Custom door-speakers

[Surf Blau]

On my last drive home from the Netherlands I realized how tiresome it was to have all the sound coming from "ear-height" (hits the windshield and reflects back to me), and therefor decided to finally launch my speaker idea - an idea I have had since I bought the car... I edited the idea a bit though; I decided I wanted a split-set with tweeters and "subs" instead of just a pair of coax's..

My original idea was to make custom enclosures for speakers in the door-pockets (I guess all 190-owners have thought of this though), but that was before I modded two electric mirrors, allowing tweeters to be mounted on the mirror-triangles! I decided that the door-pockets may be hit by a foot once in a while, so the speaker would have to be covered up in one way or the other. The solution to this was to drill lots of hole in a circle, allowing sound to go through as well as to shield the speakers a little:

Here is a picture of the unfinished drivers side, showing the speaker enclosure prior to covering..
http://home.no.net/shvoldum/Mods/DoorSpeakers-1.jpg

Next up was the tweeter-housing - I tried a few things (wood, bondo, etc) before I ended up making this out of a spunge (no joke!! :P). The spunge was easy to mould the way I wanted it and also allows the plastic triangle to be installed. If the housing was made out of something solid there would have to be a glitch underneath it to allow installation.. I didn't make a picture out of this, as I presume you all know how a spunge looks like ;)

The only thing to do after this was to cover both housings up in speaker mesh - unfortunately the colour "tan" in Norway isn't the same as the colour "Tan" everywhere else in the world, so the speaker mesh doesn't match too well :( If anyone can help me out with a pack of the correct colour I would be MOST GRATEFUL!

Anyway, let's get to the fun part, namely pictures of the finished roduct:

http://home.no.net/shvoldum/Mods/DoorSpeakers-2.jpg

http://home.no.net/shvoldum/Mods/DoorSpeakers-3.jpg

http://home.no.net/shvoldum/Mods/DoorSpeakers-4.jpg

http://home.no.net/shvoldum/Mods/DoorSpeakers-5.jpg

Even though the speakers are cheap and simple (can't even remember what kind they are..), the improvement is amazing! It has definitely been well worth the time and effort, even though I am still not satisfied since I cannot seem to get hold of speaker cloth in the right colour! :(

PS: The tweeter is not as visible in real life as it is in these pictures, the flash brings out the black a lot..

[pnsji]

Depending on which speaker, some like free air (infinite baffle) and some like an enclosure (sealed box).
In this case your speaker like a sealed enclosure and usually they sound better :)

[190dee]

Nice mod, Sven. I really need to kick my lazy @$$ and get something done to my car. What was the size on the element fitted in the "pocket"?

When did you visit NL?

[Surf Blau]

@ pnsji: Hmm, I think I need to check the box they came in to see whether I can figure out what kind they are :P I am getting more and more impressed with them - but I neeeeeeeeed more low-end bass! The only problem is that the W201 has such a small boot that I don't want to make it even smaller with a large bass box.. I have been thinking of making a custom enclosure out of fibreglass underneath the rear seat, but in that case I would need a fairly small sub that wouldn't build too deep, nor should it require a large compartment.. Any comment on this??

@190dee: I decided not to cut the actual door-panels, and therefor opted for a 10cm element instead of a 13cm element. The latter ones are deeper and would require a hole to be cut in the door-panel (and maybe in the metal behind it, I can't remember how it looks there).. There are several different doorboards available, but I think most of them look like $h!t becasue they don't flow with the rest of the lines in the interior, and usually cost an arm and a leg... In any case I don't think it is possible to get good bass out of speakers this size - my goal was to spread the sources pushing music and this was well succeeded! :) I was in the Netherlands in...... hmm, can't really remember when it was - I think it was in April :P I am hopefully going down there in June again though! :) How are you BTW - haven't seen you around lately!

[run.exe]

In my (ex-)190E 2.6, I used an a/d/s subwoofer "kit" that fit in my rear hat-shelf First Aid Kit receptacle.

I'm not sure if it's still made, but they (free air subs) are VERY non-intrusive, and sound MUCH better than (bass-less) OEM "stereo."

For your door-panels, or custom fabrication of enclosures, contact Andrea Maurer (jehnert.sd@t-online.de) at Jehnert Sound Design (http://www.jehnert.de). Also check out Q-Logic's kick-panels, if you are ever so inclined...

Good luck / best wishes / Güten Tag mein Freund,

[ScottyC190E]

Sweet man! Very creative!