98 S70 GLT Stereo upgrade info
 

Hey, guys.

I've been messing with a variety of different cars and their stereo systems for the past 10 years and my newly acquired S70 is no different, but it will be in terms of what I plan on doing to the audio system itself. I build home theater speakers and love making things sound awesome, especially if I can do it myself and know how. I've read about the Dynaudio kit ($1200) and completely changing the head unit for the car, adding an amp, etc. I've done that in just about all of the cars I've owned and loved the sound of aftermarket speakers. I'm going a different direction this time.

I don't want to add a big sub in the back. Granted, I have my 12" Kappa in a box already, but just don't want to clutter the trunk as I always have. The reason behind this is the fact that there are basically low freq. drivers in the rear doors and coax's in the rear deck. My plan is to replace the door speakers with new ones that can handle more power at a fraction of what they cost. I'll also change out the deck speakers with better coax's than what I have in there. When I bought the car, the rear speakers and the brackets were gone. $180 a piece from a dealer... Uh, no.

The speakers I want to get all go down to 35 hz, which I think is what the Dynaudio ones do. The doors will handle 80w rms and the backs are 50w rms (may change that out with some higher end ones). I'll also make a crossover in the doors at about 250hz or so. I'm also thinking of changing out the tweeters with some new ones that handle 80w rms.

As far as the head unit goes, I don't mind using the SC-816. I'll change out the speakers and see what I get from it. If it seems like it's lacking power, then I'll add a small amp to whatever channels I need it to go. The SC-816 has a 6-channel amp in it already and powers 8 speakers. The rear deck and doors are wired together to produce a 4 ohm load, so that's the reason they're 8 ohms. I could just add a 2 channel amp and power those later on if I wanted.

I hope to start on this in the next two weeks or so. Before I order anything though, can someone tell me where I can find the max depth the door speakers (all 4) can handle? If I have 3" clearance, I'm good. Thanks for the help and when I finally do this, I'll take pics and everything.