Hi everyone,
While waiting for some summer time to appear someday in France (lucky one with heatwaves) i'm preparing the upgrades for the convertible and noticed the sound quality is really a shame!
I've read the posts over here about it and came to the conclusion that there's nothing much to save from the original system.
So, in order to get a more audiophile experience I plan to change the speakers for better ones (maybe Pioneer or Audison ones with better specs) and to give that a meaning, changing the amps.
My goal is not at all to have a "boom box" that shakes all the car. Just the best quality possible while being reasonable and at a DIY level (installed a few Home Theater in the past so I'm ok with this).

From what I understood the only way to do so is by adding a line processor that will right after the system speakers output,then will transfer the signal to a good amp which will output to the orginal speakers wires.
Am I right?

If yes, does anyone here have any experience or feedback about this Alpine processor?
https://www.alpine-electronics.fr/p/...eView/pxa-h800
How does it compare with JL-Audio Fix82?

Then there will be the problem with the front medium speakers connected in line with the tweeter with not even a filter on the line if I had it right,
About that, do you think getting a wire between the tweeter and the amp is doable (following the existing wire paths) without it being a total pain?Does it worth it?


Looking for any tip.
Thanks.

 

If I had an xk150 coupe;

Replace the speakers with Focal ES 165K component speakers

Add Audison Bit-1

Add ‘quality’ amplifier with 5 channel output

Use Focal’s x-over for the front tweets

Enjoy the sound.

I have no input as to comparing the others you mentioned.

wj

 

Before you start on upgrading components, consider dynamatting at least the doors but preferably the whole car. Sometimes a proper dynamat job even negates the need for audio upgrades, it makes a HUGE difference

 

I just had the following installed in my 2018 XJR 575;

1 pair Focal IC BMW100
1 pair Focal IS Bmw-100
1 pair Focal ACC 165 PE (maybe S poor writing)
2 Focal ISUB BMW 4 sub woofer

You should know I am an old man - closer to 90 than 80 and I wear hearing aids. The sound in the 575 is greatly improved. Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dave Brubeck, et al sound like they should now. I have not changed out any thing in the XKR because it is a convertible and I have the top down most of the time when I'm driving it so it is not worth the effort or money to change the sound. Hope this helps you.

 

Thanks so much Ralph,
That helps me quite a lot. I could be your grandson but we listen to the same music . Lucky you for doing so under the marvelous californian sun. "You're selling dreams "as we say here.
Apparently in several posts I read, Focal seams to have quite a reputation for car audio. I knew them for Hi-Fi and Theaters but totally ignored they were doing car audio too.
As they are French, I guess i'll go for them and will probably based my pick upon your selection.

PS: that's because the car is a convertible that I need a great sound quality. How can you enjoy going on the Provence national roads by sunny evenings without a great music to complement the V8 one?

 

Good point @dangoesfast .
The thing is I wasn't planing on splitting the car in pieces ...
But i might try to do something about it if I see an opportunity once I'll work on it.

 

Have you tried fiddling with the equalizer? I've got the Bowers and Wilken's - it's not bad. I find ear plugs (to combat the road/engine noise) with the volume cranked up works really well and the neighbours like it too.

 

You really only need to remove the door cards which you'll probably have to remove to install speakers anyway, and there might be some electricals that you can just unscrew and pull out of the way. I attached photos of my XE's driver's door disassembled, with the outer skin done, and with the inner skin finished. Make sure you have a set of proper plastic trim puller tools (very cheap) and a handful of replacement white trim clips from Jag... I bought enough to replace all of them, but they're about 3 or 4 dollars each and you don't really need to do that. I managed to remove the cards without breaking any, but I'd definitely recommend having four or five on hand just in case you break one.

The sound difference is hard to capture, I tried...


...in these I had only done the driver's door, so I'm just fading between left and right and chose songs that would hopefully show the difference. Listening to these through headphones will make the difference a bit clearer. It's by far the best bang-for-buck audio upgrade you can do in a car as the door is the speakers' 'enclosure...' when you buy a home theatre system the speakers come in a (usually) wooden box, and you'll notice that the box gets heavier and stiffer as the quality and price of the system increases. Upgrading speakers without upgrading the enclosure only works when your enclosure is already good, which car doors definitely are not. Putting quality speakers into a low quality enclosure is a little bit like putting a massive turbo on a small engine that's not tuned for it, you might see small gains but the overall performance won't improve a lot and sometime it'll even get worse.

It requires more time than anything else.. this project took me about 20 hours all up; the first door took me a full day as I worked very slowly, the other three doors took a few hours each. I wrote a complete how-to guide that I'll post here soon, maybe even today

 

I think I'll stick with the ear plugs lol

 

The X150 doors are vastly different from the XE, here's a thread about speaker upgrades.

 

Did you mean to post a link?

 

Today I started cleaning around the car and found the left tweeter was litlle unmounted . So I took off the corner plastic piece and checked it.No wonder why the sound quality is bad, this poor tiny thing is just the minimum thing they had to put...Ridiculous... For sure they will go.

About the whole system improvement I found , reading hundred of pages here,that apparently the Tesla type screen , the one I'm not crazy about (style speaking) is greatly improving the sound quality...
I started to asks to Cambo and others about the system and it appears nothing much is do-able for less than 4000$...Even though I pick something I can install myself, I'll need to pay huge taxes and shipping to get them (Never forget TAXES when it's about France...the country where 60% of gaz price which are taxes), and installing parking camera will still be a problem...

I thought about integrating a second screen in front of the original one (creating a hinge).Quite glad with that idea... but realised the sound quality will remain as ugly, as the main head-unit will stay ...

So I think I'm going to go for the Ugly Tesla screen ,with nice looking launcher and I'm starting to think about a way to integrate it more than with the large black plastic frame that emphasize in my caramel interior, the huge black block thing in the midl,
With the saved money I think I'll install better speakers ...

Are you all happy with sound quality?

 

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ictures-73668/

 

If you're referring to the Tesla style unit, yes I was extremely pleased with the losses sound quality. Before installing one, the only thing I did to the OEM audio was add a crossover between the door speaker and door tweeter. I'm getting so close to profound hearing loss now, nothing matters but if you're going to pursue the Tesla style screen, suggest you push your questions to that thread.

 

Just put one of these in your back seat area:

 

That's what I had on my sailboat for years. Still got all the tapes.

 

You're right they're different - they look way easier than the XE. Removing the big silver panel looks like it'll give you a massive port into the door so you have tons of room to do the outer skin, and since that silver panel looks like it acts as the inner skin of the door I'd give it a layer on one side and re-install. Third layer on the back of the door card and off you go.

 

Hi Tiepolo, yes, Focal also does car stuff. They're the supplier for PGO (also French, as you may know... ) for instance: https://www.focal.com/fr/partenaires...focal-pour-pgo

I'm French too, but I've been living in Luxembourg for about 11 years now. So many 911s there, so few XKs...so when I see another one, we greet each-other!
Where in France are you from?

 

Hey hello Georges, glad there's another French over here :-)
Let me tell you I had a laugh seeing your nickname, but our cars are much more sexier than a corniche!
I'm from northern France but living in Paris.( and expecting to escape soon)
Love the idea of greeting the other members of the "club" ...reminds me of my childhood...Sadly as you may know, it's not really the ambiance anymore in France , moreover in Paris...But for sure the XK is a very rare car. The whole 9 years production is equal to 18 months of 911 hence the sweet feeling of being from a connoiseur club

 

Yeah, I know, it's a classy nickname, isn't it?

Good you can escape from Paris! It's the only French city I hate just as much as Marseille...
And yeah, France overall is really starting to suck big time...and it seems no one and nothing can prevent it...
Which is why I don't plan to leave Luxembourg anytime soon...it's a pretty expensive place but quality of life is in another league and people are much more civilized.

To my fellow French Jag-ist!