[rambino]

Sadly my car comes with only 4 crappy speakers.. i want to upgrade the system and i had one helpful person tell me a i might be able to add factory tweeters.. this is if the tweets have already a built in crossover. The wiring diagram would show it so.. but im not sure..

anyone know?

thanks!

[tintivilus]

Originally Posted by rambino

Sadly my car comes with only 4 crappy speakers.. i want to upgrade the system and i had one helpful person tell me a i might be able to add factory tweeters.. this is if the tweets have already a built in crossover. The wiring diagram would show it so.. but im not sure..

anyone know?

thanks!

There are "crossovers" (capacitors) in the front doors, but i'm not sure if they're located at the tweeter or the woofer. My money's on the tweeter, since the capacitor is basically just a "bass blocker" for the tweeter.

You could fit factory tweeters, but I'd bet it'd be a lousy deal for your money. You'll probably get a much better bang for the buck by getting the factory tweeter grilles for your doors, and get a pair of factory-size two-way component speakers to mount in the doors.

Either way you'll have to pull the door panels off to finish the wiring, so you might as well put in better speakers while you're there.

[rambino]

Hmm... i can get the tweeters for cheap... i just need to know if the capacitor which blocks bass is in the tweeter or located elsewhere.. id really like to just plug these in with a simple hardwire tap..

as for two way factory speakers i doubt they would fit in the little grills..

I know the frequency ohms etc must all be the same to make it work right

thats why i just want to add the tweeters yet i just dont know if its compatible

grrr

[tintivilus]

Originally Posted by rambino

Hmm... i can get the tweeters for cheap... i just need to know if the capacitor which blocks bass is in the tweeter or located elsewhere.. id really like to just plug these in with a simple hardwire tap..

...which would still require pulling the door panels to reach the existing speaker wire, right?

Besides, it doesn't really matter if the cap's attached to the speakers or not. Order the tweeters and put caps on them if they need 'em. It's not rocket science. If you don't want to do the crossover math yourself, get "crossover" caps that are already labelled with a cutoff frequency. (they're usually just called "bass blockers")

Originally Posted by rambino

as for two way factory speakers i doubt they would fit in the little grills..

Sure they would... the tweeters go in the (new to-be-purchased, I think) tweeter grilles, the woofers go where the stock full-ranges are.

Originally Posted by rambino

I know the frequency ohms etc must all be the same to make it work right

You're way too concerned about compatibility. The front sides are full-range speakers, so any component set you buy will be appropriately matched. You can put *any* tweeter in you want so long as you put the appropriate cap on it for its cutoff value.

As for impedance, any 4Ω set should be fine, which is 99% of car speakers.

Originally Posted by rambino

thats why i just want to add the tweeters yet i just dont know if its compatible

Adding crappy factory tweeters to crappy factory full-range speakers isn't going to help much. I wouldn't bother if they were free -- if I'm going to go through the work of pulling the door panels to mess with the wiring, I want better speakers for my trouble. The only exception would be if factory tweeters can be retro-fitted without pulling the door panels, but I really doubt there are wires where you can reach them from the sail panels.

[rambino]

Thanks Tintivilus for the help.. just a few more questions..

What is wrong with pulling the door, i pulled my old E46 M3 door in 5min, 5 simple bolts.. is the e92 a bigger process?

Since im not so audio inclind, can you explain what you mean about what 2 way facotry speakers are and what u mean by replacing the loud speakers in the door with them.. im a little confused newbie..

Finally your saying i could buy better aftermarket tweeters and be compatible as well.? I plan on possibly adding a 40w blaupunkt amp to power all the speakers better, so im guessing id be ok..

My focus is compatiblity and clarity..

Thanks!

[tintivilus]

Originally Posted by rambino

Thanks Tintivilus for the help.. just a few more questions..

What is wrong with pulling the door, i pulled my old E46 M3 door in 5min, 5 simple bolts.. is the e92 a bigger process?

I don't know about the E92 specifically, but pulling door panels always feels like a production to me... maybe just because it usually involves borrowing garage space (I'm an apartment dweller) but with minor glitches and gotchas it seems like any project that involves pulling door panels is at least an afternoon affair.

Originally Posted by rambino

Since im not so audio inclind, can you explain what you mean about what 2 way facotry speakers are and what u mean by replacing the loud speakers in the door with them.. im a little confused newbie..

"Two-way" speakers have a woofer and a tweeter, as opposed to full-range speakers that just have one driver. You're trying (by my understanding) to turn your factory full-range door speaker into a two-way by adding a tweeter and crossover cap. I'm suggesting that upgraded two-ways would be a better goal than factory two-ways as long as you're working on it. Adding the factory tweeter will be an improvement over what you have, replacing the factory woofer and adding a matching tweeter would be better.

Originally Posted by rambino

Finally your saying i could buy better aftermarket tweeters and be compatible as well.?

Sure! Even in the factory two-way system, I'm pretty sure the "woofer" is getting a full-range signal; the tweeters are just supplement. It'd be just as easy to add an aftermarket tweeter with crossover cap (bass blocker) as adding the factory ones.

Originally Posted by rambino

I plan on possibly adding a 40w blaupunkt amp to power all the speakers better, so im guessing id be ok..

My focus is compatiblity and clarity..

Thanks!

How are you hooking up the amp? If, as suggested in your other thread, your OEM head unit has built-in amplification, then adding another amp can only make your sound quality worse. The signal chain in your car looks something like this:

(audio source) -line-level-audio-> (factory amp) -maybe-noisy-maybe-distorted-speaker-level-audio-> (speaker)

Now, if you just add a line-level convertor (or an amp with speaker-level inputs) your signal chain becomes this:

(audio source) -line-level-audio-> (factory amp) -maybe-noisy-maybe-distorted-speaker-level-audio-> (line-output-adapter) -> maybe-noisy-maybe-distorted-line-level-audio-> (aftermarket amp) -> maybe-noisy-maybe-distortedx2-speaker-level-audio -> (speaker)

Basically, every power amp will do something bad to your audio in some scenarios. If you're running your audio through two power-amp stages, you're twice as likely to get nasties. The only advantage to this setup is if you're going balls-out for volume above all else.

Speakers rarely have a minimum power level. Unless you're talking about subwoofers, the talk about "your factory amp isn't enough to drive <foo>" is crap. If your factory amp is distorting the audio, then it needs to be replaced, but adding another amp after it is just amplifying the distortion and not helping matters a whit. One exception to this is the scenario where the factory amp starts clipping/distorting at a volume level lower than your usual listening point; in this scenario you could add an aftermarket amp with the gain hopped up enough that you can keep the volume knob below the point where it starts to sound nasty. This is rarely an issue unless the factory amp is complete and utter crap or already damaged from overdrive/over-temp.

I know the "Professional" (non-logic7) stereo has line-level outputs from the head unit and with an outboard amp; in this scenario, it's perfectly sensible to re-route the line-level audio to a high-quality aftermarket amp to get better sound. This cuts out the factory amp and its distortion entirely.

That got kind of long, but I have to run.