[Wpg_Saabatour]

I need some suggestions on replacement ideas. I have a stock 88 900 t16, front dash speakers are gone so i figured on doing a total upgrade. I have the factory clarion system with eq and cassette holder. Just wanted some ideas on what others have done.

 

[ProfZ]

I'm not an audio freak, so I just replaced my front speakers with a pair of modestly priced Kenwoods and kept the OEM rears. After balancing them, I've been very happy with the results:lol:

 

[cdaly]

How did you balance them? Just with the fader control?

 

[ProfZ]

Oh, sorry--should have said that I have an (inexpensive) aftermarket CD-stereo unit in place of the OEM one. It has L/R and Front/Rear balance controls, as they all do these days...

 

[thepuma]

I replaced my fronts with some Blaupunkts that I got on Crutchfield, and I am very happy with them. I'm not sure of the model number.

I replaced the rears with a pair of Sony xPlod 4x10, and I'm not happy with them at all. They don't sound much better than the beat up stock set, but I'm not sure if that's because my head unit just doesn't have enough power. The bass is really muddy if I turn it up too much.

Everything sounds good if I put it mostly to the fronts.

I was thinking an amp and a subwoofer might help things. There isn't much choice in 4x10 speakers...

 

[Oyster]

I'm running a Blaupunkt CD player w/10 disk CD changer, Audiovox Satellite Radio unit, Blaupunkt EQ, Boston Acoustic speakers in front and rear - stock size to fit, 10" Sony Explode series Subwoofer, Blaupunkt 100 watt amp for the front and rear speakers and an MTX 200 watt amp for the sub.

 

[ShadowWorks]

If you want something to rival Logan Apogee and will clean Quads clock, i can make you ultra high frequency Electrostatic ribbons tweeters designed for the 900s sun visors

Whats your budget?

 

[smiley mikey]

Hi

Dont write the speakers of yet, I blew my fronts when I upgraded the head unit when I took them out for a look the cones had become unglued, using a flash of inspiration I smeared the surface with blue hylomar instant gasket and bugger me it has worked a treat for the last 4 months and sounds a load better.

 

[Eugene]

If you want something to rival Logan Apogee and will clean Quads clock, i can make you ultra high frequency Electrostatic ribbons tweeters designed for the 900s sun visors

Whats your budget?

Here speaks an Audiophile, are you for real? Do you actually make them?

 

[ShadowWorks]

Here speaks an Audiophile, are you for real? Do you actually make them?

I do indeed

It started when I was nine years old, my brother was the manager of a Hi-fi store and after school he made me go to his shop and re-cone woofers for customers, those woofers from companies like B&W ATC, Tannoy and KEF sold kits to repair them and it was really easy, after 10 years i started to make and buy my own parts and make my own woofers, i did this so i could taylor the characteristics of sound, better know as the sonic signature.

Hi-fi and audio have been a part of my life for over twenty years now and i start a small company making woofers 2 years ago, i can make almost anything within reason, but am limited to the parts i can buy right now.

The 900 has a great body shell for sound but the front sound stage is rather low, so I designed an open di-pole ribbon planars for the sun visors which are at eye level, added to the bowl window gives a very deep and wide sound field with no real sweet spot.

People always ask me, "where are the speakers? i cant see them"

I point at the Ribbons and they says " What is that"

And i say never mind, as it takes to long to explain.

You only need 5 watts of class A amplification and you can have 103dB of sound (A weight) which is linear from 500Hz to 50,000Hz +- 3db

If your happy with your stock system and enjoy the music thats all the matters.

 

[s900snt]

My story

Car audio is a bottomless pit of spending. This I know!

For a car as old as yours, the speakers are not OK. They deteriorate with time, and it is definately time to get new ones.

The front at 4 inch which are very very common and you can replace innexpensively and with lots of choices.

The rear 4x10 inch speakers have neither of these qualities. They are very expensive and only a couple companies produce them. Not to mention, 4x10 speakers don't have very clear sound!

My solution was to buy new 4 inch speakers for the front and buy 4x6 speakers for the rear for less money and more to choose from. I just made an adapter plate for the smaller 4x6 to attach to and glued the wood plate to the bottom of the factory speaker mount.

I also bought a new MP3 Reciever to take full advantage of the speakers.



This improved the sound a lot and I was moderately happy. However, finally having good sound and enjoying playing music made the saab's small speakers weakness of poor bass REALLY stand out.

I was then compelled to buy a 10'' subwoofer and dedicated amplifier. It's great now, but I still want to amplify the front and rear speakers. I was actually going to do it this week, but I ended up winning an ebay auction for a new mountain bike. A carbon fiber one at that! So...no stereo upgrades for a while.

 

[ShadowWorks]

Car audio is a bottomless pit of spending. This I know!

This improved the sound a lot and I was moderately happy. However, finally having good sound and enjoying playing music made the saab's small speakers weakness of poor bass REALLY stand out.

I ended up winning an ebay auction for a new mountain bike. A carbon fiber one at that! So...no stereo upgrades for a while.

It is for the people that read the magazines and follow the marketing hype.

It not expensive if you have experiance and buy second hand equipment.

The reason that factory speakers in Saabs sound poor is there dimensions.

Small drive units can not reproduce bass unless they have large cone movement, excursion or X-max and they need to have an enclosure.

A 100mm or 4 inch cone is what i would class as a midrange unit, not design for bass at all, the cone resonance and wave length are no where near the deep bass frequencies, the only way to get nice 20 Hz bass is with a dedicated subwoofer/infrawoofer.

The 900 hatch back has a cabin gain of 55Hz which is a nice frequency and the start of deep bass, I am luck i can make my own subwoofers for the 900, most subwoofer out there are just terrible for sound quality.

If you want advice i can help you design a perfect system for your needs.

 

[Eugene]

I do indeed

It started when I was nine years old, my brother was the manager of a Hi-fi store and after school he made me go to his shop and re-cone woofers for customers, those woofers from companies like B&W ATC, Tannoy and KEF sold kits to repair them and it was really easy, after 10 years i started to make and buy my own parts and make my own woofers, i did this so i could taylor the characteristics of sound, better know as the sonic signature.

Hi-fi and audio have been a part of my life for over twenty years now and i start a small company making woofers 2 years ago, i can make almost anything within reason, but am limited to the parts i can buy right now.

The 900 has a great body shell for sound but the front sound stage is rather low, so I designed an open di-pole ribbon planars for the sun visors which are at eye level, added to the bowl window gives a very deep and wide sound field with no real sweet spot.

People always ask me, "where are the speakers? i cant see them"

I point at the Ribbons and they says " What is that"

And i say never mind, as it takes to long to explain.

You only need 5 watts of class A amplification and you can have 103dB of sound (A weight) which is linear from 500Hz to 50,000Hz +- 3db

If your happy with your stock system and enjoy the music thats all the matters.

This is very interesting to me, I am a "budget" audiophile and do long to experience higher sound quality from my CD's whilst driving, I'm especially interested in obtaining decent low frequencies without the "rattles". I currently use a pioneer sub and to be honest it may as well not be there as it adds little to the sound. I have a C900 convertible and unlike the hatchback has a sealed boot enclosure between the pasanger compartment which appears to be metal. I'm not too bothered about the front speakers as I have JBL replacement speakers in the rear side panels and I fade the rear speakers up and the front speakers down, so I don't have a "soundstage" as such and prefer clarity over a "soundstage" . Any suggestions? BTW my musical tastes are varied but mainly jazz, and 70's funk..

 

[ShadowWorks]

I know and understand your problem trying to get low frequency from the convertable as that boot is a sealed metal tank basically, the bass is omi directional upto 100Hz and then it can be locallized above that range, i would suggest increasing your cross over X to 250 if you can do so on your amplifier.

The only audiophile to be is a budget one, as this is were you find the best value and performance.

Pioneer used to make good subwoofers pre 1991 when they made them in Osaka Japan, once they moved production to Mexico the quality and performance hit the ground floor and is still the worst for sound quality.

In order to get good bass from the convertible you need a good health dedicated amplifier and a sealed subwoofer system, the amplifier would have to be rated at 400watts RMS and the woofer needs to be 92db efficent per watt.

As we know only 2% of the amplifiers power is converted into sound pressure and the rest is wasted as heat in the voice coil.

Which subwoofer model of Pioneer do you have and what type of amplifier do you have? gauge of cable? and what size and volume is your subwoofer box?

Bass is needed to add space and scale to the sound which is vital in classical music.

 

[Eugene]

Just got in and as usual jumped straight onto Saab central, Ok, well I'm not exactly sure which model of sub woofer I have but will check it all out tomorrow and post the answers,

 

[cdaly]

I guess I'm a complete and utter philistine where car audio is concerned!... In the 'vert, I'm quite happy with the bass performance of the original paper cone 6" rear speakers. I replaced the 4" torn paper cone front set with a cheap 2-way 4" pair and it's all pretty OK. OTOH, some years ago, when I bought a portable MP3 CD player, having first played it through a CD to tape adapter, I picked up a Creative Labs computer subwoofer and 4 satellite speaker system for about EUR100. The satellites got mounted on the dash and rear shelf in the hard-top LPT while the subwoofer fitted nicely under the front passenger seat. It's not very powerfull but it's quite sufficient for decent bass though I'm pretty sure it doesn't get anywhere near 50Hz, never mind 20Hz! Because I was powering both speakers and CD player off the car, I ended up with a ground loop and had to add an audio frequency isolating transformer to the audio cable...

Anyway, it might work out best in the 'vert to come up with some sort of compact sub under the front seat or under the rear seat since there are openings through to the footwell under the seat. Pull back the carpet to see.

 

[Marcos]

I actually replaced them all around with pioneer direct replacements that I bought at K-Mart on impulse. I bought the car without a radio, and installed a (relatively) unsophisticated Toshiba head my brother in law gave me, only to find out all the speakers were bottoming out and buzzing. While shopping for something else I came across this huge display of speakers, did a quick check for the replacements and picked up the pioneers for $8 a piece front, $12 a piece rear. I have no amplifier, other than the one in the head, which claims to be 25w+25w, but in practice it feels more like 10+10.

It may be worth noting it's a vert, not the best platform for a stereo, given the trunk isolation (almost no sense in putting a subwoofer there) and the damping effects of the ragtop.

It sounds decent, though I long for a better bottom end, and a bit crisper highs. I do plan on upgrading the stereo once I fix everythign else

 

[cdaly]

open di-pole ribbon planars for the sun visors which are at eye level, added to the bowl window gives a very deep and wide sound field with no real sweet spot.

You only need 5 watts of class A amplification and you can have 103dB of sound (A weight) which is linear from 500Hz to 50,000Hz +- 3db

So, what sort of money for these and can they run directly off a normal head-unit?

 

[unkleG'sif]

I can totally appreciate the extent to which people go to in the quest for a good soundstage in their c900 - but i think I have gotton pretty lucky with my setup..... (if i hadnt been satisfied instantly when i est this up, I would probably spent so much time and effort rtying to sort it out)

I have replaced all the stock speakers with x2 Sony 4 inch in the front along with some tweeters from an old pair of monitors that i had ages ago, and some audiobahn 4x10's in the rear. I have no amp, just the head unit, and while its not *** shakingly loud, it sounds great for what i want (house, techno, rock, jazz...... and Radio 4:lol: )

Basically, I would recommend the Audiobahn's to EVERYONE

Good luck
G

 

[ShadowWorks]

I never recommend using the head units inbuilt amplifier as there simple IC and dont have the current draw, volatge or watts to give any meaningful quality of sound, a small dedicated amplifier is always better, most head units have 10 amp fuse and yet claim to give 4 X 50 watts, this is not possible,and would need a 30amp fuse in realisty to make this kind of power, and the heat would fry such a small unit, the truth is more like 4 X 3 watts with 18% distorion.

The difference is like night and day.

I would not recommend Audiobahn for sound quality, i would recommend Audiobahn of you want bling bling and some sound.

The Ribbon planars I make can be run off a HD but its been designed for valve amplifiers and Class A amplifiers, plus they must have High pass filters on them or the ribbons can get torn at 50Hz.

This is why i make subwoofers to compliment them, I have to say get seperate tweeters seperate midrange units and have one or two subwoofers depending on your taste.

then you can come close to getting some quality Hi-Fi in your car.