Should I Replace My Factory Pioneer Speakers?

[bdonkersgoed]

Hey Everyone,

I currently have the following setup in my '92 ES300:

- Alpine CDA-9835 MP3 Head Unit 60x4W MAX, 26x4W RMS

- Factory speakers running off of the internal Alpine amplifier (bypass factory amp)

- Alpine MRD-M301 350W RMS Monoblock AccuClass D Amplifier

- 10" Alpine Type R DVC Sub in a ported box

Now, contrary to popular belief, the factory speakers in the Lexus hold up quite well to the 26x4W RMS internal amplifier of my Alpine head unit. I do not notice the speakers popping or anything.

Now, from my old car, I still have a set of Sony XPlod component speaker (2-way 6.5" and 3-way 6x9"). I know that the factory speakers in the Lexus are pretty nice Pioneers, but I felt the ones in the back and it feels as though they only have paper cones. They also can not go as loud as my Alpine head unit would like them to go without distorting.

Now, my question . . . I know that Sony's are known to be crap and Pioneers known to be a lot better. Would I be sacrificing quality if I put these Sony speakers in?. The models are as follows:

- 6.5" XS-HL673 (180W MAX) (RMS unknown)

- 6x9" XS-V6920 (200W MAX) (RMS unknown)

Thanks guys!

Bryan

[bdonkersgoed]

And also, I have read in previosu posts that the Pioneer speakers are low wattage, high efficiency.

Does anyone know what the RMS wattage of the factory speakers are?

Thanks!

Bryan

[NeiLtYmE]

Dude, you got the idea. But you also said the rigth thing.

Speakers arent tuned to work with anything else. Obviously they will work, but the sound frequencies those things will produce are completely limited. Hellooo distortion

If your spending all that money anyways, Get new the two door speakers and rear ones. And new wiring.

And If your reall a audiofool like me.... You would 4 channel amp all speakers, then run the tweeters into the deck and finish off with another Amp attached with a very complementing sub.

[bdonkersgoed]

Well, I am asking if I should put the Sony XPlod speakers in and pul out the stock Pioneers. I received the Sonys as a gift a couple of years ago when I still had my Mazda. When my Mazda was totalled, I pulled the speakers out and they have been sitting in my closet ever since. They are still like brand new.

I don't have the money for an external amplifier right now, and I don't think I really need one. The built-in amp on the Alpine deck I bought is sweet, and the 26x4W RMS output is more than plenty for me.

I am just hoping that the Sony speakers won't distort at higher volumes like the factory speakers do. I think I am going to give it a try and swap them. If worse comes to worse and I think the Sonys sound like crap in comparison to stock, I can always put the stock speakers back in again.

Also, with regards to the subs, I think the one 10" sub is plenty of bass for me. For a 10", it can really pound when pushed. My mom just told me that my neighbour complained to her already, and I only played it loud for like five minutes one day when I was trying to set it up :P (I'm not one of those idiots who drive through quiet neighbourhoods with a loud !Removed! pipe and blasting music :P)

Anyways, I'm going to do the swap now and see how it turns out :)

Regards,

Bryan

[Lex3486]

Good suggestions thus far; here's my 2c. I searched for a long time trying to find a set of speakers that I thought was comprable, much less an improvement on the stock speakers when I blew one of the front woofers. My conclusion-unless you're willin to dish out the big bucks for, oh say a Polk or Rockford Fosgate component set for the front, you'll be hard-pressed to find any speakers that have as much bass and sound as good as the stock front woofers. I actually installed and tried out rock-bottom Wal-Mart brand speakers, Sonys, Pioneers, Lightning Audio, etc. and surprisingly found that Jensens sounded closest to stock with little to no distortion (don't forget that I'm talkin about the woofers only, which with a stock head unit and wiring only get bass input, so I was looking for good clear bass and face it-the Sonys sucked and the Pioneers sucked worse) I actually ended up eventually getting another stock speaker after running the Jensen for a while b/c it still didn't sound as good as it used to. Now, on the 6x9's, I replaced mine with Pioneer 3-ways and I couldn't be happier! I'm still running the stock head unit but the upgraded rear speakers make a very noticeable difference for sure. They don't have any more bass persay, but they have lots more treble and clarity, and the best part is I got em at Wal-Mart for like $50 or so and they bolted directly in b/c the stock speakers are Pioneer as well. Oh, and while I'm on Pioneer, they have a plastic cone rather than paper and they're rated for 220 watts max. so I bet they'd sound awesome with your head unit. As for the front speakers, honestly, I'd just leave em be. ;)

[bdonkersgoed]

Thanks for the input Lex :)

But, I really don't want bass coming out of my component speakers. That is what the subwoofer is for. I also don't have a factory head unit anymore, and the output from the new integrated amp is much more than the output of the factory amp. I think my situation is a little bit different than yours (since you are still running factory head and amp).

First I will put in the Sony 6x9s in the rear and see how they sound. If I like them, then I will try the Sonys in the front. If they suck, then I will just put the stock back in . . . no biggie.

By the way, are the front door speakers woofers?? I thought they played highs? And if they are woofers, the output from my new Alpine deck won't be sending a bass signal to those speakers (unless I want it to, that is :P )

Thanks,

Bryan

[NeiLtYmE]

yeah , i only have on 10' as well acutally.

Its a RF punch 2. Extremely strong, and all the bass ill ever need. Im a fan of balance.

yeah man, swaping those sony's will definetely make a differnce. if the wattage

ratings and everything matches, then there wont be distortion.

You know why your factory speakers are distorting anyways.

[bdonkersgoed]

Now I am beginning to wonder if the Sony's will even fit in the car. For some reason, when I search Crutchfield, very few speakers come up (i.e. meaning that they fit the ES300). Maybe there is not much mounting depth or something?

Well, I guess I'll find out when I rip out my back seat . . .

Regards,

Bryan

[SKperformance]

the doors take 5 1/4 and 6 1/2 so take your pic the depth of the magnet is the only worry

gettign new speakers is useless without a new amp as you will think you burnt the amp as after you will barely able to hear tehm at full volume compared to before

if you want i can sell you my stock ones cheap as they will have no problems and have only been used for 2 years before i pulled tehm from the car and have sat in my MC boxes since.

[bdonkersgoed]

Well, my stock speakers are OK, I just thought that the Sonys would be better. I was wrong. The Sony distort at lower volumes than the factory Pioneers do! I just put my facotyr speakers back in :P

Regards,

Bryan

[SKperformance]

if they are distorting more with another speaker ,either the amp is bad since you are not using the stock one or your wiring is bad.

don;t forget both speaker need to be changed to hear a difference as they stock ones are not 4 ohms from what i rememebr as they share the wire with the tweeter .

[bdonkersgoed]

Hey SK . . . brilliant observation! I just assumed that the speaker in the door was 4 ohms . . . that could more than likely be my problem. The Sonys are 4 ohms. The ones in the door are probably 2 ohms hooked in series with the tweeter to be a 4 ohm load on the amplifier. I should have tried playing the Sony with the tweet disconneted to see if that made a difference.

Thanks for the valuable info,

Bryan

[bdonkersgoed]

By the way, I don't think my amp is bad because it is brand new (internal in the Alpine head unit).

I was just using the factory wiring which may be a problem too . . .

Regards,

Bryan

[Lex3486]

Well for what it's worth (I'm no stereo expert and what you and SK are discussing about the 4ohm total load range sounds good to me...) I'm staring at the backside of a factory front woofer as I type this and it reads 4ohm, so it's probably just like I was saying beforehand-that there are few speakers out there that are better than the stock ones. And to answer a question that I saw bdonkers throw out but never seemed to get a reply to, the front door speakers (6.5") are woofers; no treble output whatsoever-that's the job of the tweeters. Then again, with the aftermarket head unit and the stock amplifier being bypassed, I'm not sure what kind of input you're getting to yours, but if you're trying to feed those stock 6.5" woofers any treble whatsoever, you're just wasting output b/c the speakers can't reproduce anything but bass; they're one way woofers. Like I said before; I strongly believe you'd be hard pressed to find a set of speakers that are decently affordable (at least in my terms of affordability) that will outperform the stock Pioneers. That's why I just saved the money and hassle and simply installed a subwoofer and it's own amplifier; all I felt the system lacked in comparison to newer luxury cars' stereos was bass, but I fixed that right up and I'm one very satisfied customer ;)

[bdonkersgoed]

Hey Lex,

You sound like you are in the same situation as me (except that I swithced to an aftermarket Alpine Head Unit).

If the door speaker is indeed 4ohms resistance, then I find it really strange that the Sony speakers performed so poorly. Also, the fact that the stock speaker is a woofer also compounds to this strangeness. (I did notice that the stock speaker had a LOT more bass output than the Sony). Really, the 2-way Sony speakers built for higher pitches should have been way better than the stock speakers using my aftermarket head unit

My Alpine head unit has a built-in equalizer, and when setting it up I assumed that the front door speakers were to output treble. I thus set the a high-pass filter at 200Hz for the front speakers to force them to receive high-pitch signals. Maybe I should be lowering the signal to 120Hz or something (because they are woofers)? But then the signal will be too low for the tweeters, which runs off of the same line . . . Hmmm . . . Now I am in a situation :(

I do know that my system sounds pretty good right now. I have the front and rear speakers pushing out all of the high pitches and all of the bass coming from the sub in the trunk.

Well, I guess I'll just have to play with the settings again and see if I can improve the system some more :)

Regards,

Bryan

[amf1932]

Speaker efficiency is in the design of the speaker. Efficiency is how it converts the electrical signal into the loudness which is measured in decibels(db) It hasn't got anything to do with the impedence, ie: 4 ohm, 8 ohm, etc. If the output stage of an amplifier was designed to work with an 8 ohm speaker and you put in a 4 ohm speaker the volume of sound will be lower, and the amplifier will possibly "clip" causing this distortion due to this mismatch.

[NeiLtYmE]

exactly ...

and the factory speakers are thin fragile paper like material.

Over powered amp to crappy speakers, is all it comes down to.

[bdonkersgoed]

If the output stage of an amplifier was designed to work with an 8 ohm speaker and you put in a 4 ohm speaker the volume of sound will be lower, and the amplifier will possibly "clip" causing this distortion due to this mismatch.

I think this is the other way around. If you put less resistance to the amp than qhat it is expecting, don't you increase volume? Hence why it is so important to have a 2 ohm load to a 2-4 ohm capable amplifier (to get maximum output from the amp).

Regards,

Bryan

[bdonkersgoed]

exactly ...

and the factory speakers are thin fragile paper like material.

Over powered amp to crappy speakers, is all it comes down to.

But the weird thing is that the factory speakers powered by my 26x4W RMS internal Alpine amp sound better than with the higher-power capable Sonys

Weird . . .

Bryan

[NeiLtYmE]

Did you change the speaker wires ???

[amf1932]

I think this is the other way around. If you put less resistance to the amp than qhat it is expecting, don't you increase volume? Hence why it is so important to have a 2 ohm load to a 2-4 ohm capable amplifier (to get maximum output from the amp).

The lower the speaker impedance, the higher the load it puts on the output stage of the amplifier therefore affecting the output volume. That's why I said it'll make the amplifier work harder to get up to the same volume and therefore cause the amplifier to "clip". Clipping means you're pushing the amplifier into the distortion range. ;)

[bdonkersgoed]

Did you change the speaker wires ???

No, I didn't change the speaker wires . . . I just hooked it up to the stock wires to see how it would sound. Maybe that is my problem?

Bryan

[bdonkersgoed]

I think this is the other way around. If you put less resistance to the amp than qhat it is expecting, don't you increase volume? Hence why it is so important to have a 2 ohm load to a 2-4 ohm capable amplifier (to get maximum output from the amp).

The lower the speaker impedance, the higher the load it puts on the output stage of the amplifier therefore affecting the output volume. That's why I said it'll make the amplifier work harder to get up to the same volume and therefore cause the amplifier to "clip". Clipping means you're pushing the amplifier into the distortion range. ;)

OK man, I'm not doubting your knowledge as you seem more educated on the subject than I am. I have been trying to learn all of this stuff over the last month or so.

Anyways, I thought that the lower the impedance, the lower the load it puts on the output stage of the amplifier?

For example, with my current amplifier, I get 350W RMS at 2ohms and only 175W RMS at 4ohms. Thus, increasing the impedance (i.e. load) on the amp to 4ohms from 2ohms halves the amount of power output.

Have I been wrong about this the whole time, or am I just getting screwed up on a definition or something?

Regards,

Bryan

[amf1932]

Anyways, I thought that the lower the impedance, the lower the load it puts on the output stage of the amplifier?

What you say is true, but remember as loudspeaker impedance goes down, current drawn from the amplifier rises commensurately.(ie: Voltage of 2.83 x 2.83_divided by 8 ohm speaker impedence = 1 watt. With the same formula going into a 4 ohm speaker it will give you now double the power(ie:2 watt), however the amplifier will only do this if it has the necessary current capability. There is a limit the amplifer can produce without distorting and eventually it will destroy itself.

Finally, If this were not so, speakers would be designed with 1 ohm resistance and draw far more current, hence power from the amplifier. So, the old adage that there is no free lunch still holds true.

[NeiLtYmE]

dude.

Problem = old crappy wires that were made to work with your old lexus poineer speakers.

i dont think these other things even apply this scenario.