution.

A great place to start is to check the Aerpro speaker mounting spacers available for your specific car. If these are available, they will guide you as to the diameter of replacement speakers that will fit. To do this put your car’s details into our ‘Add Your Vehicle’ search menu on top of our website and then go to ‘Speaker Installation Parts’ in our menu. If there are spacers available for your specific car check the specifications of the spacer to find out their external diameter, then choose a replacement speaker set to match this.

In many cases you may need to remove a door trim, A-pillar trim or parcel shelf from your car and measure the mounting area to know precisely the maximum dimensions your replacement speakers need to fit within. This matters not only for mounting diameter, but also for the mounting depth to clear your door glass, regulators and other obstructions. There is also the clearance in front of the speaker to the grille so that the speaker does not foul it when in operation, and that the speaker’s working cone dispersal area can fire through the grille itself without being muffled.

We have the specific mounting hole diameter, outer diameter, and mounting depth listed in the information of every split component, coaxial and raw driver we sell, so to be 100% sure the speaker set you are buying will fit your application we’ve made it easy for you to check before you purchase from us.

What type of speakers do I need? Coaxial or split component?

A 2-way split component speaker set comes with separate driver elements for the midrange speakers (that play frequencies below around 5000Hz) and the tweeters (that play above 5000Hz), and often an outboard crossover box that divvies up the frequencies to each speaker. A 3-way split component set separates this into a pair of mid-woofers (up to around 300Hz), midranges (300Hz to 5000Hz), and tweeters (5000Hz and above). 

A coaxial speaker mounts the tweeter element within the midrange speaker, so it exists as an all-in-one unit, which includes a simplified high pass filter (crossover) for the tweeter that is usually built in. Coaxial speakers are more affordable than their split component counterparts and are easier to install. The placement of the tweeter means that 100% of the sound will emanate from this location – which is not as conducive to creating a sound stage that is closer to head height as is possible with split component systems where the tweeter (and midrange in a 3-way set) can be mounted up high.

If your car comes factory equipped with split components in either the front or rear, you’ll be able to tell as there will be a smaller grill opening higher up on the door, in the sail panel or in the A-pillar where the tweeters will be mounted. In this case, it is best to replace them with another set of split components, as coaxials will likely not be a noticeable sound upgrade.

Coaxial speakers are often found in older cars made pre-2000 or can be found in rear speaker locations as this simplifies vehicle manufacturing. While it may be beneficial to upgrade from coaxials to split components in the rear of the car, much of the benefit of the separate mounting of the tweeters is somewhat negated. In many cases, it may be more beneficial to combine your speaker budgets from front and rear speakers and simply spend this on a higher-grade pair of split components in the front of the car where you’ll get more enjoyment from them.

How much should I spend on speakers to get good sound? Is it an upgrade at all?

It helps immensely to know what the quality your existing speakers are, as well as what your own personal preferences are for higher-end sound quality. Car manufacturers have been selling upgraded sound systems into their cars for decades now, so if your car features a name brand badge somewhere on a speaker grille that’s a good sign the speakers are of a higher grade than the normal. In this instance, any split component set under around $300 to $400 may not be a significant improvement, so you may have to budget for something higher in quality.

If you have any serious expectations of high-fidelity sound quality, you’ll find that split component sets that retail from between $500 to $1000 will sound amazing. These are worthwhile even as a drop-in solution to replace your factory or older speakers even without any other upgrades. You may also want to consider external amplification and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) to get the absolute maximum sound quality from your investment.

Do things like power ratings matter? 

In a word, no. Unfortunately, the power ratings used on speakers do not give you any tangible guidance as to their sound quality or even their ability to play loudly. This is most certainly true of coaxial speaker sets from the mainstream manufacturers, who have continued to use inflated power ratings for decades simply to exploit low buyer knowledge and understanding. In short, when it comes to full range speakers sets we recommend that you ignore power speaker ratings entirely.

What about impedance and matching to amplifiers?

The vast bulk of full range split component and coaxial speaker sets are a nominal 4ohm impedance, making them equally useful for being powered by the internal amplifier of an OEM or aftermarket head unit, or an external amplifier. This also means that when shopping for an amplifier you need to consider the nominal 4ohm power rating to know how much power your speaker will be mated to.

Generally, you don’t need to worry about ‘matching’ power ratings from speakers to outputs of amplifiers. It is more important that your amplifier is not being over-driven to the point that its output becomes distorted, which is usually because the buyer chose one that wasn’t powerful enough.

So long as the speakers are properly installed, that correct crossover filtering is applied, and that the user isn’t adding an over-abundance of bass boost (a sure sign he or she needs a subwoofer!) then you can pretty much use any split component set or coaxial set with any amplifier safely.

What else do I need to install new speakers in my car?

Automotive Superstore sells everything you need to successfully install a new pair of speakers into your car. You may also need speaker spacers, extra speaker wires, and wiring adaptors to complete the job quickly and easily, while sound deadening and installation tools that we also offer can go a long way to making the job simpler while enhancing sound quality further.