just like you my front speakers were worn out when i bought the car and the sub woofer was broken. at first we just changed the the sub with a kicker 8 inch ($90) fitting into the factory speaker mount and used 6.5" pioneer speakers ($80) using the factory mounts. the stereo worked fine. hopefully your speaker is not making that irritating slapping sound!

after the thinking about it. i figured this system is getting older parts might start breaking. after talking to the jt audio / anaheim, ca and beat sonic we figured out it's possible to replace the whole stereo system and have the factory nav and climate controls. we did find a aftermarket car audio speaker company that fit into the factory mid range location with a custom spacer. it does fit under the factory grill. the tweeter was a completely different problem. the factory tweeter is buried way into the dash. so they had to take out the factory tweeter grills and custom make a tweeter mount. the mid range and tweeters are made by hybrid audio technology and we are running tru technology amplifiers. i don't want to **** anyone off but, to me this aftermarket set up is a night and day difference from the factory ml system. i think car audio has progressed so much over this last decade.

so that is my long version to tell you replacing the factory front speakers can be done. we replaced ml mids using the factory amp and we also replaced the front mids and tweeters using a aftermarket amp. good luck with your project!

 

I am far from an audiophile and would be happy if the 2 front speakers were free of distortion. Almost anything would be an improvement over the crappy speakers I now have. It's funny how the topic of car sound systems is so subjective. Before I purchased my G35 new in 2003, all I read on forums was how lousy the Bose system was. After almost 7 years of ownership, I still don't know why all the negative criticism. For me it's great. What else matters?

 

Boca - agree - it is very subjective particularly in the high end stuff. That's why no reviews are done blind for audio gear or speakers. This is an area where some folks spend $100/ft for speaker wire - cause it sounds way better than $2/foot heavy lamp cord...sure it does.

Anyway in terms of car audio gear and speakers if it works for you and and it sounds good than that's great. In the end the user has to be 100% the judge of quality of their stuff.

Kinda like my view of wine - if the wine tastes good to me than its good wine by definition (no matter what it costs or how someone else has rated it).

 

I have found that it is difficult to find a quality 8ohm speaker to replace the factory ML front speakers that are there. There are some good higher end Alpine speakers available but are 4 ohm. Would there be any harm to install the 4 ohm front speakers with my 8 speaker setup if the rears and subwoofer are 8ohms? Could it hurt the amp? Again, I'm not an audiophile and just want decent sound without distortion but do not want to damage the amp or other parts.

 

Running lower ohm speakers in place of higher ohm speakers puts a greater "load" on the amp. The amp is designed to work against a certain electrical load (basically electrical resistance) and if that load is smaller (meaning lower ohms overall) it can cause the amp to clip and overheat. Most amps will shut down when faced with "under ohm" electrical load under their design spec before they damage themselves. Its kind of counter intuitive but basically as the ohms go down towards 0 the electrical load starts to look like a short circuit (zero resistance) to the amp.

 

It's funny. I called Crutchfield, and they say people replace 8ohm with 4 ohm and it is done all the time, but at the same time, they do say it does put a heavier load on the amp.
I have another choice... to refoam the front speakers as I am getting distortion from them. The problem is, I'm not sure if the distortion is something other than the foam being bad. My subwoofer was refoamed and works great, but I've heard about issues with the front speakers that might not be foam related. Any suggestions?

 

It would be better to find a higher quality 8 ohm speaker. Seems like everybody is building 4 ohm only speakers these days.

Another possibility is to wire in a 4 ohm resister in series with the 4 ohm speaker but that is not ideal and has its own set of cons.

You could go the re-foam route on the old speakers - the re-foam shop should be able to tell you if the coil is bad before they re-foam the cone.

 

If you do go the route of refoaming, try to use a material similar in composition and stiffness/resistance to the original foam. I realize this may be difficult to know if the foam is that badly decomposed. Some surrounds are a thin rubber material that are very flexible and other surrounds are a very stiff/thick/sturdy foam. The difference between each can be quite dramatic. The surround can increase the Qts of the driver by helping to control the cone movement. Also the surround can help improve the overall sound quality by helping to damp cone resonances (keep the cone from ringing). For car audio, quite often, the surround will be a fairly rigid piece of foam, but not always. I haven't taken a look at any of these drivers so can't help you much.

One other idea. If you can find a mid/woofer with dual 4 ohm voice coils, if you run the two voice coils in series then you will double the impedance (make them 8 ohms). Likewise if you find a driver with a dual 16 ohm voice coil, you can run them in parallel and get down to 8 ohms impedance.

Hopefully this may help you.

Andrew

 

I will be getting the original JBL surround foam for the door speaker within a day or so from speaker exchange. It is 6" m roll surround foam and is identical to what is in the car. I used the 8" m roll for my subwoofer and it worked like a charm! Unfortunately they sent me the wrong size for my door speaker and the tech had to piece together the new surround foam because it was oversized. I know this sounds ridiculous and crude but there was no other choice at the time as the car was apart. Of course the speaker was significantly worse than when I started with major distortion. I'm willing to try again with the right foam surround. I see very very few 6.5" 8ohm speakers new, and have never heard of the brand names.I saw one through teptronics.com called American Bass. I'm not feeling good about buying something I never heard of and ending up replacing a mediocre speaker with one of even less quality.

 

Well, I think you're making the right choice. I have so often in the past replaced factory speakers even with the CORRECT ohm rating AND size and they end up a poor match to the factory system. Regardless of whether or not you think the ML, Bose or any other system is good or bad, significant engineering goes into the way the components interact with eachother and the car itself. It is likely that without a full on professional start from scratch approach, the factory speakers will in-fact be the best sounding drivers to put back in those factory locations.

Some exceptions are found commonly in the case of BMWs, where there are companies dedicated to nothing BUT making factory replacement speakers and amps DESIGNED for THOSE cars in particular.

Perhaps this will sound overtly obvious to you, but do not forget also that you can just go and buy the factory replacement speaker slightly used on Ebay. They seem to be out there regularly in TESTED and perfectly functional condition. Some sellers will even consider returns on something like this.

 

I have been unable to find anything slightly used on ebay but I am able to find new speakers on ebay for astronomical sums of money. I'm also hesitant to buy these speakers used as they inherently have problems

 

After doing extensive research on trying to replace my ML front door speakers with equivalent new aftermarkets, I've finally decided to bite the bullet and purchased 2 New OEM ML Lexus speakers. There were almost no choices for 8ohm new aftermarket speakers and the few that were available I never heard of. I didn't want to risk replacing them with 4 ohm for the risk the extra strain might put on the already 10 year old amp. At least with the new ML speakers, I know what it will sound like without compromising the sound system.

 

Look into Vifa, Scan-Speak, Peerless. They all make 8ohm drivers that will work in our systems. Most of the speakers from those brands will sound better and be of better quality then the factory units. Just find one that is close and replace them in pairs.

 

Good advice just have to be careful that the drivers selected are not to deep to fit in the doors. They all publish pretty detailed specs on size.

 

I received 2 factory fresh Lexus ML door speakers today via UPS and will install them this weekend. Case closed.