Speaker upgrade options for 2020

There are a lot of audio threads on here, but most of the speakers people recommend are now out of production. So I want to get some updated options. I have the 6 channel non-Bose, non-most, stereo. The Focal speakers from CAI are undoubtedly lovely, but I can�t see dropping over $1k into into a pair of speakers for this car. I�m thinking more like $500 to upgrade both the dash and door speakers. I�m not looking for superb clarity- my exhaust is too loud for that to matter. I want more volume overall and better bass handling at higher volumes. I get a lot of bass distortion at higher volumes now. I�m thinking high efficiency 4� coaxials in the dash. The door drivers are 5.25� but seem to be crossed over as subs. I can�t find any 5� inch subs and I�m wondering if a full range coax with decent low frequency response is the best option here. Anyone have any recommendations?

I just replaced my head unit and might do the speakers sometime in the near future. I want to give the new head unit a few months and see what I think of the sound. I don't have any answers for you but I noticed the same thing about the door speakers when I was testing my installation. They didn't really fit in with front/back/left/right and only produced bass.

@ssherman68 If you have door speakers and the Nokia amp in your frunk, then it�s a 6x40w setup with only low frequencies going to the doors. I don�t think that�s a bad design, but 20 year old paper speaker cones are bound to be worn out in an automotive environment. No surprise they sound bad to both of us.

There are still options,Check out the Crutchfield website, brands like alpine.morel,etc

I recently upgraded the sound system. I have the non bose 6 speaker system. I went with 5 1/4 components, mounting the tweeters in the dash and removing the 4" that's in the dash, leaving just the new tweeter. The issue I didn't see any way around was the sub frequencies going to the door so I replaced the amp with a small 5 channel and added a sub. With limited options on just 4" speakers I found it a slippery slope and replaced it all.

@Pulx30 Crutchfield recommends the front component setup like you have. What components did you use and where did you put your sub? It seems like eliminating the dash midrange driver would give up a lot of volume. I�m trying to avoid replacing the amp or adding a sub enclosure (my kids use the back seats). I�m thinking of 4� coax in the dash and 5.25� coax in the doors. Infinity�s Reference line seems to have the characteristics that everyone liked in the JBL GTO series a few years ago. High efficiency and low impedance (3ohm) for more oomph from the stock amp. Both are made by Harmon. Does anyone have these in their 996?

Imho the amp is garbage. Just replace it and u will be much happier.i put a 4 chanel kenwoid in that was the same size. It had hi and low inputs so i just used the factory harness and a continental radio. I would put the sub in the back shelf. It would be easy to make.

I got mine from Crutchfield (I'm local to them,so it makes it easy). They are the Focal PS 130F https://www.crutchfield.com/S-sRuwrs...e-PS-130F.html . I also have the 4" Focals in the same line in the rear. As far as the sub after failing multiple time in creating a sub box, I found a box on amazon that fits perfectly on the rear shelf with some crude stilts I added to support the front of the box. It allows full use of the rear seats. You'll have to use a shallow mount sub. I used a Focal 10' shallow mount.

I put polk 4x6 in dash and back, along with 5.25 in doors. New kenwood head and 5 channel amp in frunk with a 8 inch boxed kicker sub behind drivers seat . Excellent.

I�m glad folks with entirely new systems are happy with their installs, but I want to avoid an amp install and I�m absolutely not adding a sub enclosure. I use the rear space in my 996. @aturcotte how did you get 4x6s to fit in the dash and rear?

No, putting "full range co-ax speakers" in the doors where the subs are is not a good idea. Those wires are (as you said in your first post) crossed over and are only fed low frequencies - putting full range speakers on them would be a waste and sound like poop... Look for/Google "Tang Band 5.25" woofer/subwoofer"... They're out there...

If you just want to replace the door original subwoofers you can do that with OEM for around $50 each.

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I can see how it would seem like a waste to have unused tweeters sitting there, but I don�t know why it would sound like poop. Infinity 5.25� coaxial speakers have a frequency range down to to 67hz. Do the paper cone stock speakers really go lower than that? The Tang Bands are interesting, with a frequency range down to 45hz. But they�re too deep for the door enclosures, so you have to cut a hole and let the voice coil stick out the back. Not sure I like that. I also read that you can fit 6.5� drivers into the door openings without much modification. That might open up some other possibilities like these Hertz C165 woofers . They go down to 55hz, have a 2.5� mounting depth, and are very efficient at 93db sensitivity.

well it does sound like poop. I have done it. Give it a try u will probably be back a week later asking what amp u should use because the crossover in the original amp makes the stereo sound like poop.

You could rewire the amp to eliminate the rear speakers and send the rear signal to the doors and get full range that way. You'll loose rear speaker and fading but you'll have full range at the doors.

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My car came with Pioneer speakers, amp, sub, and head unit. Sounds decent sitting parked, but once you start rolling it sounds progressively more tinny. I lose a lot of midrange. Do you have that problem? I�m wondering if I need some baffles or if it�s just that the speakers suck.

I'm not an audio engineer, just electrical. My .02 is that if great sound is important to you, completely replace the radio, amp, and all wiring.

I�m not an engineer of any sort, but I have no doubt that replacing every one of the 20 year old stock components with quality aftermarket kit would result in great sound, but that�s not really what I�m after. I just want to be able to turn a rock/rap song up loud enough to sing along with at highway speed without hearing massive bass distortion. The problem is that I don�t have a baseline of how this stereo sounded when new. The p.o. installed a cheap Pioneer head unit and the speakers are all 20 years old. So I don�t know where to set my expectations. But my benchmark would be the stock stereo in my 2003 MINI - a car that cost about 1/3 of a 911 at the time. So I�m going to proceed progressively, but want to have a plan so I�m not cobbling mismatched components together. At this point, I�m going to start with a Continental VDO head unit that doesn�t look like it came from the toddler�s toy aisle and a pair of 4� Hertz CX 100 coaxials in the dash. I�ll see how that sounds before moving to the doors, rears and amp.

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My recommendation will be good for news given your preferences. I would strongly recommend not replacing the door woofers for the following reasons: 1 . The door woofers are actually very well built with rubber surrounds, unlike the dash and rear speakers which are really cheaply made 2 . The door woofers are 2 ohm, which are difficult to find in a woofer/subwoofer driver, 4 ohm will be safe for the amp but have lower volume level and be more difficult to balance volume levels with the mains 3 . The door woofer is as much bass as the door enclosure can handle. You can put a Tang subwoofer in there with some cutting, which will put out much lower frequencies than the stock woofer, but will also rattle the enclosure if you really use the low frequencies. The Tang will also be less balanced in upper bass than the stock woofer, which the factory tuned carefully to blend with the dash/rear speakers. Also, the Tang is 4 ohms rather than 2 ohms, so the volume level will be lower and more difficult to match volumes with the dash/rear speakers. In other words, the Tang will put out much lower bass frequencies, but the overall volume will be lower due to 4 ohm, there will be a hole in the upper bass, and it will rattle if you crank it to take advantage of what the Tang can do. Just leave the stock woofer as is -- it's good quality and it is well balanced as tuned by the factory. No, it won't put out the deepest bass of a sub, but the door enclosure can't handle the low frequency of a driver that acts as a true subwoofer. If you want deep bass, you really need to add a dedicated sub rather than replace the door woofer. I don't know if it will fit under the 996 seat, but under seat subs like this one are only 2.7" high and they rock -> Amazon Amazon I haven't used these in a car, but I'm using a pair of them in my basement with a 12v power supply and they are shockingly good considering how shallow they are:

Well then @wyovino may have the right idea: replace the old door speakers with new stock ones. Everyone seems to agree the dash speakers are junk and the best thing to change first. Are the dash and rear speakers also 2ohm or are they 4ohm? It�s difficult to find 4 inch 2ohm speakers.

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^^^ One thing you should keep in mind is that even under the best of circumstances (ie: sitting still in a driveway or parking space, engine off not much outside ambient noise) the cockpit of the 996 is not an ideal listening environment (glass all around at ear level and relatively low total volume). You can throw all the equipment you want at it and it will never sound "right" (ie: like the music sounded in the concert hall/studio).

The original owner of my '99 C4 Cab completely replaced the sound system with an Alpine head unit, McIntosh 5 channel amp, and Canton speakers. I replaced the Alpine with a Pioneer DEH-80PRS to get BT for my phone. I also bought adapters for the dash from CAI to properly attach the speakers to the grills as the tweeters became unmoored from grill, and were dangling behind the dash, and the ton of hardened glue the installer used. What a mess! The adapters give you some more speaker options so I'd check out CAI-store.com . Good luck with the sound upgrade.

I highly recommend the infinity kappa line with their low imp offerings. I have them in my Porsche 958 and 996tt and they’re so much better sounding. This is on the stock amps as well. I tried the JBL GTO speakers and they were garbage. Couldn’t even get them close to full volume before ‘popping.’

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Unless your old woofers are making noise or otherwise show some signs of being defective, I would leave the originals in place and I really doubt there would be any benefit in putting new speakers of the same type in. The woofers are very high quality with strong rubber surrounds and a strong cone, they are lightly stressed in use, and have no sun exposure in door to damage them. I doubt they degrade at all over time unless somebody abused the system with really high volume levels for a long time. These are my 2000 original woofers -- unfortunately dusty in this photo, but basically like new both structurally and performance-wise:

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The stock dash/rear speakers are 4 ohm, as are most replacements. You need 4" 2-way speakers -- there are none that bolt-in, but it seems like most 4" can be modded to bolt in. If you go onto Crutchfield, you can put in your car model and year and it will show what speakers fit (it should come up "fit with mods"). This link might work -> https://www.crutchfield.com/g_51200/...rs.html?tp=102 Crutchfield has a very cool "SpeakerCompare" tool that allows you to listen and compare each of the speakers (recorded samples under identical conditions). Click compare and you should be able to listen to them. Not the same as hearing them in the car, but gives you a comparison of the characteristics of each speaker. Be sure to click the "Equal Volume" option so the volume is level-matched -- that way you are listening to the differences in speaker sound characteristics. For some reason it defaults to "Equal Power", so the volume-level won't be level matched -- that will help you tell which speaker is most efficient, but it's a terrible choice for comparing sound quality because the louder speaker will tend to sound better because of the volume increase.

Used a dremel to cut the plate to fit . Not easy but doable.

I put Focal K2 Power 100KRS in the front and Focal Performance 100AC in the rear. If I had to do it over, I would probably go with something cheaper. I don't think my listening habits along with the 996 acoustics warrant the expense. I bought the custom adapter rings from CAI-Store.com . I also bought adapter pigtails for both front and rear from Crutchfield. They are Metra #71-017C ' Speaker Wiring Harnesses '. If you're like me and don't like hacking up stock wiring, It allows you to use the stock speaker plugs.

@peterp I�ve spent loads of time on the Crutchfield site already. Seems like there are a bunch of options at every price point for 4� speakers that fit the dash and rear. Many of them ghan�s mounting tabs that are made to be easily clipped off, so they are easier to fit. @SoCal911 I was thinking of getting the CAI adapter rings, until I saw a thread that shows how to cut the stock speaker baskets and use them as the mounting rings for aftermarket speakers. Those wiring adapters look like just the ticket. Thanks for the tip.

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These are the original dash speakers: These are the Alpine SPS-410 (no longer available) with the tabs cut off Alpine's glued in original baskets: Full mounted (original tweeter disconnected since new speakers are 2way) I used the same wires from Crutchfield as SoCal911 in post #27 -- they make the wiring a lot cleaner (no need to cut any wires) .

Here is a step by step for modifying the speaker baskets: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-speakers.html @peterp did you glue the speakers to the rings or can you just clamp them together with the screws? Also, Alpine SPS 410s are still available on Amazon and elsewhere. I�ve read lots of positive things about them, and the price is nice, but I think I want something with higher power handling and lower bass extension.

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Did you check out the SpeakerCompare tool to listen and compare the various speaker brands/models? I think that's probably the best way to get a feel for the sound differences between them. Use a good pair of headphones or a good audio system if you can. It is a very cool tool for evaluating speakers (home and car). I think I glued them in with 3M emblem/plastic glue, they may well get sandwiched by the screws, so maybe you can get away without gluing -- it's been too long for me to remember. Generally, I wouldn't worry about power handling, the factory amp does not put out that much power. The Alpines sound better than stock, but there are serious limits to what any speaker can produce with a 4" "woofer" -- I think this is true even for the much more expensive Focal speakers. The standards on audio specs are pretty loose, so I don't really trust the low-end frequency limit to be a very good indicator of bass extension (not that manufacturers are lying, just that their specs are typically not "apples to apples" in how they are measured across brands). There isn't going to be much bass extension by definition with 4" drivers. In a full home speaker enclosure, it's possible to design creative things to get more bass extension out of 4", but in the relatively open setting as they are mounted in the 996, no 4" is going to provide any decent bass extension. The door woofers will provide most of the bass and should already be tuned to blend low frequency reproduction very well with dash speakers. I would use SpeakerCompare listening on Crutchfield as much more of a basis for choosing than specifications -- every speaker sounds very different when you listen to them side-by-side. The recordings are done in the exact same way for all speakers, so they are "apples vs apples" even though they won't replicate how they sound in the car. When you find the speaker that sounds best to you, make sure if fits. Be sure to click "Equal Volume" in their SpeakerCompare tool, the default "Equal Power" makes no sense at all for comparing speakers.

So I replaced my dash speakers with Alpine S-S40s today. They sound way better. The old speaker surrounds were starting to get gummy and disintegrate. New speakers are much tighter in the mid and bass frequencies. I have another set that I�m going to install in the back. Old vs New. Look how much bigger the new speaker magnet is than the old Nokia unit. I used the cut down baskets from the old speakers to mount the new ones along with the wiring adapters from Crutchfield. It was pretty simple. I did not need to glue them together, they are clamped tight once screwed together.

laser cut discs to install 4" Infinity drivers into 'modified' OEM speaker frames. Construction adhesive to build an airtight and rattle proof setup. Left the door woofers to do their job.

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OE door speakers run at a constant 2 ohm impedance output from the Nokia or HAES amplifiers. Replacing the door speakers with standard 4-ohms will cause popping or distortion in the bass range at higher level. Ask me how I know. hahaha The dash and rear speakers run at a nominal 4 ohm impediance. If you want direct replacements for your OE 2-ohm door speaker. This is some of the best sound for the buck... https://www.crutchfield.com/p_151OE5...ss-OE-522.html

The Crutchfield site says it doesn't fit my car - 2000 C2 with HiFi option. Is that just because the case needs to be modified as people have done with other speakers?

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most 5 1/4" speakers will fit the doors, but if you're using the factory amp you won't get full range, just low frequency. I replaced the amp and went with a 5 1/4" component set leaving the dash speakers empty and replacing the dash tweeter and door woofer.

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From memory (in other words, I could be wrong) I think Crutchfield has 3 fit categories: 1) fits; 2) fits with mods; 3) doesn't fit. It says doesn't fit. From the picture, It looks like tweeter sits out a bit from the rest of the woofer -- I wonder if it is tagged as not fitting because it would hit the grill in the 996. It's very cool to see that a vendor covered the "2-ohm" case for OEM replacment, though I'm very surprised they would have the tweeter stick out so far (if it is as far as it looks in the picture) since that would seem to be an impediment for OEM fit. In the case of the 996, where high frequencies are cut anyway, maybe it's possible to break off the tweeter. I also wonder whether this would sound better than the OEM 996 woofer. I don't think the stock woofer is that bad. I do like the idea of using a woofer, and not a subwoofer (which overwhelms the door enclosure (rattles)).

This guy: https://cai-store.com/ He'll answer every question you have. I have called and emailed and he's legit. I just redid my audio (Alpine Amp, Kenwood HU / Hertz speakers) and bought it all from him, ready to install, plug and play.

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Leave the doors alone, they are subs, not 2-way's.

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The factory door speaker is much more of a woofer than it is a sub. I have not advocated replacing the door speakers, in fact I have advocated for keeping the door woofers in several posts in this thread (see post #19 for example). I was only commenting on the fit of the new 2 ohm speaker.

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Yeah, just generalizing, �sub�. I too was advocating to keep the doors.

Coincidentally I did the upgrade of the standard hifi in my 996 this weekend. I made a mix. Alpine SPG-10c2 in the dash. And German Audio CC 4008 in the back. The German Audio have a theoretically better low range. Fitting the Alpines inside the mounting ring is a bit of a pita as I did not have proper tools to make the inside of the ring better. An option is to just trim the tabs on the Alpines (not cut off completely) and glue the trimmed tabs on top of the flange of the ring. You could use some additional adhesive to fill the gaps around. Saves the machining of the ring. The German Audios were a bit easier in that respect. The connectors to the speakers in the car are AUDI/VW. As shown in one of the previous posts. I re-used the existing socket on the speaker mount by soldering two pieces of speaker wire From the socket to the terminals on the new speaker. Overall quite happy with the result.

Has anyone replaced the factory sub speakers with the 5.25" Tang subs? And kept the stock Bose amp and HU? Not sure if that will work or not, looking to get a bit more bass out of my sub enclosure. Car is a 2003 with MOST, if that matters....

Replacing the door speakers is not a good idea unless you find stock ones. In most cars, the door speakers are interchangeable because they are not in enclosures. They function like an infinite baffle, or at most, an aperiodic enclosure. The 996 door speakers, at least in my Bose system, are a true ported box--a Helmholtz resonator. (As folks are so fond of pointing out the stock air intake is.) The frequency to which the box is tuned is a function of the size of the box and the geometry of the port. It ONLY works with a speaker that has the same Qts, Fs, and Vas (the basic Thiele/Small parameters). A mismatched speaker could give you a big hump in the bass, but that would not sound accurate or have the right midrange. It could also have no bass at all. The only way to match that factory door box is to measure the volume and port, know the T/S specs of the speaker, and run it through computer models. (Or testing, if you have the gear. The port isn't simple, so a true model would need to be done with fairly sophisticated software, not the free stuff). Critically, a different driver (speaker) will not go go any lower because the bass extension is mostly governed by the port. Even if it could, lower is generally the opposite of louder. (By louder I mean more volume with the same input power. This is "Hoffman's law," which provides you can have only have two of the three features of small size, bass extension, and high sensitivity.) If you want something different, you need to change the box too. (Stuffing it enough to turn it into an aperiodic might work for certain speakers, especially if you drilled holes in it, but that is beyond the scope of my comments here.) Separately, I see all sorts of posts with people talking about the age of the speaker. 20 years is not old for a speaker unless it has seen a bunch of UV (for exposed materials that react to UV, like most paper cones) and/or it the surround deteriorated (foam that rotted or fabric that stiffened). That won't have been the case here unless the car was in a flood (in which case, don't worry about the audio!). (The motor may have lost a tiny bit of steam, but not enough to make the slightest difference). On the other hand, 20 years is at or beyond the life of an audio capacitor, especially ones that were chosen to be tiny rather than great quality. Even good caps generally only have a 20 year lifespan. I'd put money on the amp and receiver not sounding nearly as good as they did new. (Think of the 60hz hum you hear if you power on an old radio. That is a bad power supply filter cap. We don't get that hum in car audio because the power source started off as DC rather than AC from the wall. But you will notice things like a lack of bass!). So, my advice is the leave the door speakers alone. I haven't pulled the dash speakers out, but I bet those are infinite baffle and you could replace them with whatever car speakers fit. The rears are infinite baffle and you could do whatever you want. Then, as others have said, and what would make by far the biggest difference, is all new electronics. Just be sure your amp can drive the 2 ohm door speakers without any trouble. And to my eye, a lot of car audio is blingy garbage (not unlike many aspects of a modern Bimmer!), so choose wisely. Paul (I'm an avid audio hobbyist. I've designed and built a lot of speakers and amplifiers and used to sell speakers to diy'ers. I've worked with audio gear that cost more than my 996. I'm leaving my stock 996 audio alone unless and until it dies, aside from adding an aux input to the Becker unit.)

One more thing: if the speakers I mentioned could be replaced, the dash and rear panels, are 2 ohm (impedance--not the DC resistance that will show on your multimeter and be lower), putting a 4 ohm speaker in the same hole will probably cause the amp to put out half the power. So, it is entirely possible you could swap them out and get less volume from the factory electronics (a speaker could be twice the impedance but also 3db more sensitive rendering it a wash, but that isn't terribly likely). Thus, if you aren't replacing electronics, I'd try and match the impedance of whatever is in there. Paul

Thanks Paul. Do you know if the speakers in the rear sub box are 2 ohm as well? The Tangs are 4 ohm so you have a good point here. I'm planning to leave all speakers alone except the ones in the rear sub box- the one behind the rear seats in a coupe.

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If I'm not mistaken, the individual drivers inside the Bose sub enclosure have an impedance of 2 ohm each. The subwoofer has it's own amplifier located inside enclosure. (see attached diagram of system) Many incorrectly call the door enclosures a "subwoofer box", but if you refer to the Porsche shop manual, it is called a full range speaker. Both of my 996 had the "HiFi" systems with the 5.25 drivers in the door. I currently have the Bose system with a subwoofer. Personally, you should replace the speakers with OEM or with matching impedance drivers.

I just replaced my original speakers with Focal ES100K in the front and ICU100 in the back. Sounds a lot better but there’s not much bass since I don’t have the door speakers unfortunately. It’s a pain to mount the Focal crossovers behind the dash as there’s not much room there. And I was shocked to discover that I actually didn’t have any tweeters. The tweeter holes were closed and I had to open them with a Dremel. I kept the stock CDR-220 because I like the vintage period look. I ordered rings and cable adapters here: https://www.jmgshop.com/porsche-boxs...akers-62-p.asp

Just a quick update on my audio progression. I started this journey because I was unhappy with the bass and volume from my original speakers and cheap Pioneer head unit installed by the previous owner. I suspected the door woofers, but as many people here pointed out, they weren�t the place to start. My sound was much improved with the installation of Alpine coaxials in the dash and rear. Today, I installed a new Alpine CDE-172BT head unit. I wanted something with both a CD player and Bluetooth connectivity, but didn�t expect a sonic upgrade. However, this thing sounds noticeably better than the previous cheap unit, even though it�s still running through the original Nokia amp. I think a matching Alpine amp will be my next step, but I�m pretty happy with this setup for now.

My 2001 996 also has the Nokia M490 6x40A "Hi-Fi" system. Last summer I replaced the OE head-unit with an Alpine CDE-172BT and upgraded the dash and door speakers to Alpine S-S40 4" co-axial speakers. I system sounded significantly better. My only complaint is that it isn't loud enough when you have the windows down at highway speed. I'm also considering upgrading the amp to something more powerful - did you ever do so?

Has anyone tried fitting the Alpine S2-S40C? Not to be confused with the no �C� at the end - these are components with an inline crossover, meaning you don�t have a crossover box. The other model S2-S40 is known to fit and its coaxial so it contains the tweeter. The stock tweeter measures 1 3/8� and the spec sheet for this speaker shows the tweeter measures the same amount. This may be a little better than the coaxial version because the woofer would be closed in the middle and tweeter being separate means you may squeeze some more dynamic range out of it over the coaxial version. https://www.crutchfield.com/p_500S2S...e-S2-S40C.html

Re: Alpine S2-S40C Well, I bit the bullet and tried it. It fits pretty well without issues. No cutting. You just need to hot glue the sucker in there. Will report back on the sound once I get my speaker adapters in.

I just finished installing a set of the Alpine S2-S40C speakers today, thanks to this thread! Can confirm they fit well and that the stock speaker mounts can be modified to hold them. I want to share my experience which differs a little from the norm. I have the hifi non Bose stereo option (CDR-220 receiver and M490 amp) but a previous owner swapped in Bose dash speakers. I was able to modify the Bose mounts by doing some significant dremelling. The Alpines then drop in after snapping off some metal tabs used for screw mounting. I used hot glue to secure things. Pretty happy with the overall sound pairing these with the stock amp, stock door woofers, and a modern mid range head unit (in this case Alpine UTE-73 BT).

So I replaced my fronts and they sounded great for exactly one drive. On the next drive, the entire front channel no longer works. Has anyone had this where they upgraded their speakers and some other component like the amp or HU failed? I wonder what this could be.

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Ahh what a bummer. I'd suspect the amp. You could try pulling the head unit and use a multimeter to check that the line level outputs are at least reaching 0.5v (should see voltage change when you adjust the volume). If you have a way to adapt RCA to a 3.5mm TS or TRS jack, you could also test using a pair of wired headphones.

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Sorry to hear that. I would put an ohmmeter across the new speaker terminals while disconnected from the amp. Very low impedance can kill an amp from too much current draw. It should measure around the impedance rating. Maybe on speaker has issue. Did you disconnect the factory tweeter? If not, maybe that being wired in parallel might lower impedance if one of them has an internal short. it�s worthwhile to try to find out what caused the issue if you can before replacing the amp. The amp may have a fuse that just blew if there was a speaker short or partial short. Good luck with solving. It�s always frustrating when an �upgrade� goes backwards, but hopefully will be worth the effort once you�ve solved it

Somehow everything is working in the end. The speakers tested at about 3.8-3.9 ohms. I disconnected and reconnected them. I noticed when the wiring points on the woofers were facing to the front of the car there was less space and maybe getting pinched/shorted. I faced them the opposite direction towards the cabin and everything works and sounds great. I recommend these speakers (Alpine S2-S40C). They fit all 4 corners and sound great with minimal effort. I used super_Paulie mounts from eBay.

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Just thinking about pulling the trigger on these. Did you have to hot glue the tweeter or does the mounting bracket (specific to the tweeter. has three little tabs holding it in) from the original bose tweeter work? It does appear you used glue but not sure if you had original tweeters from the Bose system or standard speakers. Thx