I bought a 2002 LS430 ultra recently. got it cheap from florida but it has some issues some of which are stereo related.
all speakers are deteriorated. Sub, and all doors. Ive started to replace the foams. sub first and now i just completed one front door.
Just wanted owners to know how easy this process is. I didnt even have to remove the door panel completely to get the speaker out.
left all rods and wires attached. got a shorty phillips in there and 10 minutes later speaker was removed.
Instead of hundreds for new lexus speakers or replacements my total bill was a paltry $68 and when im done the factory sound will be restored.

 

If you continue with the rest of the doors please take a few pics and share the process.

 

Agreed! My LF Door speaker is in need of replacement / refoaming, I would love to see the process on this.

 

I;ve always heard it's tricky to get the voice coil to line up properly, and you take a chance on having to re-do it .That being said, my Mark Levinsons are dead and need the same treatment

 

I refoamed my subwoofer about 9 years ago, and refoamed my front RH door in the past year. It's an easy job, nothing technical or tricky about it, only time-consuming to scrape off the old glue from the cone and from the casing without damaging anything. For the door speakers, you can buy 2-packs of the foam surrounds and save a bit of money vs buying one at a time.

Other people and myself have done writeups on these forums on how to do this repair, many of us on these forums have done this repair over the years.

 

I re-foamed my sub (pictures in my build thread) and like StanVanDam said, it was very easy to do but a little time-consuming. I'll have to check my door speakers next!

 

Hi all, i finished the job today. didnt feel pics were necessary as theres countless DIYs with pics. Only difference with mine was
i didnt have to remove the cables for the inside handle and lock. Oh and i just swung the doorcard out instead of removing it.
the entire job took about 2 1/2 hours including replacing the foams. Total cost was about 68 bux.
Had to get on my back to work under the doorcards. Just finished a minute ago. Havent pumped up the volume yet.
Gonna wait til tomorrow. I wanna let the glue cure before i raise it up. The sound is back though.

 

Oh and BTW use simplyspeakers.com its the only way to be sure youre getting the right speakers for your model LS with all the different
systems theyve used over the years.

 

Is there a reason so many people choose to re-foam the stock speakers instead of going with aftermarket?

 

Audio systems that rely on multiple speakers to cover the entire audible spectrum require careful matching. In the words, the subwoofer covers the very low frequencies; the mid-bass speakers cover the middle frequencies, and the tweeters cover the very high frequencies. The "cross over" points between these speakers are designed to eliminate gaps (where some of the frequencies are not reproduced), or over-laps (where more then one speaker is reproducing the same frequency and interfere with one another).

Loudness of each of the component speakers also play an important role due to placement within the cabin in relation to the occupants.

Lastly, the electrical characteristics (impedance and wattage) must be matched properly to avoid over-heating.

Selecting aftermarket speakers to cover the audible spectrum with little gaps and over-laps can be challenging without proper equipment. The foam-surround is the most vulnerable part of the speaker and can be replaced easily as a DIY project.

 

The foam may be helpful and sometimes will give some extended life to the system but if the car is very old the cones and voice coil can be damaged as well leaving no choice but complete replacement.

 

UPDATE: Finally felt comfortable to pump up the volume on my repaired speakers.
Verdict? Sounds perfect. No cracking, buzzing or other noises. This was a win. a satisfying fix with results well beyond
the cost. And such an easy project.

 

Where do guys buy your re-foam material and do they list exactly for our model ?

 

just did my rear sub from a rubber 8" speaker repair kit from amazon. Problem i had was the glue i had didn't work and hold the rubber to the sub or the metal frame. had to pull out the high temp RTV. Worked like a charm. sub is back to not rattling and sound is great. I cut the tray out a bit and removed the speaker. Wasn't going to fiddle with removing seats and all to get it done. Had it done in less than 2 hours.

Next up......driver's door actuator motor.

 

Some further reasons for refoaming an OEM ML speaker, as opposed to installing an aftermarket speaker:

In addition to ensuring no basic overlapping/underlapping of the audio frequencies, the amplifier/DSP of the ML system is calibrated in time-domain and frequency-domain (to eliminate linear distortion), and is also impulse-response calibrated using Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters, as opposed to cheaper and less computationally-intensive Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters. There may also be phase filters applied individually to each speaker.

Lexus and Mark Levinson spent 2 years (and probably a ton of money) developing the speakers and DSP. The ML speakers and the ML system's 24-bit floating point DSP processor work in conjunction to maintain a precise room calibration, wherein the DSP takes into account volume of cabin space, interior angles, location of passengers, types of leather and carpeting, etc to factor in the sound wave absorption, reflection, and distortion by the various materials surrounding the "room", in our case, the cabin of the LS430. In addition to mathematic and acoustic engineering, the nuances in the response of the human ear (psychoacoustics) are also accounted for in a high-end audio calibration.

This audio calibration requires that the frequency response curve and impulse response of each speaker to be exactly the same as what was used during calibration, in addition to the sound axis/directionality. By using any aftermarket speaker, the frequency response curve will differ (usually vastly), impulse response will also differ (usually vastly), and axis/direction and crossover points likely won't be the same either.

The result is that aftermarket speakers sound like garbage when compared to properly-functioning OEM ML speakers. However, if you have poor hearing, you may not notice any difference. If you have excellent hearing, you'll easily notice a skewed/missing sound stage, incorrect frequency response at several frequency ranges, and incorrect reverberations from the car's cabin.

The interaction between the speaker and the "room" plays a large part in the quality of an audiophile listening experience.

Some background reading on sound calibration:
https://www.hifizine.com/2010/12/sou...d-time-domain/
https://www.bestcaraudio.com/car-aud...in-ac-signals/
https://www.elen.ca/education/commun...quency-domain/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics