Hi guys, Could I ask for a little advice?

My 2001, S2000 has seen a tough life. I'm on 220,000 miles and still going strong. It's my daily driver making the trip to Los Angeles every day from San Diego. My driver side door speaker seems to have failed and I can't stand the commute with just one speaker. I've read a load of posts and in comparison my question is very simple. My car is stock and I just want to replace the faulty speaker. I know people have complained at the poor sound quality of the stock speakers but it hasn't really bothered me. I drive with the top down 99% of the time. Even in the rain. So a couple of questions:

Is this easy to do? Can anyone point me to a step by step for this?
What brand of speaker would you guys recommend?
If I want to play ipod or iphone through my car stereo is there a head unit you'd recommend for that?

Thanks guys.

 

It's pretty ease to swap the speakers, particularly in an early car without the separate high-mounted
tweeters. Crutchfield lets you select speakers that will fit - a couple allegedly require no modification,
while others are listed as as requiring minor modification, which usually means cutting off the back
of the plastic speaker basket. Read the details before ordering - they have component speakers that
"fit" but you'll still need to install the tweeters somewhere.
You'll want efficient speakers if you are powering them with the headunit's internal amp - sensitivity of
92dB or higher.
MacGuyver's site will talk you through speaker installation.
Make sure you get speaker harness adapters like these so you don't need to cut any factory wiring
(if you order from Crutchfield I believe they supply them).

I'll let someone else recommend headunits.

 

I'm looking at
Alpine SPS-610C 6-1/2" Component 2-Way Type-S Speaker System
and
Polk Audio DB6501 6.5-Inch 2-Way Component System

the 2nd one is about $40 more and seems to be recommended quite a few times on the forums.

I'm personally going to be running it without an amp, but not sure which is better suited for that. The polk is better, but idk if it is "too good" to run without an amp.

 

thanks Guys, I appreciate the replies.

On last question, if I'm only replacing speakers, I can just take our the door cards, unplug the stock speakers, swap in the new speakers and plug in the cables right? No need to have to do any rewiring to the head unit?

 

yes, to swap the door speakers you don't need to do anything with the headunit or wiring outside of the doors.

 

Per the specs quoted on Crutchfield, the Polks are significantly more efficient than the Alpines
(sensitivity of 92dB vs. 88dB) meaning that for a given power level the Polks will be 4 dB louder,
and to achieve a similar volume with the Alpines you'd need to more than double to power. IMO the
Alpines are not well-suited to running with headunit power alone in a noisy car like the s2000.

 

Yea that was what I was thinking but I also read that the rms rating should be matched as well. I know very little about audio so you can correct me here. Alpine has the lower RMS while the polks have higher sensitivity. What is more important?

 

I went to each company's websites, and neither one quotes a lower range for power handling, only a maximum.
Probably someone at Crutchfield chose an arbitrary lower number. And it is an arbitrary number no matter
what - if you are listening at low volumes, you may be sending the speaker only milliwatts. If you send
the speaker more than the maximum (which is different from using an amp CAPABLE of exceeding the maximum),
you risk damaging the speaker. Which isn't a danger with your headunit, which probably maxes out at maybe 12w.

 

I just installed the Polks over the holidays, and it was a simple installation... Everything fits nicely (though definitely a tight fit)...

I wish I could tell you how much of an improvement a speaker swap alone yields... I changed the headunit at the same time, so I can only tell you that swapping both was a definite improvement in audio, and an even better improvement in functionality (e.g., bluetooth audio, bluetooth hands-free calling, 2 USB inputs, one 3.5mm audio jack auxilary input, etc...).

 

So,was the installation with the stock baskets ad grilles and no spacers? Thinking about dropping the stock baskets in favor of the foam baskets to add a bit more bass.
How did you interface with the stock speaker harness? Bare wire needed on the xovers of the Polk's? But how did you connect to the stock speaker connector on the harness?
Any problems removing the door panel? How about adding the tweeters? Sorry for so many questions, but I want to do this job the next day we get pover 50dgf, and I still have some questions?