After reading the excellent posts on repairing the speaker surrounds on my '03, I feel I'm competent to tackle the job.

But I'm wondering if that's really my problem, although I know it's a common one in SC430s that old.

I've adjusted the front/back and left/right and determined that most of the occasional fuzzing comes from the 6x9s. But sometimes I hear distortion in the area of the midrange speaker on the driver's side door, at the mirror. I never hear this on the other side.

I know that the original owner (leasee) of my car took it in for speaker buzz, and some insulation was added in one of the doors.

What puzzles me is that the distortion is not consistent in its pitch or volume level. Sometimes, even a low-volume song will result in some definite distortion/buzzing in the bass line, even though the line is barely audible.

Sometimes, when I play a song very loudly, there will be no distortion. On other songs at the same sound level, there will be minimal, but discernible, distortion.

I know some songs where the bass lines get down to the 28-40 hertz range, and they will definitely buzz, and loudly. Of course, with notes this low, the amp probably isn't pushing enough watts to even out the sound pressure through the whole audible spectrum anyway. And to be honest, it's probably more than anyone should expect from a 6x9 speaker, even with a Kevlar cone.

Before those of you who have replaced the speaker surrounds did it, was this representative of the sounds you were getting?

Any advice will be appreciated.

 

It is very possible that you have more than one speaker that needs replacing, which would explain why the buzzing occurs on different frequencies.

 

Repair or replace and you will be happy either way. I went with replace/upgrade with new speakers, sub, amp and definitely feel like it was an upgrade.

 

I was planning to do both 6x9s. I think the repair kit for the speaker surrounds will do both. Has anyone had problems with the
other speakers?

 

Sometimes music isn't the best medium for testing the condition of your audio system. You can judge performance a little more objectively if you use a test cd such as the Bink image available here:

http://binkster.net/extras.shtml#cd

Track #6 (Log Sweep) should be effective to locate your speaker defects. You can localize to the affected speaker by using balance and fader controls. My observation from experience with my '02 SC is that there isn't much output from the rear right and left speakers by comparison with the front. You're very likely to find a problem with the 6 x 9s but you also may be able to locate every other loose item in your car. By the way, you should probably avoid using the square wave test tracks for checking the ML system.

What you describe is exactly what I heard with music on my system before I repaired the speakers. Sometimes it would sound reasonably OK and at other times it sounded raspy and broken depending upon the program material and volume level.