So I had a thread last week about buying speakers where I'd basically orders 2-ways but was advised to get components instead, which I cheerily did. Only once the whole kit arrived did I realise the size of the task I'd set myself. I was well up for just plugging in speakers on adaptor wires, but now I had to install crossovers and new tweeters which meant fitting the extra parts somewhere plus wiring and other stuff I've never tried! :'(

In my original thread I had some comments from other clueless individuals that wanted to know how I got on so here I am. If any other NOOBs are looking to have a go please get a cuppa and read on. It could possibly learn you something, even if it's just that you don't want to start! Please remember this is my first time and that I had nobody with a clue to assist me, so I'm just giving it a go. Once I've tidied it up I might take pics, but for those that are considering their first try, here's a 'story so far' rundown of what I did and the (probably faulty), logic behind it. Links to info pages etc are at the bottom of this thread but here goes:

1. Install rear setup, using existing speaker leads to feed it. Otherwise know as 'the easy bit'.

Of the 2 pairs of wires that arrive at the rear speaker only one pair feed the speaker, the other pair feed back to the tweeter in the back door. This is universally accepted as a stupid place to put a tweeter, so I just left that tweeter lead hanging, to be used should I ever revert the car to stock to sell. It's easy to tell which is which by unplugging them in turn.

Using the speaker cable adaptors (link bottom of the page), I connected the speaker feed to the crossover input, from there come 2 pairs of leads to the woofer and tweeter. I stashed the crossover behind the boot's side carpeting (to tidy later / never), and replaced the weak original speaker with my nice new component. That was easy!

I don't want to modify the car's trim in ANY way so I've currently got the tweeter sitting above the woofer on the rear deck. I passed the lead around the back of this piece and it sits behind the woofer. Sounds pretty good to me but this is a 'story so far', so quite likely to move at some point.

2. Install the front setup, or 'the bit that gave me brain strain'.

As I'm not happy tracing wires through the car and wanted to keep it all as standard as possible, I initially just put the front speakers in place of the originals. I had to bend a metal tab down inside the door to fit them in (hammer + screwdriver), but otherwise I just attached the wire adaptor, screwed the speaker in and sat down to listen. It sounded weak, tinny and generally terrible then it vibrated the doors massively with any volume at all. :'( So I had to install the crossovers (I'd previously been told I had to anyway), but I had no clue where to put them. There's no room in the doors that I could see and I wasn't about to peel the door skin to go looking. Okay, plan B.

Having discovered that the new tweeters are about twice the size of the originals (and I'm not modifying any trim remember), I decided that the tweeters aren't going in the door but in the footwells with the crossovers. Clarity is amazing on these Vibe tweeters so I don't think it would matter much where I put them, other than one in each corner of the car.

As I'm using the original speaker wires too I had a brainwave and decided to splice the crossovers into the ISO lead. This way I'm only messing with a cheap ISO cable AND it allowed me to install a crossover but still feed the resulting signal through all of the existing wiring through the dash through the hinges to the door speakers. Plain and simple just like me.

So I found (by unplugging them in turn and see what stops working), that the front left is a white / white with stripe pair and the front right are grey / stripe in my Iso lead. I took the ISO lead out of the car, laid it on my workbench then into the 6" or so of ISO Lead speaker cabling I added about 2 metres of extra wire (my first soldering attempt at age 39 ), so that's 4 wires lengthened (2 for the front left and 2 for the front right). Then I tested the lead in the car to ensure it still works and amazingly it did!

Next I took my nice new cable loops and cut them in half . I attaching the feed side of the cut (from the head unit), to the input on the crossover. Then I attached the other side of the same cut cables to the woofer output where so it will continue back to the ISO plug and through the original wiring. I did this for the left and right sides then the tweeters went on the other crossover outputs and I got a massive tangle of wires and bits to carry back to the car. Nice!

Getting into the passenger footwell I passed the modified ISO lead up to the head unit (I'd taken the glovebox with the 5 Torx screws out but it was still a pain), and once it was in place I plugged the lot in and crossed my fingers! Probably be better to remove more of the dash / centre console but it was getting dark by this point :no:

So having squeezed the head unit back in it all functions perfectly and has amazing sharpness and clarity. Having added the crossovers to the front speakers they no longer shake the doors at all, but just deliver crystal clear sound. I will still need a subwoofer but my mind was strained doing this lot, so that's a job for another time.

Mistakes I know I made, and what I'm doing next:

My main mistake was using the nice thick Vibe speaker wire in my ISO splice. It's pointless as I'm using the skinny stock cabling elsewhere and it made the ISO lead MASSIVE. There's enough problems getting all those wires behind the head unit as it was, so I've ordered another ISO and I'll do it again tidier this time. Remember that all of the messing about with the ISO can be done in comfort OUTSIDE of the car, don't try and do it all in the dash!

I'm going to attach the front crossovers to the carpet behind the centre console by putting 2 VERY small cuts in the carpet and passing a cable tie through. Maybe do something similar with the front tweeters as long as I can point them upwards. The rear crossovers I need to attach to the car body behind to boot lining, probably just self-adhesive pads or velcro.

So that's it so far, all working with just some tidying ahead of subwoofer ordering. Here's the links to what I bought and pages I browsed before getting going and stuff. Thanks for any comments that don't take the p*ss too much!

Speaker cable adaptors: http://www.nexxia.co.uk/product.asp?product_code=PC2-805&category=Speaker

Removing the door cards: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/47196-how-to-remove-octy-ii-door-cards-speaker-sizes/ and http://www.pimpmyskoda.co.uk/RearDoor.htm

My Vibe Black Air component speakers: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180749013084?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 and http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310356146291?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

My original thread: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/218933-ordered-speakers-will-i-need-adaptor-rings/

Mate, you need photos for this.

Excellent write-up though. Not looking forward to putting new speakers in now, but should keep me occupied for a Sunday!

Nice post, thanks for taking the time to do it.

fwiw, I have my crossovers (Apline) in my doors, so they can and do fit (depending on size, etc!)

fwiw, I have my crossovers (Apline) in my doors, so they can and do fit (depending on size, etc!)

Which Alpines were they, Matt?

good ol' installs

when trying not to touch trim then its bound to be harder mate , but it sounds like you done well

i go a bit further and only play with bits of trim thats cheap to replace

bigger tweeters are always a git, but with a soldering iron , some buytl and a bit of hot glue .. jobs a good un

when i had focal in the car i must admit they caused abit more trouble due to 32mm tweeter

get your pics on mate tho

I managed to get the jl audio crossovers in the door, between the skin and the door cars although i do beleve some of the foam on the door card had to be shaped carefully

im hunting for pics but cant seem to find them

Which Alpines were they, Matt?

mmm, good question. I am pretty sure I don't have any pictures of them. I see if I can dig an answer out of the back of my mind...

I think, from a quick google they might have been Apline Tyre R's., as per this image I found via google.

Edited 20 November, 201114 yr by mbames

Thanks for the replies guys! I thought it was worth doing the write-up as there's loads of information available for those that are familiar with these things, but not a lot for total noobs like me that would LIKE to know what we're doing

I'm sure I could have gotten the crossovers and tweeters in the door and maybe one day I'll go back and do a more thorough job. From the KISS perspective though (Keep It Simple, Stupid), by not doing that I didn't need to peel the foam seal behind the door card (it looked like it'd just rip), and didn't need to cut the tweeter covers which I wasn't looking forward to either :'(

Once the idea of just cutting the crossovers into the ISO cable hit me it was a massive relief to be honest, as I was pretty far out of my comfort zone as it was :p I'm not sure I'd have been able to do a half-proper job of it otherwise. There was a big lump of polystyrene in the back edge of the door card though, which would probably have been a really easy place to install them.

Once I've got my replacement ISO lead and made a cleaner job of the extensions I'll pop some pics up, probably next weekend. I'd like to find a more discrete location for the rear tweeters without cutting the rear deck and I need to attach the crossovers firmly, but they're all okay as they are for now. I've just given it a wash and there's some Welsh roads that have been missing me

With putting the crossovers in the doors, be careful. I did that in my 206 and the passenger side suffered a lot of water ingress (typical French build quality), thus ruining my new speakers and also ****ing me off massively!

I will look for a place to mount them closer to the door, but not where they can be kicked...

Pictures of your car would be appreciated, EHM.

With putting the crossovers in the doors, be careful. I did that in my 206 and the passenger side suffered a lot of water ingress (typical French build quality), thus ruining my new speakers and also ****ing me off massively!

I will look for a place to mount them closer to the door, but not where they can be kicked...

Pictures of your car would be appreciated, EHM.

I will get some pics up of the car although it's bone stock apart from the audio, which will be pretty much hidden anyway once I'm done. Even the sub I'm planning on will be under the passenger seat, not sure what the missus will think of that

The water ingress is one reason I didn't want to start pulling the door liner off. I wouldn't do it unless I was going the whole hog and dyna-matting the entire inside of the door which is a bit advanced for me right now.

Another good thing about having the crossovers on the floor behind the centre console (apart from they're not getting kicked), is I can easily remove the covers to adjust the tweeter gain. That would be a pain inside the door card.

I put my crossovers behind the glovebox and in the dash under the steering wheel/fuse box. Loads of room there but it's a bit fiddly getting the wires through the stretchy rubber boot thing to the doors.

I put my crossovers behind the glovebox and in the dash under the steering wheel/fuse box. Loads of room there but it's a bit fiddly getting the wires through the stretchy rubber boot thing to the doors.

Yeah I was trying to avoid that wire-feeding thing, as well as leaving the original wiring entirely undisturbed. Maybe some day I'll get brave enough to take another run at it, running thicker cable right from the head unit, or at least from the ISO lead. If I installed anything in the doors it'd probably just be the tweeters, leaving the crossovers where I can easily adjust the gain. Don't know if I'll ever need to though, I never had decent audio before!

I thought about putting the crossovers behind the glovebox but it seemed to pretty much fill the space behind when I offered it up. Worth a test-fit for version 2.0 though!

Pics will follow as soon as I can

I've finally just worked this out. What you're saying you did is that you basically took the speakers out of the head unit wiring, and put the crossovers in between the speakers and the head unit, wiring-wise..? Brilliant idea!

I've finally just worked this out. What you're saying you did is that you basically took the speakers out of the head unit wiring, and put the crossovers in between the speakers and the head unit, wiring-wise..? Brilliant idea!

Pretty much. It's easier if you imagine an ISO lead that's about 6 feet long instead of 6 inches. Picture that all laid out, then whack the crossover in the middle of the speaker wires.

ONLY the speaker wires were made to be 6 footers though, all the rest are still short. The lengthened speaker wires drop down from the back of the head unit to the floor (where my actual crossovers are), then they come back up to rejoin the ISO lead and the stock wiring to the door as it ever was. The only difference is that now the signal is cross-over filtered right from there, saving me a load of cable-routing and mounting work.

Obviously the tweeters now have to be fed directly from those floor-mounted cross-overs, so that brings it's own limitations. If I did want the tweeters in the door I'd still need to run cable from the cross-over through the hinge and up the door. I couldn't use the wooofer wiring in the door to also feed the tweeter (as Skoda did in the stock setup), because the woofer cabling has already "crossed-over", so to speak

I'll get a pic up soon as I can anyway

Right then, round 2 of NOOB install, which is basically redoing what I did before but better. I guess this is what they call learning

This time I'm using slimmer cable so it doesn't end up too bulky to easily fit in the dash. I'm connecting the wires inline (rather than twisting them together side-by-side), to keep the connections slimline:

My idea of grafting the crossovers into the ISO lead (to avoid fitting them into the door), was a good one. However I didn't do a great job of describing it!

Anyway the new, improved version looks like this, with the front speaker wires made hugely long and the crossovers added to the middle:

Obviously I used my stunning Photoshop techniques to put the crossovers in the picture, the real ones are still in my car.

That's all I'm doing for tonight. This weekend I'll be fitting this to the car and doing some other tidying of what I've done so far.

I'll get more pics up if it's not too much of a shambles!

Don't forget the fire extinguisher

What are you using to protect the solder?? err looks like masking tape?

It's white insulating tape! I did smooth the solder after I took the pics though.

I thought about using some bullet connectors but I'd need 8 of them, and that would add a fair bit of bulk to the ISO lead. Some of that clever heat-shrink stuff would be just the ticket, if only I'd thought of that before just now :wonder:

I always use heat shrink after i nearly set my car on fire when the insulating tape fell off 3 months after doing it!Lucky i was in the car at the time lol

I put my crossovers behind the glovebox and in the dash under the steering wheel/fuse box. Loads of room there but it's a bit fiddly getting the wires through the stretchy rubber boot thing to the doors.

^^ This is what I did, but it's easy through the boots as they unclip iirc

I can't for the life of me remember what I did behind the HU though ........ It's been a while :S

As for feeding through the rubber boots, I'd hoped you could unclip them at the hinge and feed cable into the door and car from the hinge opening.

If I want the tweeters up in the door (and I do), I need to get their existing 18" wires extended so they'll reach from the crossovers (on the floor behind the centre-console), through the door hinge to the woofer-space in the bottom of the door. From there up to the tweeter I can use the existing cable that used to feed off the woofer. Maybe I can manage that without peeling the inner door foam and waterproof seals off.

Hmm. More food for thought.

Fire risk eh? Lets hope my insurer's not reading this. And how exactly do you put out a fire behind your stereo? Do you carry head unit keys in your pocket for quick-draw removal? :wonder:

I did wrap each solder joint individually in insulating tape, and then again in pairs. Anyone think I should scrap this lead and start again? :'(

Or can I just remove the insulating tape and add shrink-wrap without disconnecting the solder joints?

Or can I just remove the insulating tape and add shrink-wrap without disconnecting the solder joints?

If you can add heatshrink without unsoldering I would be impressed unless you can get one of the wire out of the loom plug and then slide the heat shrink all the way up to the joint.

Or can I just remove the insulating tape and add shrink-wrap without disconnecting the solder joints?

If you can add heatshrink without unsoldering I would be impressed unless you can get one of the wire out of the loom plug and then slide the heat shrink all the way up to the joint.

If you can add heatshrink without unsoldering I would be impressed unless you can get one of the wire out of the loom plug and then slide the heat shrink all the way up to the joint.

Well I dropped into the local electrical place to get more solder and the guy there told me it was impossible to heatshrink after the fact. I tried for a while to get the wires out of the ISO lead so I could put the extended ones in with no joints, but I couldn't get the damn things out

Anyway the shop guy knows a bit about audio (he has a recording studio in the back of the shop ), and he gave me a couple of pointers. First was to use some proper flame retardant insulating tape which seemed like a grand idea. I removed the cheap stuff and re-wrapped each solder joint with a 2-inch piece of tape lengthways, to cover the joints thoroughly. Next I taped the joints in pairs in the normal wind-around fashion and they look far cleaner now:

Sensing I was clueless (but trying hard), he also explained the importance of getting your + and - the right way around, after I said I wasn't getting the bass I thought I would. Even though I'd taken care to follow a logical system, because the front and rear wiring are all different colours I had actually wired the front and rear speakers opposite to each other.

He patiently talked me through how it doesn't actually matter which way you connect your speaker wires, but it's critical that they're all wired the same. With my arse-backwards wiring, the front speakers were blowing while the rears were sucking (so to speak), kind of canceling each other out :S

Anyway I switched the rears and now we're all sucking and blowing in unison, which is how it ought to be I still don't have any really deep bass though, but I was planning an under-seat subwoofer anyway.

I only had a couple of hours daylight so after redoing the above error I then installed my new slimline ISO extender into the car. The head unit now slides effortlessly into the dashboard with hardly any knuckles skinned I'm pretty sure there'll be less heat build-up back there now the wires aren't all wedged into a bundle.

The only other thing I did was to move the front tweeters up onto the dashboard. They're just sat on top right now and obviously they sound so much better there. Unfortunately they have these bright, shiny pods and seem to be screaming out "look at meeee, I'm expensive, come and steal me". I have no choice but to try and install them in the doors now, so here's hoping I can get my head around that tomorrow :wonder:

http://www.richardfarrar.com/are-your-speakers-wired-correctly/

Phasing test. Of course it matters, why would they print a big + and - on each terminal otherwise.