Hey Guys,

Looking for a little help from the experienced here. I just picked up an 06 XK8 convertible. Car is in great shape. But the audio system needs some attention. I have done competitive shows cars in the past and am not interested in going that route with this car. I am hoping to keep everything appearing stock.

The car is a victory edition and appears fully loaded, includingthe navigation system.

I don't know what the audio system in the car consists of. What I do know is that the car came with bluetooth built into the head unit. When cycling through the audio settings from the head unit there is an adjustment for subwoofer. It also seems to have some sort of DSP because it time corrects for various seating positions.

On the top of the doors the little triangles say'Alpine'.

So my query is..... What exactly does my car have in it for audio; Speakers, amps, location, etc. I was wondering what size speakers are in the dash, the top of the doors and the bottom of doors. From reading on here is appears that the back seat has a pair of 6" speakers (are these full range, mids or subs),where is the sub? Is all the power in the head unit or are there outboard amplifiers.

Sorry to sound so lost but I just need a starting point. Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

 

Well Dave, nobody has jumped out there to help you yet, so I'll give it a stab. I am presuming that your 06 is the same as my 03, as they appear to be from the outside.

It is the Alpine, premium system, and you have three different front speakers - mid-bass in the doors (6.5+", but a 6.75" will fit), midrange speakers in the dash, and tweets (more like supertweets) in the door a-pillars. The rear has two 6.5" subwoofers.

As for an amplifier, the head unit has zilch - you have the multi-channel amp located in the boot area, behind the navigation/CD changer units. Its back there, trust me.

The size of those speakers in the dash are kinda weird, like 2-1/4" if I remember correctly, as I sold the whole lot of them on ebay, as they were all perfectly functional when I pulled them in my upgrade pursuit. There isn't a perfect replacement for just these speakers on the market.

The DSP you speak of sounds good in theory, but i never used the LEFT settings, kept it on center all the time, as it just didn't sound right to me. lol If you also notice, that the head unit has a fader option that is disabled for us 'vert owners. If you enable it, all it does is fade between the volume of the front components and those subs in the back. Basically, you would never use it since the sub has its own volume control....so it is disabled.

If you ever change the speakers out, trust me and get components where the install of the tweeter is in the dash (knock down the output of the tweeter on the crossover by -1) as that is the best place to get a mixing of the mids and highs being thrown out. If they are in the a-pillars like where the supertweets are, the sound (including vocals) end up being very directional, and if you lean forward, or to the side the wrong way, you lose either the left or the right sound... which isn't right; it's not supposed to be difficult to listen to your favorite music.

Just ask if you have any other questions, after all, i've been there not too long ago.

 

I might have some pictures of those speakers still on the hard drive at home if you would like to see them out of their holes. just let me know.

 

H2O,

Thank you for responding. I looked at your threads several times before purchasing my car. I did a little digging this weekend and the original sticker says 'Alpine 320w Premium Sound'.

There are tweeters at the top of the pillar which have small caps soldered to them.

The dash speakers says 'Alpine' and seem to be a weird size.

I don't think I need to see any photos of the speakers. But if you have photos of the crossover in the center console, or the amp in the trunk I would be curious to see that.

Do you have any info on the amp in the trunk ? How many channels? is that an easy upgrade ? etc.

Did you replace the speakers in the Dash ? If so what did you find to fit in that opening.

What are the speakers in the passenger windshield pillar and beside the passenger seat at the top of the door ?

I have done components in my previous cars, and always been a fan of a/d/s or Boston Pro.

Dave

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Dave, glad someone is looking at those old threads besides me once in awhile. lol

Can't help you with the crossover, never saw it actually, nor did the audio shop mention it.

Don't have any pictures of the amp either, guessing it is a 4-channel amp, with the subs being bi-amped, but that is just a stab in the dark. My first 'round' of upgrades consisted of a new amplifier for the fronts running off the low-level inputs from the stock amp. It worked fairly well actualy and was pretty easy to do, if you can find a place to mount the amp.

The speakers in the dash were very odd-sized, and i just put the tweeters from a component set in there, using a makeshift bracket to secure it, there is plenty of room inside for it, as you can see by popping that little grill up with your fingernail.

The size of the supertweeters behind those little alpine grills are like 3/4", and you can barely squeeze a regular 1" tweeter into them. I once had tweets in the dash and a-pillar both (waaaay to bright), then to just in the a-pillars, then finally ended up in the dash.

There are lots of good quality components out there, Boston Pro is one of them.