Car speakers update

[VenomS40]

What kind of speakers can you add to the performance system as somone said about blowing the head unit or something like that?

[v40bart]

Honestly, I can't see how? If anything it would be to puny to shift the new speakers warranting an installation of an amp.

[popuptoaster]

Speakers, both under and over specced can damage your output amp, weather thats built in or seperate. Speakers that can handle morew power than the amp can deleiver can actually kill an amp faster than ones that are to small.

Over specced speakers allow you to turn the power up to much, you dont hear the speaker distorting, so you add more volume, trouble is this results in "chopping" where the amp reaches its max output and instead of a nice smoothy waveform its prioducing a nasty one with chopped off curves, imagine a nice smooth wave that hits a floor at the bottom and the ceiling at the top if it helps, those sharp cornered flat bits can kill an am really fast.

Of course the easy answer is not to turn it up so loud, car manufacturers answer is to fit speakers that wil distort before the amp does (plus its cheaper) speakers didtorting because of to much power can also damage the amp and speakers.


personally i like to have a genuine couple of hundred watts per channel in my cars, its hard work gettging it all in and sounding nice without bits of trim rattling, but a decent aftermarket system makes most premium factory fit set ups sound like transistor radios

Plus you CAN turn it up proper loud if you really want. lol

I have yet to do my 940, standard set up sounds ok, but it has no oomph, no power behind it at all despite it being the top option one

[v40bart]

Cheers! I do t want it to be insanely loud, all I want is clear sound with good definition in the ranges and not the bloody noise that I get now. What would be the maximum power of speakers you can put on 4x20W head unit?

[v40bart]

Ahh... Just had a read on a specialist website. So now I know about clipping and how it can wreck overspec speakers. Trouble is there isn't a well defined standard and speaker ratings are in most cases meaningless (especially peak power). So speakers rated power should match the amp output, which is not giving us a lot of choice with puny 20W Volvo amp on performance option. What performance? It also transpires that most amps will start clipping at 25% output anyway, so for fidelity you really need a beefy amp.

I wonder what rating the Volvo speakers have. It can't be nothing spectacular, that's for sure...

[popuptoaster]

its one of those jobs where you think,

"i'll just buy one of those"

and then you think

"oh, but now i have that i could do with one of them"

and then,

"well now i have those two its silly not to have that as well"

and things just snowball.

your best bet would be to go into a decent ICE shop and ask, give them your budget and see what they say, you dont have to buy from them, nothing beats hearing the gear working.

[VenomS40]

Originally Posted by v40bart

Ahh... Just had a read on a specialist website. So now I know about clipping and how it can wreck overspec speakers. Trouble is there isn't a well defined standard and speaker ratings are in most cases meaningless (especially peak power). So speakers rated power should match the amp output, which is not giving us a lot of choice with puny 20W Volvo amp on performance option. What performance? It also transpires that most amps will start clipping at 25% output anyway, so for fidelity you really need a beefy amp.

I wonder what rating the Volvo speakers have. It can't be nothing spectacular, that's for sure...

Would it not be a case of changing the amp then to a more powerful one? Also where is the amp loacted in the S40/V50 on a performance system (if it has one)?

[v40bart]

Is there separate amp with performance option? I thought it was in-built into the head unit, hence all the talk about blowing it.

[SonyVaio]

I have High Performance option and there is a seperate amp in the boot, you can see it if you take out one of the access panels to get to the rear lights can't remember what side off the top of my head but initial thought thinks the N/S.

Need a new N/S/F speaker for mine as it sounds like the speaker has been blown at some point - any base sounds real bad at the moment (only out the NSF speaker) but it makes you keep the volume right down and is now annoying.

[fenton_jd]

Baring in mind that normal speaker cables plug directly into the speaker units you could wire in a standalone amp in for more power and take the signal from those cables.

You probably couldnt get the aftermarket amp to switch on/off with the Volvo stereo but I'm sure an auto electrician could point you in the right direction to make sure the amp turns off with the rest of the car.

Definitely do-able and probably not as hard as you'd think.

If you're a real audiophile you could fit in some sound processors to isolate high frequencies to the smaller high range speakers and vice versa for mid - low range. Would sound awesome. Sky's the limit

You could get yourself an inexpensive 2 channel Amp > http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/ampl...-channel-amps/ and some nice "component" front speakers to give you some real mid range bass.


The little circuit unit seen is what routes the high frequency sounds to the tweeters and the bass to the large door mounted speakers.