Octy II - ultimate audio upgrade guide pt 1 - speakers

[mr200sx]

Hi lads,

I've been lurking on this forum for a couple of weeks having just commited to buying a new Octy II VRS here in Australia. I have just taken delivery and will be conducting extensive upgrades to the audio system (and other aspects) over the coming weeks and months. FYI, I'm a motoring journalist who for the past 15 years has specialised in car audio, and the Octy II is my latest project.

Since I've found Brikoda to be such a helpful place to frequent, I thought it pertinent that I participate in producing some helpful stuff about my project so that other may benefit from my work. This will be the first of such projects, covering the installation of upgraded front speakers step-by-step along with my thoughts and recommendations about how to get great sounds from what is sadly one of the WORST factory fitted audio systems ever offered by VAG.

I'd better quantify that one first. By 'WORST' I'm speaking in particular of the front speaker placement at the rear of each door. This is quite simply the most stupid place to position speakers and - as any Octy II owner is probably aware - leads to hideous side bias from the sound. What's more, while I'm aware that a few Brisky member are quite happy with the sound of their stock speakers - I find them decidedly lacking in finesse and fidelity. Audition any well recorded track that uses primarily piano and female vocals and you'll soon see what I mean.

So, as the first remedy for this I will be upgrading the front speakers and, more importantly, their positions relative to the listener. I've gone all out on the speaker front, fitting a pair of Focal Utopia Be Kit No.7 3-way speakers that costs a rather stratospheric sum. Fortunately for me the Aussie Focal importer is a mate and he has lent them to me for an indefinite period. The cost around $4,000AUS so its safe to say they are rather better than the stock speakers, though at least VAG have seen fit to use silk dome tweeters and rather generous sized midrange drivers in the front doors.

Anyway, only this evening I finished the speaker installation, while also laying the foundations for the remainder of the new system that will be going into the car in the coming weeks. So far I’ve run 1/0-awg (about as thick as garden hose) power cable through the car, as well as the the required wiring for rear mounted amplifiers and an aftermarket source unit. Pioneer Australia is sending me their new AVIC-F900BT double DIN for the dash, though I have to hunt down a new fascia panel which is proving very difficult locally since Skoda has only been on sale here for 12 months. There will also be one or more subwoofer enclosure projects that I’ll hopefully cover for you guys as things progress.

Aside from audio, I’ve offered the car to a local mainstream motoring publication as a long termer and plan on the chip/exhaust/filter/fuel pump upgrade (plug BOV), plus maybe an S3 turbo kit if I’m feeling keen. I’ll also be performing suspension work and replacing the woeful two tone leather/faux suede with all leather – and maybe another few trinkets here and there.

In the next couple of days I’ll sort through the photos I’ve taken of the installation thus far and start posting it up for you guys to see. In the meantime, feel free to post your thoughts.

Cheers,

Damon

PS: Here's a preview shot of the Focal Utopia Be Kit No.7 speakers to whet your appetites.

Edited 18 July, 2008 by mr200sx

[Damo]

Hi. Sounds like you have big plans for the octy. I had a full focal install on a previous car, excellent gear. I look forward to reading your progress on the project, and Im sure many others will also read your posts with interest. Cheers, Damian.

[Tom_vRS]

I've found the Focal stuff quite bright personally, but will be a HUGE improvement for certain.

I agree there is massive scope for improvement on the Octy2, I look forward to how you have relocated the speakers.

[A16NS V]

I'm also interested in how you do I had a courtesy Roomster last week and wondered about the A piller trims fitting in the Octavia owing to there being tweeter placement in them.

It certainly gave a better image reflecting of the screen

[mr200sx]

Okay quick update, sorry for the slow progress but the car is in pieces and I'm doing all kinds of things while it is in this state. I decided to fit a pair of Focal Utopia 6.5-inch splits to the rear doors (overkill, I know, but I have them so what the hell huh?). Should sound killer for both front and rear passengers when completed.

BTW, for those who thought that only 5.25-inch would fit in the rear doors of an Octy II think again, with basic off the shelf 6.5-inch MDF spacer rings 6.5-inch fit in easily, and since the rear glass doesn't wind down all the way to the bottom there are no clearance issues at all, nor is there need to cut steel as the door cavity is large enough to gobble up any 6.5-inch you need. I've decided to mount the tweeters down lower near the midbass drivers to avoid the problem of pulling the sound too far to the rear for the front position, and will be flush mounting the Focal tweeters above the midbass drivers in the vacant area in the OEM grille.

I need to do some extra shots prior to the full blow by blow but will get to it as soon as I finish everything off.

[Dor]

Should all be very interesting.

I have done the fronts, but have not got round to doing the rears in my occy 2 yet. When you say 'splits' do you mean a non-component speaker for the rear?

Cheers

Chris.

[twonks]

Sounds interesting. Where are you locating the mids, as the factory position in the doors is horrible.

I myself am going more and more SQ orientated every day and will be building A pillars with tweets and 2" mids in there to give me my 3 way front end.

Decided against kick builds as I can't do too much with the car (it is leased) so I sought advice and got mids ideally suited to what I have in mind (Phase Linear mid51).

With some carefull instalation and setting up I think it is possible to get a good sound out of the Mk2, but I agree 100% the std factory locations for the front mid bass is appaling.

I need a bucketfull of TA just to get the sound half as good as my OH's mk1 Octavia and she has only has a set of infinity components in factory locations.

Looking forwards to your build pics

[mr200sx]

HI guys,

Sorry once again for being so slack, but I have today just finally concluded the first main upgrade of the entire audio system in the Octy II VRS wagon. I was delayed waiting for the amplifier, which was to be an old school Soundstream Davinci but I was unable to get my hands on it just yet so I have used other amplifiers as a temporary measure.

The new system is all in, including a new double DIN AVIC-FB900T Pioneer unit that I got prior to its market release here in Australia. I've learned a lot about the Octy II during the installation and this will allow future stories like the front speaker upgrade to be possible. In actual fact, the Octy II is a very receptive car for aftermarket audio, and the result from the front speakers are far better than I was expecting given the poor speaker positions.

Will do the picture supported update shortly. Thanks for your patience guys.

[Mr. Boombastic]

Hey mr200,

i've been looking to upgrade my audio myself and would say that i do understand audio to some extent myself...looking to change the front to an illusion audio carbon series with a fully active set up powered by steg k series amplifiers....waiting for some pics of urs coz really want to see what u got to combat the awfull positioning of the stock speaker locations (especially the tweeters)

Also do shed some light on what cabling you would be using....

cheers

[mr200sx]

Okay, finally got around to sorting the images out for you lads. Here we go.

Here's the beginning where you need to drill out the pop rivets holding in the midrange speaker and its plastic bracket to the inner door skin. Make sure the glass is wound up when doing this lads. After you've drilled them out use a vacuum to get all the stray bits of rivet out of the bottom of the door. All that's required to space the new speakers off the glass is two 18mm MDF spacer rings glued and screwed together. Use the old plastic mount as a template for the shape.

[mr200sx]

Running new wires isn't too hard. Use a coat hanger to poke through the rubber shield over the main door loom as shown here. Tape a couple of pairs of speaker wire to the coat hanger and pull it back through the door. The wires can then be routed up through the rubber cover and brought through into the kick panel area of the car. The ends just clip off on the car side of the rubber cover.

[mr200sx]

After drilling some pilot holes in both the MDF mounting baffle and steel inner door skin you can self tap the baffle to the door. I noted that Skoda (nee VAG) have already been kind enough to place a decent sized sheet of sound deadener to the outer doors skin of the Octy II, saving me the bother. Anyway, the speaker wires run across the front of the inner door skin, so a small 45-degree angle hole needs to be drilled into the MDF (better than through the steel) to feed it through to the rear. Once the wires are connected to the midrange you can mount it to the baffle.

[mr200sx]

Since I was using the Focal Utopia Be 3-way No.7 I needed to mount the cone midrange somewhere appropriate that would improve the imaging and sound stage, while still providing a baffle for the speaker to operate properly. Skoda offer a 3-way kit in an upgraded version of the Octy II (or used to) which places the small midrange at the front of each door where the trim insert ends. Looking at this I decided to make a speaker mount from PVC tube that was trimmed in black carpet and has an angled front to allow me to vary the orientation of the speaker to tune the sound. A small hole in the bottom of the cup holder allowed a speaker wire to poke through, while some wading was used behind each speaker to vastly reduce the hollow resonance that was first present.

[bogey555]

Thanks for the fantastic explanation, I'am thinking of doing the same but with the focal polyglass 165 VRS. Do you think these will fit??

Are they any good or should I go for the K2P instead?? Offcourse they are more expencive:(

[mr200sx]

The Utopia set has the smaller 3-inch midrange, whereas the Polyglass VR3 set uses a larger diameter 4-inch - which makes it much more difficult to fit into the cup holder area.

The new K2 Power 165 KRX3 set, however, are now using what appear to be Be inspired sizes with a smaller 3-inch (80mm) midrange. This is identical to the Be in size and will work exactly the same way. In fact, looking at them they seem to use BE baskets for the drivers, though they are using larger iron ferrite magnets on the 6.5-inch. It matters little though, as they will fit easily as depth isn't as issue.

I could not see via Focal's website what the fitting kit was like for the tweeter, nor could I see what the price was like. Given that you can buy the Be kit without the passive crossover (doing this via your amplifiers instead) and you are considering the K2 Power is the No.7 Active Kit not worth saving up for?

[bogey555]

mr200sx , thanks for the reply. I was just wondering if the 165 VRS set would fit because they have a smaller magnet, and also if the smaller mounting depth has much influence on the audio quality. There are a lot of reviews on the K2P but nothing on the 165 VRS so I don't know if they are any good compared to the K2P.

I found them under the name Focal Polyglass 165V slim as well.(see picture)

Both sets are 2 way so I don't know if the tweeter and woofer will fit.

Do you know what the mounting depth is, if you don't want to make adjustement to the door cradle?

thanks in advance for any reply's.

Edited 8 September, 2008 by bogey555

[mr200sx]

There's no need to go with a shallow depth speaker, as there's plenty of depth and you need to use the thick spacer anyway to keep the output of the speaker close to the grille instead of having it echoing around inside the door trim. With the two spacers as shown above there's ample room for even the deepest of midrange speakers.

Note that sticking with a 2-way set and using the factory positions will still result in the poor side bias sound problems. I'd suggest experimenting with placing the tweeters in the base of the A-pillars temporarily prior to finalizing the final position. This may pull the stage higher and more forward and offer a better overall left to right balance. Try this and if it works better then go with that position instead.

[bogey555]

"What do you mean by A-pillar, sorry for the strange question but if I translate it to my language it doesn't make sens."

Found it on google Do you have any pictures of possible placements?

So I can fit the K2P in there without a problem?

I can understand you prefer 3way but there is a huge difference in price between the utopia set and the K2P. Maybe the 3way KRX3 or VR3 if its affordable.

Are you going to continue further with your article (Placement of the tweeters, crossover, deadening the doors, etc) ?

Anyway thanks for the replies and the great article, I can't say how incredibly usefull it is for my further ICE plans.

Is it easy to get cabling to the trunk ?

thanks in advance

[mr200sx]

The A-pillars are the main frames either side of your windscreen, as opposed to the B-pillars behind the front doors and the C-Pillars either side of the rear windscreen.

I would love to continue with the images and article but I've been swamped with work lately that has tied up all my free time. I have finished the installation but need time to take all the photos and update the posts.

Getting the cable through to the trunk is easy enough in the Octy II, as there is plenty of room running down either side of the car. The placement of the crossovers depends on many factors, and in my car they have actually been placed in the rear side compartments in the trunk area so that I can swap over the a fully active system that uses amplifiers for each individual speaker at a later stage.

[bogey555]

Thanks for your reply, and I hope to see more of your work in the near future.

[A16NS V]

Great work

I did this to my previous car (Leon) and as a point of concern my speakers came unstuck with the rain coming onto the magnet from inside the door.

The stock speaker is well and truly away from any wetness so might be worth checking incase you get rusty magnets like I did.:(