[harrym97]

So a few months ago i fitted the Alpine Retrofit kit, my car came with base stereo and i could not deal with the crappy speakers.

All was good until one of the factory under seat subs gave up on me. I guess that now they actually have an amp powering them they couldn't handle the bass

Now time to upgrade.. i managed to pick up some MB Quartz QM200 subs from the kit, which are designed to fit into the factory enclosures.

After quite a bit of surfing the forums and taking a look myself i found that the speakers were actually glued into the enclosures, rather than being screwed in like the Hifi or HK systems.

So i broke out the heat gun and after a bit of leverage they popped out

As i mentioned the base stereo speakers are glued in rather than screwed in, therefore there are no screw holes in the enclosures. Nothing a pilot hole and self tapper cant fix!

Now time for wiring.. I ordered a pigtail loom from china so i didn't have to cut my nice new alpine loom, soldered that onto the new subwoofer and plugged straight in!

Lastly i put the speaker grills back on, I had to modify them slightly as the new speakers are a bit taller in the enclosures, so removing the lip on the edge of the grill with a dremel stopped the carpet pushing down onto the speaker itself.

I was sceptical of the speakers them self as i hadn't read any reviews of the subwoofers specifically however this upgrade has completely transformed the system in my car, and even though i'm aware that these are not exactly designed for 'bass' as such, more mid because of the shallow speaker, they supply more than enough bass for me (And I've had a stand alone sub in every car i have previously owned)

Hope this write up helps someone as i went in a bit blind and hoped for the best

[JunkyardDogg]

How is the sound now? Where did you get those subs? I thought it only came as part of a system.

I also want to do alpine and wondering which subs to go with. I'm reading Earthquake has no mid bass.

[harrym97]

Originally Posted by JunkyardDogg

How is the sound now? Where did you get those subs? I thought it only came as part of a system.

I also want to do alpine and wondering which subs to go with. I'm reading Earthquake has no mid bass.

Coming from the base stereo subs it was night and day difference, however they don't give that "surely this is popping some spot welds" kind of bass which I've had in my old cars, but honestly gotten bored of now..

I was lucky finding the subs on eBay separate from the kit and they were brand new, so I'm guessing someone swapped them out of the kit for some different ones.

As for the Alpine kit, do it! its definitely worth the money (i think i paid £360 with the members discount) its very good quality and being plug and play so easy to install.

Next on my list is to upgrade the rear quarter speakers to something similar to the ones that come in the alpine kit for the front ones, and add the tweeters in the back too (mostly for the high spec look )

hope this helps haha

[streetpro]

Upgrading the rear ones is pointless apart from the looks as far I can tell.

[JunkyardDogg]

Originally Posted by harrym97

Coming from the base stereo subs it was night and day difference, however they don't give that "surely this is popping some spot welds" kind of bass which I've had in my old cars, but honestly gotten bored of now..

I was lucky finding the subs on eBay separate from the kit and they were brand new, so I'm guessing someone swapped them out of the kit for some different ones.

As for the Alpine kit, do it! its definitely worth the money (i think i paid £360 with the members discount) its very good quality and being plug and play so easy to install.

Next on my list is to upgrade the rear quarter speakers to something similar to the ones that come in the alpine kit for the front ones, and add the tweeters in the back too (mostly for the high spec look )

hope this helps haha

Nice, seems like Alpine has been discontinued unfortunately, couldn't find it anywhere.

[harrym97]

Originally Posted by streetpro

Upgrading the rear ones is pointless apart from the looks as far I can tell.

Yeah id imagine there isn't a huge benefit to audio, but they do look cool

[harrym97]

Originally Posted by JunkyardDogg

Nice, seems like Alpine has been discontinued unfortunately, couldn't find it anywhere.

That's unlucky, by the looks of it on US eBay its $800+