Originally Posted by wlb009

After reading many blogs on this and other forums, I came up with an economical solution to replacing the door bass speakers. These speakers are 6x9 as I'm sure you know. But if you attempt to buy them your looking at $200.00 plus per, so I found a fantastic solution, I bought 5.25 8 ohm home speaker replacements and a 6x9 to 5.25 bracket converter, both on ebay. I scheduled a install appointment at my local Bestbuy and sure as the sun rises, these babies work beautifully. Total cost is $26.99 for both speakers, $16.00 for the brackets and $70.00 for Bestbuy's time. I'll post the pics of what I bought on e-bay. BTW the OEM 6x9 speakers are about as whimpy as they could be, the magnets on the speakers I used replace them are 3 times bigger. They sound very good, especially since the one's I had replaced were blown.

Originally Posted by kevmc

Well, the subwoofer finally went. I tried repairing the surround but apparently the bearing surfaces in the suspension wore unevenly as the speaker went bad and the repair didnt work. (I used the glue approach as mentioned elsewhere as a sanity check.) The cone would not smoothly move back and forth. So I looked around for a replacement.

I found this speaker on Amazon: Pyle PLPW8D 8-Inch 800 Watt Dual 4 Ohm Subwoofer. It costs less than the repair kit. At under $20 i decided to give it a try. It has dual 4 Ohm voice colis so I wired the coils in series to retain the 8 Ohm impedance. The Pyle speaker has a much more robust structure compared with the Levinson and a more massive magnet.

Install was easy - I pushed the old speaker out of the plastic mounting housing. The new speaker was a tight fit but it does fit. I left off the ring shown below. I cut off the connector wire at the old speaker and reused it. The plastic grill cover required a little trimming of the foam on the new speaker (or you can just compress the foam as you reattach the grill - which is what I did).

What a difference! This 8" speaker really moves. I can actually feel the bass in the driver seat. I've only used it for a couple weeks so far - will see how it lasts. The reviews on amazon are positive.

Originally Posted by famewolf

Are you still happy with this purchase? I'm going to be having the 6x9's replaced in near future and best buy's $70 speaker install seems to cover both the install of the door speakers as well as the subwoofer so I'm debating going ahead and ordering this as a replacement given the original speakers/woofer are 15 years old. Current price on amazon is around $16. Are you using the factory amp and if so did you have to do anything special beyond wiring the voice cones in series?

Originally Posted by famewolf

So it's been almost a year since you did this....are you still happy with the results? Anything you would do different? I've priced the brackets for $10(ebay) and the speakers for $12.90 each + $7 shipping from Parts Express. Best Buy's website indicates they do a speaker install for $40. I've got buzzing coming from the right side door. It only occurs when the song has alot of bass so reasonably certain it's the 6x9's. Someone in this thread mentioned using home audio speakers in the car can have bad results due to the temperature and weather experienced by the car so was curious.

Originally Posted by famewolf

Well for what it's worth I had this mod done today. Paid $55 at a local car installer as Best buy was backed up... "$32 for the speakers shipped...they sound good. Really happy with this option. In the description at parts express it indicated these woofers are also suitable for car audio.

Originally Posted by moerbeck

There aren't any car or non-car audio speakers. It's really about impedance, sensitivity and the power rating. As a matter of fact, the woofer from Goldwood is not listed as a sub-woofer, but I checked the specs and it was perfectly fine for a free air application. No local installer wanted to touch the car with a 10-foot pole. They told me the cost if they broke something on a 16-year old car was too much compared to what they were charging me. :-) I kinda agree...

Originally Posted by ZGone

I have finally gotten around to finishing the speaker replacement/upgrade on my wife’s 2002 SC430. The woofers in the doors sounded blown like has been commented on so many times here. We just got the car and I was committed to upgrading the system because the sound system sounded really bad. After getting into this project it reinforced my opinion of factory systems. That is the high end systems that they put in these cars have decent head units and amps but the speakers are way below what would be expected. I have the Bose system in my 350Z and the speakers in that system were cheap-cheap-cheap as well.

Here is the process for replacement of the ML speakers using ones that I acquired from Parts Express. Since I was retaining the factory head unit and amp for the front and rear speakers I matched the factory 8 ohm. As you will see I replaced the factory 16 ohm sub woofer with a Polk Audio 4 ohm powered by a MA Audio amp. This gave the system that much needed punch in the low end.







Remove the large screw shown here.




Another screw to remove.


Two screws holding the rubber bumper and the push plate.


There are three screws along the bottom.


There are two plastic clips. Be careful with these because the brake easily. (I know) They are already remove here.


One last screw under the arm rest. Then lift the panel outwards from the bottom to pop the plastic clips along the front and rear edge. Lift the panel out then up to remove. Place the panel on you knee and then reach around to disconnect the two cables for the seat memory and the light. Then remove the screw holding the door lever and remove that to free the panel.