550 Stereo Upgrade

I have the Becker OEM head unit. I think I will leave good enough alone. Speakers sound great, only missing bluetooth phone as I already hardwired my iPod into the back of the head unit.
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=310579&highlight=550+ipod

Thanks cwwhk for the info

 

cwwhk,

nice work!
I was also planning on replacing my OEM Sony CD changer as it is too prone to skipping.
Can the original xr-f20 radio control the CDX-T69 changer?
Is the CDX-T69's connector to the wiring loom the same as the OEM changer's?

Thanks in advance,
Stefano

 

love your idea, and have the stuff on order to do the same.
a question if i may. on the rear speaker cover or mounting unit, i see three screws along the bottom and one on the top by the post. is their one more at the rear point or just the 4??
grea idea and thanks.

 

I've replaced my front OEM speakers with a pair of Sony XS-F1027SE. They fit perfectly onto the original spacers and have double the power rating (30W vs 15W).
The original speakers were still in perfect condition though. Notice that I've de-soldered the sockets to re-solder them directly to the Sonys' terminals. I've maintained the original polarity.

I am now waiting for the CD changer replacement (same as cwwhk's) that I got on Ebay....

Stefano
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i noticed two small wire tails with connectors on the back speaker picture. did you get rid of the yellow ferrari connectors, and get new connectors? if so, doyou know the make and model and where you got them?
as an update i have everything apart, and have modified the rear holes, everything is here except the butyl mat, and things will go back together when it gets here. can,t wait.

 

The speakers in the photo are the old OEM ones. I removed the yellow connectors by desoldering them and then pulling them (strongly) from the frame. That's why you don't see them in the photo. I then soldered them to the new Sony speakers so I wouldn't have to modify the connector on the car's wiring loom.

Does the seatbelt assembly have to be removed to access the rear speakers?

Stefano

 

Thanks!!

 

The CDX-T69 has definitely solved the skipping problem the OEM changer had, I can finally listen to CDs on long journeys....
Cwwhk, thanks for the suggestion!!

Stefano

 

I replaced my front speakers a couple weekends ago (as it turns out, the first shop I walked into had the same pair of Polks as cwwhk, so I just went with that), and damped the inside of the kickpanels with some simple adhesive foam panels. Even replacing just the 2 front speakers has noticeably improved sound quality, but I'm going to replace the two rear ones as well because now the disparity between front and rear is noticeable. Good front and crappy rear, whereas it was just all round crappy before.

Before I rip out the rear parcel shelf though, I'm investigating different options for the dampening mats (my car is my daily driver so I want to make sure I've got all the materials I need for diving in). Has anyone ever tried this company? http://cascadeaudio.com/car_noise_control/index.htm

And what am I looking for: sound barrier, sound dampener, or sound absorber?

 

I replaced all four speakers and sound is much improved. Would going back and placing the dampeni"ng material make it that much better?

 

Is there any recommendation for speaker efficiency ratings / resistance, front and rear, which will work with standard head unit without extra amplifier? Anything to avoid?

 

Based on cwwhk's purchase of the front DB401, I also bought those for my car. (First thing I saw when I walked into the first shop, actually). My head unit is an aftermarket Pioneer 4x50W.

Overall sound quality has improved a lot, but when I isolate just the front speakers vs. just the rear speakers, I can't really tell much of a difference. So it may have been just my front speakers were terrible, and the Polks have brought them up to similar quality as the rears. Anyway, I'll go ahead and replace the rears and report back. (cwwhk - thanks for the extra damping mats!)

 

Polk MM571 5x7 speakers ordered from ebay - check
Vibration dampening mats (generously donated by cwwhk! Thanks!) - check
Hot humid weather - check
1 hour left before sunset - check

Following the excellent step by step instructions by moorfan and cwwhk, I stripped out the rear parcel shelf. My first time taking apart any car's interior trim, but went like a charm. The OEM asphalt-type vibration mats had debonded as expected, but unfortunately not nearly as much as moorfan's car or cwwhk's car. I'd guess about 40% was still bonded to the car.

In other words, enough debonding so that it wasn't doing any good (and the gaps were probably adding resonant space!) but not enough to make getting it out an easy task. Didn't manage to get anywhere close to done before sunset.

Took the next morning off from work, and found a plaster spatula to chisel and scrape away at the black stuff. 2 hours, a few sliced fingers, and 3 sweat soaked T-shirts later, all done. Tip #1 - wear work gloves, the foil backed vibration mats have SHARP edges. Duh.

Out of curiosity, I tested the polarity of the speaker wires. WTF?!? They were reversed. Given that cwwhk's 550 also had reversed wires, did Luigi on Ferrari's assembly line have too much chianti for breakfast and miswire every 550?

The previous owner of my car had "upgraded" the OEM stereo system and the Clarions I found in the back looked a wee bit small on first glance. WTF!?!?!? They were 4x6's with 4 Ohm resistance - no wonder I had to crank my head unit up to nearly maximum to get any amount of sound out of them!

New Polk 5x7s were a tight squeeze in the available space (I didn't bother with the grilles) but there was plenty of room forward of the seatbelt mechanism to install the crossover.

The end results are a huge upgrade, probably even more so because the Clarion 4x6s that the previous owner of my car installed were WORSE than OEM. Now I can hear low end bass (enough for me at least), the sound quality is excellent, and there's plenty of sound at 40% volume whereas I had to turn it up to 90%+ before.

The only problem is that now the fronts are outmatched and the soundstage is dominated by the rear. I'll pull those out and check the wiring this weekend in case the polarities were miswired as well.

Surprisingly, the new vibration mats don't seem to be making too much difference compared with the old debonded OEM mats. Perhaps I need to also do the vertical surface behind the seats? Or do I also need to add the mass-loaded noise suppressors on top of the vibration mats?

I had taken a bunch of pictures to share, but they seem to have disappeared from my iphone.

 

Great job!

 

Guys, please post the make and model of speakers other than Polk Audio that would fit behind the factory speaker grills with little or no modification.

Thanks in advance