[seanblee]

I decided I'd join in with all this stereo upgrade stuff My car came from the factory with the (diabolical) 'base' stereo - 6.5" underseat woofers and 4" door and rear side speakers running from the head unit. It sounded terrible, so within a week I'd purchased the Alpine upgrade and fitted it, which made a massive improvement. For those who don't know, this comes with aluminium-coned front door speakers and tweeters, plus a four-channel amp to run the doors (via a passive crossover) and the underseats.

Four years on, I've had enough of the sound quality of the aluminium-coned speakers and tweeters and the lack of low midbass from the 6.5" cheap paper underseats, so I decided an upgrade was in order. My first step was to upgrade the speakers with...

• Morel Hybrid 402 4" components
• Rainbow IL-W8F woofers

Fitting these took a fair bit of work. I made up custom 18mm MDF adapters for the underseats and added grills to keep the carpet clear of the drivers, then refitted the standard grills over the top so that it looks stock. I also applied sound deadening inside the enclosure to make sure I didn't pick up any new resonance.






I used factory connectors so that I was able to hook up to the stock wiring, at least for now.

For the doors, I was able to just sit the tweeters in the standard tweeter locations in the sail panels without any real problems. They don't clip properly, but the foam behind holds them in nice and securely. For the midrange drivers, I bought a couple of spare standard door speakers from eBay then hacked up my originals to produce a couple of speaker rings. I then removed the grills from the door cards and stuck them to the Morels with more sound deadening then pushed them in from the front of the card (borrowing Technic's idea from this thread). They're nice and secure and look stock from the outside, which is perfect.



Again, I used a factory connector for the input so I could plug into the stock door wiring. I looked at running new wiring into the doors but decided it just wasn't worth the massive effort involved.

I attached the Morel crossover by sticking some bolts through some sound deadening, bolting down the crossover then sticking the whole lot to the door card.



All of the speaker wiring is loomed together with Tesa loom tape then stuck down with short sections of sound deadening.



So, how does it sound? Considering it's running from the tiny Alpine kit amp right now, it's pretty impressive! Both the doors and the underseats could clearly take more power, but the increased bass extension and added warmth to the midrange and treble is very noticeable, and should improve further as the Morels run in.

My next stage will be to remove the Alpine kit amp and replace with the Alpine PDX-V9 that's sitting in my garage. This is a 4x100W+1x500W amp that'll eventually drive a corner-loaded sub in a fibreglass enclosure in the boot. I've also got an MRX-F35 that'll be used to run the rear speakers and bridged for a centre channel (using a pair of Morel Tempo 4" coaxials and an Xtant XIS2.4 4" coaxial respectively) for when I add a DSP - I'm currently thinking I might go for the Alpine PXA-H800 as it's a bit different, but I'm not yet certain...

[gurpswoo1]

Thanks for write up, it will really be useful.

I was going to get the alpine retrofit done but if it doesn't improve the low end then no point. Although some treble will help the sound.

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by gurpswoo1

Thanks for write up, it will really be useful.

I was going to get the alpine retrofit done but if it doesn't improve the low end then no point. Although some treble will help the sound.

The fact that the Alpine upgrade gives the underseats dedicated amp channels definitely does improve the bass substantially; the main limitation is that the stock underseats on the basic audio system use cheap 6.5" drivers, so they're never going to have the clout or authority of a decent 8" driver. I still think the Alpine retrofit is a good option if you're concerned about warranty and don't mind the cost.

[Hopeful]

If you don't mind me asking, how much were the Morel Hybrid 402 4" components?

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by Hopeful

If you don't mind me asking, how much were the Morel Hybrid 402 4" components?

PM sent.

[mob17]

Nice work.

I'm looking to fit morels in my E92 as well, using technics idea of a stepped adaptor. How did you get enough clearance behind the speaker without using a stepped adaptor? Any pics from the front with the grill on?

[MEGA]

Good work sean! Sound off when we next meet up

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by mob17

Nice work.

I'm looking to fit morels in my E92 as well, using technics idea of a stepped adaptor. How did you get enough clearance behind the speaker without using a stepped adaptor? Any pics from the front with the grill on?

The adapter is stepped, but alas I didn't bother taking any pictures of it. If you look at the stock speaker, you can see that the mounting tabs are set back from the front of the cone. If you chop out the cone and the basket and tidy it up, you're left with an adapter that pushes the speaker about 10mm into the grill. This ends up being slightly too far, so I had to sand about 1-2mm off the adapter to get the grill to pull up nice and close to the leather on the door card.

[BanziBarn]

Good work!

I can confirm that the standard subs are fine when amped, but obviously won't be as good as above!

[MEGA]

Originally Posted by seanblee

The adapter is stepped, but alas I didn't bother taking any pictures of it. If you look at the stock speaker, you can see that the mounting tabs are set back from the front of the cone. If you chop out the cone and the basket and tidy it up, you're left with an adapter that pushes the speaker about 10mm into the grill. This ends up being slightly too far, so I had to sand about 1-2mm off the adapter to get the grill to pull up nice and close to the leather on the door card.

You did exactly what I did. The stock speaker as a mount for a 4" is perfect and steps it just right to sort mounting depth

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by MEGA

Good work sean! Sound off when we next meet up

I suspect I won't be pushing anywhere near your SPL, even when I've got the PDX amp in place, but it'll be good to compare the two.

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by MEGA

You did exactly what I did. The stock speaker as a mount for a 4" is perfect and steps it just right to sort mounting depth

I'd been considering it for months; it was definitely reassuring seeing you do something similar and finding it 'just works' Much cheaper than proper fitting adapters, too - I paid about £5 for the two spare speakers I bought from eBay, compared to £20 for metal ring adapters that wouldn't work for this anyway...

[MEGA]

It was my installer's idea, I take no credit But indeed it was perfect. Took about 10mins to cut the cone out, clean up and then screw the new speaker (2 of the holes even lined directly up with the original mounting points on the old speaker!) into what was left

[mob17]

Cheers OP! Never knew the OEM speaker adaptor was stepped. I've been going mad trying to fabricate my own ones.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by seanblee

The adapter is stepped, but alas I didn't bother taking any pictures of it. If you look at the stock speaker, you can see that the mounting tabs are set back from the front of the cone. If you chop out the cone and the basket and tidy it up, you're left with an adapter that pushes the speaker about 10mm into the grill. This ends up being slightly too far, so I had to sand about 1-2mm off the adapter to get the grill to pull up nice and close to the leather on the door card.

Welcome to the audio club!

Very clean installation. Impressive work. Seems that you read many threads before taking decisions.

How does rainbow underseat sounds?

Do you mind me sending the information on where to get Morels? Wanted to do down this route but ..... will tell you later. The info will help somebody else.

I've done alpine install on Monday and done few experiments. Will start a thread with findings on alpine kit soon.

Try Alpine DSP, its different.

[seanblee]

Originally Posted by makkan00

Welcome to the audio club!

Very clean installation. Impressive work. Seems that you read many threads before taking decisions.

How does rainbow underseat sounds?

Thanks - I've only spent about 10 minutes in the car since fitting so haven't really had chance to get used to it yet, but I definitely found the midbass was substantially improved over the 6.5" mids. I'll post some more opinions after my 5 hour drive down to Cornwall tomorrow...

Originally Posted by makkan00

Do you mind me sending the information on where to get Morels? Wanted to do down this route but ..... will tell you later. The info will help somebody else.

I'll send you a PM with the details...

[makkan00]

Thanks Sean.

[seanblee]

So after my marathon 8-hour journey (bloody traffic...), my conclusions are that the new speakers are great

The underseats need a little more power to really shine, but as the journey went on, I noticed they were actually starting to deliver some seriously low borderline sub-bass frequencies pretty effectively, which surprised me. Obviously they'll never have the authority of a proper sub at those levels, but the fact they did a passable impression on the hifi 40W/channel amp was impressive.

The door speakers are much more relaxing to listen to than the metal-coned hifi kit items. I found the Alpine kit tweeters slightly tiring on long journeys - they were so 'bright' that I had to keep the volume low to make them bearable. With the new silk-domed Morel tweeters, I can run at reasonable volume for hours at a time with no problems. I noticed what sounded like a minor phasing issue in one particular frequency band, but I think this is probably a time alignment thing that a DSP will sort out without any problems, so I'm not concerned.