Speakers for Defender - splits any use ?

[VladTepes]

I have a 300Tdi Defender with the air con unit, so there are two speakers (one per side) facing down at an angle into the front footwells.

These speakers are getting a bit crappy (showing their age).

What can I replace them with ?

Also there is a bit of room (perhaps) in the top corners of the roof either side of the windscreen (I have removed the roof lining). Would there be any benefit in purchasing a set of splits (main speakers in usual place, and the 'minis' in this spot ?).

What can people recommend ?

(I'd prefer to buy reasonable quality at a reasonable price - NOT top end stuff - it's a Defender after all).

???

[Psimpson7]

I have the speakers in mine, in the headlining next to the front seat headrests. (one each side)

I have pioneer speaker (probably middle of the road) (Head unit is good though)

With the speakers anywhere else I cannot hear anything clearly.

[VladTepes]

I have a Pioneer head unit to go in. How are the speakers mounted in yours ? Don;t spose you have nay pics of the instal ?

[Psimpson7]

will get one for you.... hang on... Mmmm appear to have lost my garage keys.... mmm great...

[Psimpson7]

Here you go:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2011/04/111.jpg

[VladTepes]

Nice, thanks.

Whats it mounted to behind the trim. Is it in a speaker box ?

[Psimpson7]

Its just mounted to the headlining. The screws go into little metal clips.

its actually a LR dealer fitment from new.

[astormsau]

pioneer and VDO dayton make a 4inch split kit, about $100
in the defender you need 2 things - you want to increase the volume to hear it over the engine and road noise, and with the factory speaker mounts, you want to raise the level of the treble so you get some direction in the front.

4inch splits in the front - mount the bass driver in the factory location towards your feet and put the tweeter drivers up on the dashboard. Pioneer TS-C1002 i think the model number is. These wire straight into most normal headunits and dont need a power amp.

For the rear i would suggest some good 6inch speakers mounted in boxes up the back of the car (above the small windows either side of the rear door. there is room to mount the standard 6inch speaker boxes you would get from somewhere like JB or strathfield.

if you want to actually get decent sound, adding one of the pre-fab subwoofer enclosures which includes the amp will bring up the bass which the deefie is always going to be lacking because there are no real cavities to fire a speaker into to give you decent bass (like a door or a boot).

most newish headunits will produce enough sound to make listening pretty good at 100km/hr although adding the subwoofer makes a nice difference...

Andrew

[VladTepes]

Rear speakers could be more difficult than that - it's a 130 twin cab and speakers in top corners could be head-bumpers for taller passengers on rough terrain ?

In my old single cab ute i had speakers mounted in boxes behind the doors (ire just in fron of bulkhead) and facing sideways (there were no front speakers). This seemed to work "OK".

[Sprint]

for entry level stuff, i'd go pioneer, nothing else, and try to find room for a set of 6.5" splits

[The ho har's]

hey Vlad we never had an issue with the standard speakers in ours with the windows down just turn real LOUD :D but then we have a TD5 is that quieter than a 300 Tdi:p

sorry couldn't resist:angel::wasntme:

back to topic:)


Mrs ho har:angel:

[VladTepes]

I don't know what size the standard speakers in the front are - but the replacements will need to bethe same size, though splits would be doable me thinks.

[Offender90]

Hi Vlad,

On paper, installing tweeters on the dash & pointing towards you seems like a good idea, as you'd get better mid to high range sound (> ~4kHz) but you're likely to end up with a "gap" in the frequency range (from ~1kHz to ~4kHz depending on your tweeter crossover frequency).

A better solution would be to put full range speakers (i.e. 2 way or similar) as close as possible to your head (i.e. in the headlining either on the sides as in Pete's 90 or directly above your head).

My only question would be if it's worth the effort, given that a defender cab is very noisy itself? If it were me, I'd just stick with the original location and turn up the treble until you like what you hear (as astormsau suggested).

Cheers

Bojan

[fraser130]

I hate to say it, but nothing that fits in the original spots will really cut it when it comes to the lower frequencies, however, I put some JBL 2-ways in (I think they were 4 inch?), they were a good improvement on the crap that was in there, but in the end I made up a box that fits on the floor in the rear as our daughter is too small to reach the floor, and put a 6x9 3-way in each end of that. works a treat! when she gets older I'll cut into the "toolbox" under the rear seats and build some half boxes to make up the height for the 6x9's.

I just remembered, someone put a small subwoofer on the back of the center console/box, and I think they had great results with it, it looked like it was "made for it" and hardly took up any room.

The 130's are a real problem in this regard.

Fraser

[JohnR]

I can recomend split speekers 4" at your knee's and tweeters on top of the dash. For these I have Alpine "X" serries.

In the rear I have a pair of old 6x9 Kenwoods in the rear quarters.

A little sub on the back of the centre console.

Amp under the centre console

Head deck is an Alpine D100 very cool.

It is a sweeet system but soon to be improved........

Cheers,

[VladTepes]

pics of these things would be great !

[solmanic]

This is the baby you need...

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/

Small, JVC powered sub so no amp needed. All you need is a head unit that has a sub-output. It has made a WORLD of improvement to the Defender's sound.

[solmanic]

I just remembered, someone put a small subwoofer on the back of the center console/box, and I think they had great results with it, it looked like it was "made for it" and hardly took up any room....

That would be me - sorry it has taken me so long to get involved in this discussion. Here is the link to the thread I posted on my setup... (http://www.aulro.com/afvb/general-chat/48329-ultimate-07-defender-ice-solution.html)

[JohnR]

OK Here are some pic's

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/12/1083.jpg
Alpine Head deck

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/12/1084.jpg
Lower half of front splits

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/12/1079.jpg
Upper half

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/12/1085.jpg
Sub & under sub is the AMP

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/12/1086.jpg
Rear speakers, soon to be moved and upgraded

This is a seriously adequate system. It has AM, FM, CD, DVD, Ipod, Sat Nav. Rear camera and Blue tooth telephone. We like it :D

Cheers,

[CraigE]

That JVC sub is no longer available. I have spent part of today searching for it as I want to add one to my car, so I suppose I will have to go bass roll. Can not find anything similar.
Vlad,
I put in a set of 4" Kenwood speaker (as I could not get any decent 4" pioneers down here) but am planning adding a set of tweters.
Pioneer do a speaker pack, speakers 4" and tweeters TS-C1002 for about $149 or just the tweeters TS-T110 for $69.
Cheers

This is the baby you need...

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh191/solmanic42/141221DefenderStereoInstall007.jpg

Small, JVC powered sub so no amp needed. All you need is a head unit that has a sub-output. It has made a WORLD of improvement to the Defender's sound.

[fraser130]

John, I know it's off topic, but is that a tyre pressure monitor up top?
I like that idea - could you give me some details?

Fraser

[solmanic]

That JVC sub is no longer available. I have spent part of today searching for it as I want to add one to my car, so I suppose I will have to go bass roll. Can not find anything similar.
Vlad,

Presuming they also have not been discontinued, there were a couple of alternatives when I was shopping for the JVC unit. Blaupunkt did one, and Jaycar had a no-name one that looked similar to the JVC one. Do a search for terms including "compact" & "active" subwoofer. Also try www.ryda.com (http://www.ryda.com)

[Treads]

for entry level stuff, i'd go pioneer, nothing else, and try to find room for a set of 6.5" splits

I've tried both Pioneer and Kenwood in different cars now and wouldn't go back to either. Sound and build quality seems to be a little lacking these days. I've just installed Sony 4" speakers all round in my disco and have them running off a Sony bluetooth headunit. For entry level gear the sound is much better than the others.

For a Defender Sony would be fine :)

If you want to spend some more $$$ Alpine or Clarion is the go, with Focal as a speaker option.

[Offender90]

OK Here are some pic's

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/12/1079.jpg
Upper half

Cheers,

John,

You may find them even better is you point the tweeters (upper half of the splits) towards yourself (the listener).

On an unrelated note, how are you finding the motorised head unit display on rough terrain - does it cope OK with the vibration?

I'd love to install a motorised unit in mine, but am somewhat concerned the motor / slideout mechanism would crap itself over corrugations etc.

Cheers

[dullbird]

we punished ours on the bullman track and it still worked obvioulsy not a wise idea to have the screen out on serious corrogations.....

but we were truely surprised at how much punishment our unit took considering that it was vibrating in its own hole and vibrating with the entire dash

[astormsau]

you find 4 things in a defender;

1. you need a lot of noise to overpower the noise of the motor, air noise, road noise and so forth. therefore you need to do a few things
a. ensure you lift the treble away from the floor so you make maximum use of the sound available to you in the front by directing it to your ears
b. try and take the bass out of the 4inch speakers you put in the factory holes as they offer you next to NO bass response whatsoever.

2. you will want some bass as its one of the keys to feeling like you have 'big' sound. basically the only decent way to do that in a defender is to get a pre-fab subwoofer kit. autobarn sell these as do Repco. we have used 'Fusion' tube subwoofers in a few cars over the years... going down the route of custom boxes for 6x9 speakers is an option but you end up using alot of space. The fusion units come with an inbuilt amp and 2 wiring harnesses which mean you can easily unclip the subwoofer and remove it. Repco were selling the Fusion Encouter 10inch bass tube with inbuilt amp for $150 on special a few months back.

3. to give you some more of that sound you want, you will want some rear fill - ie speakers in the back. if you have a subwoofer you can achieve this with another set of small speakers - say some 4 inches in the headlining or something like that which isnt too bulky.

4. configuration - to get the sound out of your smaller speakers you will want a headunit which has a highpass filter - enabling you to take the bass out of the cabin speakers and re-direct it to your subwoofer, this will enable you pump up the sound without distoring those little 4 inch babies with too much bass.

so my recommendation if you want to spend about $800...

1. Pioneer make good ipod and mp3 compatible headunits, try and find something from autobarn or jb which is a runout deal - never go for base model, make sure it has highpass and lowpass filters. Clarion and JVC also make great units. you want a headunit with decent power and the lowest model ones never give you great sound.

2. go for some 4 inch splits which will fit nicely into the factory mounting holes under the dash and then mount ya tweeters on the top of the dash - this gives you sound direction which means you will hear the higher notes. you can use the factory wiring and the install would be 30 mins tops.

3. get a cheap pre-fab subwoofer, as i said, autobarn sell these moreso than ya JB's or Strathfield.... most can be easily removed if need be for a big trip or when carting stuff around in ya truck

4. put something in the back for rear fill, dont go too expensive, ideally your front speakers should be better quality than the rears as this is where you will get alot of your sound definition from. if you dont have the wiring now, go for good front splits and a sub and see where you end up from there ,you might find it sounding a bit dead behind you and will want that sound reinforcement from behind you

For my fathers defender we did;
Pioneer run out headunit with ipod $220 from autobarn
Pioneer TS-C1004 splits $109 from autobarn
Fusion Encouter sub $150 from Repco, they also sell these at autobarn see http://www.echo-electronics.com/fusionenat110encounter10activesubwooferpack-p-1288.html for a pic and details
Clarion 6inch rears in custom boxes $120 from autobarn

Have also done a similar system in a 4runner with great results.

Your challenge is the lack of cavities to get any bass reverberation from your cabin speakers, you end up over-driving them to get the sound which means you end up with crap sound and eventually running the risk of blowing the cabin drivers up. Separate power amps and installing 6x9 speakers is a bulky solution which isnt easily removed.

Putting something like a fusion encounter within your cabin (which is designed primarily to go in your boot) will give you fantastic results with a low investment. And spending a bit more on Alpine splits will give you even sweeter sound.

Just be aware that the cabin of a Defender is by no means an ideal listening spot so shelling out heaps of money on a high end system is a bit of a waste of time unless you like to sit and listen with the car not running :)

Drew

[gus]

Vlad.........

Realise not all of this will help with your 130, but you asked this question on my behalf a few months ago for my 110.
When purchased, my Defender had speakers mounted under the rear seats, which was a pain in the neck when packing stuff for extended trips........as well as not doing much for the sound.
I went this way......

1. Had an aluminium bar fabricated out of 40mm square tube for rear interior, which bolts into the upper rail behind the trim. (Cost was approx $60 .00)

2. Bought some prefabricated 6 x 9 boxes which are readily available for around $50.00, which I then braced internally, before attaching the 50mm square channel on top. I then put rubber strips inside the channel which filled out the extra couple of mm, and also acts as a shock absorber.

3. These speaker boxes then attach to the bar.......I used quick release pins.....added some extra cable which is tucked away.......drilled some extra holes in the middle....which means for extended downtime around a camp, I can reverse the speakers and put them in the middle pointing outwards with the rear door open, (or on the roof for that matter).

As has been mentioned.........the Focals are good. I also changed the 4 inch front rubbish with Focals (didn't bother with splits). Got rid of all the factory wiring, which is also cr@p.

Thought about a sub (Clarion apparently do one of those smaller active models by the way.....Focal don't), but didn't like the idea of extra things getting in the way.

I also went the way of an amp under the cubby box. For this I got some extruded seating from an aluminium supplier, which I promptly turned upside down. I fixed this to the floor using the original holes for the cubby box, and then put some riv-nuts into the side rails of the extrusion. I then replaced the chunky wooden rails of the cubby with some lower profile timber strips. The amp is fixed to the plate, so no extra holes are need in the floor. All up, I added an extra 2cm to the cubby height, which I find more comfortable anyhow. I also used the aluminium end plates for each end, which I ground a window out of, and then siliconed some stainless mesh on the inside to stop excess rubbish (food particles, bottle caps etc) getting sucked into the cooling fan.

Head unit....I went for an Alpine DVD/Mp3 player........idea of putting 4.7Gb of music onto one disc appealed to me.......even though it is ipod compatible, I never bother as one music DVD lasts for months before I get tired of it.

The car has been through the inland roads of Fraser and Moreton several times and the player/system has never missed a beat....sounds pretty good to boot.

Cheers,

Gus

[JohnR]

Hi Fraser: I am not supposed to spruke but the tyre monitor is a Tyre Dog and I sell them. PM me for more details.

Treads: I have a set of 6x9 Focal's waiting to go in the rear to replace the kenwoods, I just need TIME!!! :) Can't wait to hear them :p

Oddender90: The HF get plenty of reflections off the hard surface of the windscreen which provides a nice dispersion. If I was to angle them I think I would get too much of the right HF before the left one had a chance to get to me froom a time alignment point of view, if that makes sence. Anyway as it is the HF can make your ears hurt :twisted: so no need for more, just important to keep it clear. :D

I am still considering either another sub or just a bigger one. If you could buy some 6x9 sub's it would be great because the new Focals are going up high and I already have some really nice cabinets made up on the rear wheel arches as per the photo. :angel:

Cheers,

[VladTepes]

Drew - on your points:

1. I have a Pioneer ipod compat unit but unsure how good it is. Havent hooked it up yet.
2. Can use the factory wiring for splits ? Good to know. Then again I am hopeless with electrickery
3. Prefab subwoofer boxes are all very well, but where in heck would I put the thing ?
4. For rear fill could I reuse the crap factory speakers from the front or are they better off as land fill ?!

[astormsau]

Hi mate, replies inline

1. just plug it in and see how it goes, you are the ultimate judge and sound is subjective... most pioneer units use a standard loom so if you decide its not good enough it might be pretty easy to swap it for the next unit.

2. the factory wiring is okay for a modest system, its not too hard to re-wire if you get all excited but the factory wiring should carry enough current for normal 4inch splits running off a headunit (at max you'd be pushing 25watts into those babies so dont get too upset)

3. depending upon the size, under seats, im not sure... most autobarn stores will let you take it out to your car and kinda see where it would go... if you ask nicely that is.. grab one, walk otu to your car and experiment with where you can put it, remember most will remove very easily for that big camping trip if you want it out...

4. i would get some slightly better speakers for rear fill to be honest.. some nice mid end speakers from one of the major brands can be had for 60 - 100$... if you are running off the headunit a nice set of 6inch 2 way clarions will work fine... Clarion make nice middle of the road speakers.

in regards to Focals... awesome speakers, its all about your budget and expectations, focals would be one of the best speakers you could put in a car... might be overkill for a deefie :) i like clarion speakers for middle of the road speakers, pioneer 6inches are usually good but avoid their cheaper ones, you will often find a good middle of the road 6inch speaker on special at 70-100 which was originally say 130... esp with quiet retail times right now :)

Drew


Drew - on your points:

1. I have a Pioneer ipod compat unit but unsure how good it is. Havent hooked it up yet.
2. Can use the factory wiring for splits ? Good to know. Then again I am hopeless with electrickery
3. Prefab subwoofer boxes are all very well, but where in heck would I put the thing ?
4. For rear fill could I reuse the crap factory speakers from the front or are they better off as land fill ?!

[JohnR]

Heh Rar110, Your mail box is full I can't send you a PM ?

Cheers,

[CraigE]

Presuming they also have not been discontinued, there were a couple of alternatives when I was shopping for the JVC unit. Blaupunkt did one, and Jaycar had a no-name one that looked similar to the JVC one. Do a search for terms including "compact" & "active" subwoofer. Also try www.ryda.com (http://www.ryda.com)
JVC do not have them listed any more, Ryda do not have them listed anymore and Jaycar do not have theirs listed anymore either.
I have not been able to find anything of similar size.
So if anyone knows of anything or any old stock, please let me know.
Knew I should have scraped and got one.
Edit : Just found out the Blaupunkt unit has been discontinued in Australia as well.
:(:(

[Lightweight]

Can anyone fill me in on what the connection/wiring is for a 2006 Defender in relation to the standard CD/Radio. I am looking at a new head unit and do not have a clue where to start.... I want to do the install myself, but really have no idea about the factory CD connections. Any hints on a good replacement CD/MP3 player with iPhone connectivity?

[VladTepes]

Can someone explain the difference between a 2-way and 3-way speaker please.

[flagg]

Can someone explain the difference between a 2-way and 3-way speaker please.

Its the number of speakers in the speaker. :p

2 way has one small (for high frequencies) and one large (for low frequencies).
3 ways has one small (for high frequencies) one medium (for mid frequencies) and one large (for low frequencies).

The difference is supposed to be that the more specialist speakers sound better working together (or something) in practice the quality of the individual speaker is wildly more important.

I'd rather have a good quality 2 way and an average 3 way.

[Naks]

This is the setup in my Puma at the moment, but I want to relocate the speakers to the rear roof corners to maximise packing space in the load bin:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/11/1682.jpg

[Xul]

I recently upgraded the stereo in my td5. The stock CD player had absolutely shocking sound. You couldn't even hear what was happening half the time! Especially at high speeds.

I upgrading to a tasty little Pioneer unit which you can plug one of those "IPods" into. The wallet got a bit lighter after buying the Ipod and head unit but I felt I could justify it as I listen to music a lot. I was also getting sick of constantly burning off CD's which would just stop working after 10 listens.

I imagine I was also the only 21 year old in Australia to not own an IPod until recently!

Initially I was going to upgrade the speakers not long after but surprisingly enough it sounds really good now, even at high speeds so I'll leave it be for now.

[rockyroad]

Has anybody come up with a method of fitting larger (6 inch) speakers into the standard 4 inch speaker holes ?

Not the most ideal location as we have already discussed but it is still a location.

[ScottW]

Personally, I think Pete's set-up with a 4 inch at head level will give much better sound than a 6 inch at knee level facing the ground. Splits may change that, but I still don't know.