Octavia MK1 ICE upgrade

[Jamin]

Firstly apologies if this topic has been covered to death but i have searched extensively and can't seem to find any postings covering my situation exactly.

I have a MK1 Octavia vRS estate which has had the head unit changed for some fairly cheap LG bluetooth head unit. The speakers are so terrible it sounds like a 1960's transistor radio in my car and I can't live with it!!

I intend to upgrade the front speakers to the Alpine SXE-1750s.....can anyody tell me do the tweeters fit in the existing locations on the doors and will I have to take the door cards off to wire them in?

I also intend to disconnect the rear speakers and tweeters as they are so bad and one vibrates.

This brings me to the real problem; I want to install some sort of sub but it can't be in the boot as I have a large dog. As far as I can tell my options are as follows:

1) Get one of these little alpine subs which will not properly go under the seat because there is not enough room; I would just leave an old coat on the floor so you can't see it from outside

Alpine Sub This is not ideal but I can't think of a way around it. This means effectively one of the rear seats can't be used as there will be no legroom!:-( The plan would be just to remove it if I need to use both rear seats.

2) Try and mount the sub in the rear quarter panel instead of the redundant autochanger. My S3 had a small Bose active sub in this location that did a good job. Any recommendations for a sub welcomed.

[Bloodrayne]

Firstly apologies if this topic has been covered to death but i have searched extensively and can't seem to find any postings covering my situation exactly.

I have a MK1 Octavia vRS estate which has had the head unit changed for some fairly cheap LG bluetooth head unit. The speakers are so terrible it sounds like a 1960's transistor radio in my car and I can't live with it!!

I intend to upgrade the front speakers to the Alpine SXE-1750s.....can anyody tell me do the tweeters fit in the existing locations on the doors and will I have to take the door cards off to wire them in?

I also intend to disconnect the rear speakers and tweeters as they are so bad and one vibrates.

This brings me to the real problem; I want to install some sort of sub but it can't be in the boot as I have a large dog. As far as I can tell my options are as follows:

1) Get one of these little alpine subs which will not properly go under the seat because there is not enough room; I would just leave an old coat on the floor so you can't see it from outside

Alpine Sub This is not ideal but I can't think of a way around it. This means effectively one of the rear seats can't be used as there will be no legroom!:-( The plan would be just to remove it if I need to use both rear seats.

2) Try and mount the sub in the rear quarter panel instead of the redundant autochanger. My S3 had a small Bose active sub in this location that did a good job. Any recommendations for a sub welcomed.

[Bloodrayne]

Ripspeed do one. It's called a PRS-135A. They don't make them any more so you'll have to trawl round your available Halfrauds for someone who has one still in stock or there is occasionally one on e-bay. Very compact and will fit under most seats - only costs £40 too, bargain. It is also scalable, which basically means it won't overpower the rest of your set up or blow the windows out (unless you want it to). It's available in two of my local Halfords if you want one and I'll get it for you if you give me the beer tokens for the postage. PM me or leave a reply.

[Jamin]

Ripspeed do one. It's called a PRS-135A. They don't make them any more so you'll have to trawl round your available Halfrauds for someone who has one still in stock or there is occasionally one on e-bay. Very compact and will fit under most seats - only costs £40 too, bargain. It is also scalable, which basically means it won't overpower the rest of your set up or blow the windows out (unless you want it to). It's available in two of my local Halfords if you want one and I'll get it for you if you give me the beer tokens for the postage. PM me or leave a reply.

Thanks for the reply mate but that won't fit under the seat.....there is only 3-4cm clearance!

I popped into a local audio shop today and they reckon that they can install the pioneer into the bottom of the seat (not too keen on the thought of seat cutting!). I'm thinking more along the lines of strapping it up under the glove box but of course this will reduce foot space a little so also not ideal!!

Somebody must have managed to get a sub somewhere (other than the boot) in an estate surely?

Edited 23 December, 2009 by Jamin

[Rooster]

The octavia is very fussy on front speakers - I tried 3 sets before I found some shallow enough to fit! I used Exile speakers (approx £200) which i'm very happy with, but there are cheaper ones which will fit - I think some of the infinity models. A search on 'front speaker recommendation' or similar should find you some disucssions - not sure about the Alpines you mention.

If you are prepared to cut the plus of the existing cable from spkr to tweeter that would save you opening up the door panels (or use adaptor cables if you want to re-fit the original bits when you sell the car, but about £5/pr (more from Halfords) and you'd need two pairs - not worth it and more unnessesary connections to fail.

If the tweeters don't fit, some come with brakets - I bought an extra pair of the trim panels and sunk the tweeter bracket into these for a neat factory look.

I've got a hatchback but a friend i'm seeing tomorrow has the estate - will check the space in the rear panels, as I suspect a small sub would fit if you fibreglassed a small box. I have an autoacoustics custom box (which is awesome) in a similar location in the hatchback to retain boot space, and have been meaning to try and build something for my friends car, and my fiances SLK.

If you used a decent sub, such as JL Audio you could get away with something small - obviously you won't have much volume for a box. If you wanted the sub sub deep rumble effect, you could add a pair of bass shakers under the front seats or behind the rears - these are effectively the motor bit of a speaker (coil and big magnet) without the cone, and use whatever you attach them too as the speaker, giving bass you can feel. I've got too pairs brand new gathering dust at home, as I change dmy plans - might use one in the merc.

Hope i've been of help.

[Rooster]

The octavia is very fussy on front speakers - I tried 3 sets before I found some shallow enough to fit! I used Exile speakers (approx £200) which i'm very happy with, but there are cheaper ones which will fit - I think some of the infinity models. A search on 'front speaker recommendation' or similar should find you some disucssions - not sure about the Alpines you mention.

If you are prepared to cut the plus of the existing cable from spkr to tweeter that would save you opening up the door panels (or use adaptor cables if you want to re-fit the original bits when you sell the car, but about £5/pr (more from Halfords) and you'd need two pairs - not worth it and more unnessesary connections to fail.

If the tweeters don't fit, some come with brakets - I bought an extra pair of the trim panels and sunk the tweeter bracket into these for a neat factory look.

I've got a hatchback but a friend i'm seeing tomorrow has the estate - will check the space in the rear panels, as I suspect a small sub would fit if you fibreglassed a small box. I have an autoacoustics custom box (which is awesome) in a similar location in the hatchback to retain boot space, and have been meaning to try and build something for my friends car, and my fiances SLK.

If you used a decent sub, such as JL Audio you could get away with something small - obviously you won't have much volume for a box. If you wanted the sub sub deep rumble effect, you could add a pair of bass shakers under the front seats or behind the rears - these are effectively the motor bit of a speaker (coil and big magnet) without the cone, and use whatever you attach them too as the speaker, giving bass you can feel. I've got too pairs brand new gathering dust at home, as I change dmy plans - might use one in the merc.

Hope i've been of help.

[Jamin]

The octavia is very fussy on front speakers - I tried 3 sets before I found some shallow enough to fit! I used Exile speakers (approx £200) which i'm very happy with, but there are cheaper ones which will fit - I think some of the infinity models. A search on 'front speaker recommendation' or similar should find you some disucssions - not sure about the Alpines you mention.

If you are prepared to cut the plus of the existing cable from spkr to tweeter that would save you opening up the door panels (or use adaptor cables if you want to re-fit the original bits when you sell the car, but about £5/pr (more from Halfords) and you'd need two pairs - not worth it and more unnessesary connections to fail.

If the tweeters don't fit, some come with brakets - I bought an extra pair of the trim panels and sunk the tweeter bracket into these for a neat factory look.

I've got a hatchback but a friend i'm seeing tomorrow has the estate - will check the space in the rear panels, as I suspect a small sub would fit if you fibreglassed a small box. I have an autoacoustics custom box (which is awesome) in a similar location in the hatchback to retain boot space, and have been meaning to try and build something for my friends car, and my fiances SLK.

If you used a decent sub, such as JL Audio you could get away with something small - obviously you won't have much volume for a box. If you wanted the sub sub deep rumble effect, you could add a pair of bass shakers under the front seats or behind the rears - these are effectively the motor bit of a speaker (coil and big magnet) without the cone, and use whatever you attach them too as the speaker, giving bass you can feel. I've got too pairs brand new gathering dust at home, as I change dmy plans - might use one in the merc.

Hope i've been of help.

A great help thanks....got me thinking again about maybe building something in the rear quarter panel. I kind of shied away from it as i do not have any experience of working with fibreglass.....do you have any links to useful sites about this? I'm not totally useless but just have no experience....willing to give it a go!

[Rooster]

Not to hand, but I did search a while ago and found lots out there - including a couple of good tutorials. I bought a how-too guide off ebay, but haven't got around to giving it a try yet. Me and my friend still keen to give it a go in the new year, so will probably post details when we give it a go.

Let me know how you get on if you try it!

[Jamin]

OK I have resolved the issue of crap sound quality in the Octavia estate and this is how I did it......

Firstly I consulted a few local ICE installers who all told me that if I was to put a small active sub in the rear quarter panel it wouldn't work as these subs are designed to be in the cab. So....I disregarded all advice and purchased a Pioneer TS-WX22A which I measured as fittting in the gap nice and snug. I really couldn't believe that it would make a huge difference to the sound whether the sub was under a seat or in the quarter panel; we are talking about a distance of about 1.5m from the front seats. The boot is always open to the 'cab' in any case as this is an Estate....my whole issue is needing to keep the boot empty for the dog.

I bolted a plywood shelf to the old CD multichanger bracket and mounted the sub very tightly onto this. I lined the whole area with sound deadening material and opened up the vents in the top of the plastic trim (around the rear speaker).

I replaced the head unit with the Pioneer 4100SD.

I upgraded the front speakers to Alpine 1750s components (the tweeters clip exactly into the space the old ones come out of).

I installed an Alpine MPR-T220 amp in the boot floor next to the spare wheel which drives the front components.

I completely disconnected the rear speakers and tweeters.

After some fiddling with levels (took me a while to work out that the Pioneer sub and Alpine amp output in opposite phase!) it sounds bloody amazing to me. Loads of nice low bass and amazingly clear mids and top end from the Alpine components. This is exactly what I wanted...not enough power to blow out any windows but a quality sound for a low budget.

Cost:

Pioneer 4100SD £100

Alpine 1750s components £33

Alpine MRP-T220 £30 (Halfords end of stock reduced from £90)

Pioneer TSWX-22A sub £130

Total cost for upgrade: £293

Edited 15 January, 2010 by Jamin

[RobClubley]

Got any pics?

I's like to see the sub and amp installs.

[Choongmu]

Where did you get your components from?

Were they simply just unscrew old ones and put new ones in or was there any rewiring required?

[Jamin]

Got any pics?

I's like to see the sub and amp installs.

No worries...I'll take a few pics when I get a chance....