jgedde
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 17, 2016
- Threads
- 38
- Messages
- 297
- Reaction score
- 96
- Location
- Middle Island, NY
- First Name
- John
- Vehicle(s)
- 2015 GT Premium PP, M6, Triple Yellow
- Thread starter
- #1
Since buying my GT Premium PP a year and a half ago, I've been underwhelmed (being polite) by the sound quality of the Shaker Pro audio system. The main problem was muddy highs from the front 3 speakers and excessive midrange. The sound was so awful, I spent the past year either listening to talk/news or nothing. I upgraded the midrange speakers to a 3.5" coaxial unit and all I can say is WOW! Night and day difference! Something tells me this is old news though...
The front door midrange speaker is 3.5" and is to say the least crummy. The woofer is actually a nice unit with a polypropylene cone and a foam surround.
I figured a midrange speaker upgrade to a coaxial unit would bring out the highs and bring the midrange into balance. I bought these: https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/Speakers/Special-Application/TS-A878#specs These units have a street price of $35-$40. I chose these because they perform down to 60 Hz (-6db I'm sure), and have a low profile tweeter. Most importantly, they come in at 88 db SPL. Anything much higher I think the midrange would have the same problem as stock.
Installing them wasn't hard at all but has some issues you should be aware of if you do the same. Upon removing the factory speakers, I found that they were basically paper cone transistor radio speakers with a big magnet.
The issue is the new speakers have a very large magnet and they don't go into the speaker recess all the way before the magnet bottoms out on the door structure. In my case I just put four nylon washers under each speakers mounting tabs to space the whole speaker outwards by about 1/4". I then stuffed a foam strip (made from exterior door weather stripping) into the gap. This was probably overkill since there would be minimal air leakage from the back of the cone since the speaker frame is hefty and only has small cutouts. If desired a more elaborate spacer could be made from 1/4" plywood or other material easy to drill and jigsaw.
The factory speakers sit in an OEM plastic adapter/spacer gizmo. This was left in place. There is a connector on this plate that connects to the door speaker harness. The other side of this connector's wires goes through a notch in the spacer gizmo and are soldered to the OEM speaker. I simply cut the wires off the OEM speaker and soldered them onto the new speaker. One could just as easily crimp on terminals if desired.
That's it! The fit is a bit tight and I wouldn't use any other speaker with a tweeter that protrudes further out as it wouldn't clear the door panel. As it is, the tweeter housing is up against the inside of the door panel.
The wires that come out of the connector to the speaker are not the same colors as the wires going into it from the door harness, so I needed to see which speaker wire went to which harness wire to get the polarity right. That's easy if you know the color codes:
LF+ Green/Blue
LF- Gray/Blue
RF+ Violet/Gray
RF- Yellow/Gray
Installing these has made a huge difference. Much better highs and the midrange is tamed from in-your face to balanced; blending well with the OEM woofer and tweeter.
I think I will change out the center channel speaker as well!
John
The front door midrange speaker is 3.5" and is to say the least crummy. The woofer is actually a nice unit with a polypropylene cone and a foam surround.
I figured a midrange speaker upgrade to a coaxial unit would bring out the highs and bring the midrange into balance. I bought these: https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/Speakers/Special-Application/TS-A878#specs These units have a street price of $35-$40. I chose these because they perform down to 60 Hz (-6db I'm sure), and have a low profile tweeter. Most importantly, they come in at 88 db SPL. Anything much higher I think the midrange would have the same problem as stock.
Installing them wasn't hard at all but has some issues you should be aware of if you do the same. Upon removing the factory speakers, I found that they were basically paper cone transistor radio speakers with a big magnet.
The issue is the new speakers have a very large magnet and they don't go into the speaker recess all the way before the magnet bottoms out on the door structure. In my case I just put four nylon washers under each speakers mounting tabs to space the whole speaker outwards by about 1/4". I then stuffed a foam strip (made from exterior door weather stripping) into the gap. This was probably overkill since there would be minimal air leakage from the back of the cone since the speaker frame is hefty and only has small cutouts. If desired a more elaborate spacer could be made from 1/4" plywood or other material easy to drill and jigsaw.
The factory speakers sit in an OEM plastic adapter/spacer gizmo. This was left in place. There is a connector on this plate that connects to the door speaker harness. The other side of this connector's wires goes through a notch in the spacer gizmo and are soldered to the OEM speaker. I simply cut the wires off the OEM speaker and soldered them onto the new speaker. One could just as easily crimp on terminals if desired.
That's it! The fit is a bit tight and I wouldn't use any other speaker with a tweeter that protrudes further out as it wouldn't clear the door panel. As it is, the tweeter housing is up against the inside of the door panel.
The wires that come out of the connector to the speaker are not the same colors as the wires going into it from the door harness, so I needed to see which speaker wire went to which harness wire to get the polarity right. That's easy if you know the color codes:
LF+ Green/Blue
LF- Gray/Blue
RF+ Violet/Gray
RF- Yellow/Gray
Installing these has made a huge difference. Much better highs and the midrange is tamed from in-your face to balanced; blending well with the OEM woofer and tweeter.
I think I will change out the center channel speaker as well!
John
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