depending upon how much you want to replace, look up Crutchfield. your head unit can accommodate the premium system parts; there is a switch on its rear face. the amplifier is different for the premium system. in the convertible the rear units are only subs. you might want to change this. if you can obtain a premium system from someone, it is excellent even without the rear channel.

 

See if this helps.

Link to speaker replacement JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource

 

 

Well,

Thanks to Whitehat's suggestion, my delivery of new speakers from Crutchfield, USA arrived in Bahrain. The new Value Added Tax (VAT) recently implemented in Bahrain, was a bit of shocker as I had to pay duty upon delivery. Cheap parts from USA are no longer cheap for me.

I went with the Kicker CompRT 43CWRT672 sub-woofers for the rear, and the Kicker 43DSC6504 for the door speakers. The Crutchfield website included a nice option where it checks whether the speaker fits your car's particulars including MY.

I'm trying to keep the car original as possible, so no plans to update the radio/tape deck unit in the centre console.

My plan is to fit the speakers this weekend. Thanks to Gus for the PDF demo on the rear speaker. I'll update this thread when I finish this job.

BTW Crutchfield included a strange box of Posi-taps connectors which I've never used before. What are people's experiences of these? I've always gone with soldering and heat shrink. That's never let me down before even in engine bays.

 

David, please tell us how they sound when you get some time.

Thanks John

 

I note that the Amazon reviews do say the Kickers have a break in period, where they start sounding better after a week or so.

But yes, very interested in hearing how they sound. I almost bought these recently but took a chance on a different pair, so I'm wondering how that path not taken would have been

 

Recovered these from my scrap donor car.

As I have the base system (no amp), is it worth fitting? Would they even work with the existing wiring harness?

 

I don't believe they would work with the base system. There's no wire to plug them into.

You could tap into the wires going to your door speakers and add a high pass filter to get some audio to them, but that might be too much work for how much they'd improve things. The door speakers you ordered already have tweeters built in.

 

We had a recent severe thunderstorm, so I was limited in what I could do with my new speakers. I did manage to get the driver's door speaker in and glad I did as I could directly compare the old RHS with the new LHS.

The installation was easy, with simply getting the door card off and looking to see what I was dealing with.

As suspected, the previous owner had put in Sony speakers, with the fixing screws at 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock and 6 o'clock. The bottom screw was actually missing, which might explain the tinny rattling.


I've always hated this situation - the wires were just wound together and duct taped. Maybe another reason for the poor sound quality. I went with soldering and heat shrink wrap.

Anyway the Kicker 43DSC6504 install was easy. I checked fit up before anything else. The Kicker speaker came with multiple holes pre-drilled into the surround for different holding configurations, and I didn't need to drill.

 

As I only had time to fit the LHS driver door speaker, I could compare the music quality with the existing Sony in the RHS door, both with my ear at the speaker and sitting in the driver's seat. At least the tinny sound from my LHS is gone, but that may have been because of the missing screw or the poor wiring rather than the speaker. Please note I have the bass system (no amp).

At low volumes 0-10, on the deck, there's nothing much in it but clarity was marginally better on the Kicker than the Sony. Playing Adele's 21, her upper pitch was definitely purer from the Kicker as volume increases. At volumes 11-15, there's not much difference, but I noticed bass output from the Kicker was intermittent, while not thumping. However from Volume 16 and upwards, the Kicker's bass is awesome which was a surprise from such a small unit. Pump the volume up even more and the Kicker's door card shakes and you can feel tingling from the elbow. There wasn't any pitch distortion, even when I went to 25 - sorry, I didn't try any higher - the same was true on the Sony. With the top down, while driving, the difference is marked with the Kicker's combined high end and bass alot more powerful than the Sony's output.

 

Volkris -

Under the cowl speaker, I found a wire and socket in the dash that fit the recovered tweeter. Hoping - wing and a prayer time - I plugged the recovered tweeter in and ............ nothing. It's probably the same cable harness as the premium Alpine Music option for the car. The cable probably goes to the amp in the trunk, which in my base set up, I don't have.

Shame, nothing lost though.

 

Quick note: you may be able to access the speakers without taking the door card off.

On mine there are two screws underneath the area of the door where the speakers are, and with the screws out the darker speaker cover area pulls down and out.

I wish I had known about this when I replaced mine.

 

Like the dash speakers, we can hope.... but there’s no screws on the door speaker panels. Still no big deal. The Kickers are fab. The sub woofers i’m really looking forward to installing

 

Did you look under the door? These two screws were shiny silver and not covered, so they were positioned way underneath the door where they wouldn't be seen.

Run your hand under the door, along the horizontal where the door card would meet the door sill plate.

And if all else fails, when you do take the card off, inspect the area to see if there was a removable panel after all, so you'll know for next time.

I learned about this trick on the forums not in a thread about speakers but about window adjustment. Taking off that speaker panel and the puddle light shows two adjustment holes for window tilt.

Actually, since I happened to take pictures of doing this yesterday, these might help someone.

 

Volkris,

Thanks for the pics. I couldn't feel the panel screws, but I figured this speaker door panel had to be fitted somehow to the door card. I had to get on my hands and knees and look, and bingo they're there right where they are on your pic, 2 small recessed screws.

You just saved me breaking more of those old brittle plastic fir tree fixings that hold the RHS door card to the door frame - esp. as I'm in a 20 year old XK8 in Bahrain Desert Climate. Hate old plastic!

 

I do wonder if the door card cutouts give enough clearance to actually remove the speakers, though.

When I did mine, I need a little modification to the brackets so I took the whole bracket off. I don't think the bolts for the bracket can be accessed through the cutout, but that's just going by sight and memory.

As for the tweater wires, yeah I think it's one of those things where they wired all the cars the same, but the ends of the wires aren't connected to anything.

The picture of your twisted and duct taped wire was a thing of nightmares

 

As I’ve the base system, my Kicker CompRT43CWRT672, came with these choices for wiring.




I only have the positive and negative wires, at the rear quarter panel.


Question - Do I need to put the cross over in? Not sure how the stereo is wired.

 

Do you have a multimeter handy?

It looks to me like you do need to install wires from one side to the other as shown, and the choice of which way gives you two coils wired in either either series or parallel. I think you need the option where the wires from the car attach on both sides of the speaker.

I was surprised to see the speaker say 2 ohm since the Jag speakers are 4 ohm. If you wire the two terminals in series (going in one side, across, and out the other side) that might be 2 ohm from each coil giving 4 ohm total.

I'd check that with a multimeter and use that unless you know you don't want a 4 ohm speaker.

I hope that makes sense. I can rephrase if it doesn't.

 

Volkris.

Ok - your message is clear. i’ll try the series set up and see how the music sounds. No big deal as I don’t think the base set up on the deck can/will “blow” these monstrous sub woofers. Just tinkering. Will report back later.... once I’ve finished with the jig-saw.