Well there is always the thread that I originated on here which works well 
. That's essentially disconnect the tweeters, replace the mid - bass with multiple cone ones which include the tweeters [Infinity in my case] and you use a Golf IV speaker adaptor kit [2 x front and back] which you trim a bit off to fit. You would think that at some state an adaptor kit may come out for the Altea but perhaps the volumes aren't great enough yet and never will be. The tube that someone posted up for Beetle is too big for the rears the rear window would hit it, the ones on my thread are just fine for front and back.
The headend doesn't support a sub woofer but who would want one in any case ... the sound out of the headend is pretty good just that the manufactures speaker are crap.
See
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=76991&highlight=buzzy
which links too other discussions on the topic. See second post down.
. That's essentially disconnect the tweeters, replace the mid - bass with multiple cone ones which include the tweeters [Infinity in my case] and you use a Golf IV speaker adaptor kit [2 x front and back] which you trim a bit off to fit. You would think that at some state an adaptor kit may come out for the Altea but perhaps the volumes aren't great enough yet and never will be. The tube that someone posted up for Beetle is too big for the rears the rear window would hit it, the ones on my thread are just fine for front and back. The headend doesn't support a sub woofer but who would want one in any case ... the sound out of the headend is pretty good just that the manufactures speaker are crap.
See
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=76991&highlight=buzzy
which links too other discussions on the topic. See second post down.
hi. i have read through the post on upgrading the speakers, but have a problem in that i have a set of 17cm apline speakers (custom fit ones, with many mounting holes on outer edge.) just stuck on finding a mount/spacer to fit the speakers in? thinking of making my own? although could be a paiin to get exactly correct demensionally? would good quality MDF/exterior ply do?
me too, but i had these from my prev car, only in less than 2months till got rid of car, cost £40, on tight budget too.would 17s squeeze into the hopfully flexible 16.5cm mounts do you think?
CMD the issue with the speaker mount is that they are custom ones so you don't get to buy speakers and just bolt them in, that was the good old days, now you need speakers adaptor kits aka mounts. First choose your speakers then find the mounts. The reality is that only specific sizes of speakers fit and that Golf adaptor kit works for the said dimension of speakers in that thread albeit you need to trim the rim off, else you need to get into construction which is what Googies is talking about.
Right without taking it all apart again and it's far too cold for that... well I was going to offer you Loadswine pictures but they have gone so as to give you an idea of the mount. MDF is the in word as I recall with car audio.... one suspects that if you are a good hand at construction you can do something. Can you not just use some of the screw holes ?.
Basically as I recall and looking at this picture for the SAK-3103
http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Speaker_adaptors/volkswagen.htm
the speaker mount deeper into the car than the plane where you bolt the construction back onto the car else you can't get the grill cover on !. That's what the adaptor does as well as giving you the screw holes in the right place. I don't think the 5mm makes a difference and why can't you just drill out extra holes ? in the said adaptor ... just a thought. LOL. [post crossed I think they would]
We're getting there ...
The inner screw holes as I recall hold the adaptor too the car and the outter ones hold the speakers or it's the other way round.... see the problem. Some one with a heated garage can reveal which way round it is. Bottom line is that it isn't straight forward. The thread holes are around the outter ring. The speakers go in one set and the other holes are used to hold it to the car.... got there in the end.
<where is Loadswine picture these days showing the stages of the project>
Right without taking it all apart again and it's far too cold for that... well I was going to offer you Loadswine pictures but they have gone so as to give you an idea of the mount. MDF is the in word as I recall with car audio.... one suspects that if you are a good hand at construction you can do something. Can you not just use some of the screw holes ?.
Basically as I recall and looking at this picture for the SAK-3103
http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Speaker_adaptors/volkswagen.htm
the speaker mount deeper into the car than the plane where you bolt the construction back onto the car else you can't get the grill cover on !. That's what the adaptor does as well as giving you the screw holes in the right place. I don't think the 5mm makes a difference and why can't you just drill out extra holes ? in the said adaptor ... just a thought. LOL. [post crossed I think they would]
We're getting there ...
The inner screw holes as I recall hold the adaptor too the car and the outter ones hold the speakers or it's the other way round.... see the problem. Some one with a heated garage can reveal which way round it is
. Bottom line is that it isn't straight forward. The thread holes are around the outter ring. The speakers go in one set and the other holes are used to hold it to the car.... got there in the end.<where is Loadswine picture these days showing the stages of the project>
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Googies m8 i have not even had a look at the stock speakers yet ? I don't
even know how to get the stock ones out of the doors ect ect.I think i have
a good hear for music and do my own cd's/mp3 discs on the sound studio on
my computer and try to get the sound as tight as i can.I just feel the seat fit
unit's are a bit under par .Were the after market easy to fit and how did you do it
even know how to get the stock ones out of the doors ect ect.I think i have
a good hear for music and do my own cd's/mp3 discs on the sound studio on
my computer and try to get the sound as tight as i can.I just feel the seat fit
unit's are a bit under par .Were the after market easy to fit and how did you do it
Tell.....i think given the time i could make them up, or customise the custom golf mounts??a heat gun to let the frame be pulled open slightly with a small frame placed inside them mount to the required size might work, we only talkin 5mm on light plastic? or could go to scrapy and get stock speakers form a golf or altea/toledo and take out original speaker and fit new ones,it all lots of work, time and £ but needsto be done. Agree, the fog and cold not great for poking the fiddly inners.lol :wink:
CMD.... havnt got as far as replacing speakers yet but have got the grill off to have a look and seems straight forward (when mount is sorted) although the cable cutting putting me of as wasnt afraid to do it on my 206, now i am a bit on the Toledo!? will figure it out, a few pics on here on that, will just sit and study them....im suppsed to be doing engineering.lol
CMD.... havnt got as far as replacing speakers yet but have got the grill off to have a look and seems straight forward (when mount is sorted) although the cable cutting putting me of as wasnt afraid to do it on my 206, now i am a bit on the Toledo!? will figure it out, a few pics on here on that, will just sit and study them....im suppsed to be doing engineering.lol
Googies there is no cable cutting if your get the adaptor fit, well the only cable you cut is the one on the adaptor kit, that is the beuty of the solution that the kit comes with leads and a socket, so you pull the plug out the speakers into the socket, connect the leads to the speakers and snip the lead I mention [the adaptor kit lead] to silence the fitted tweeters.
I think you'd get the adaptor kit and then just seen how much you need to cut away, may be nothing to get them to fit into it. I know I was taking risks when I order the adaptor kit since I didnm't know whether I could use it but it sounded promising.
Oh and CMD the Seat fitted speaker are crap not "are a bit under par" LOL. Trashy paper speakers fit for a 60s transistor radio.
I think you'd get the adaptor kit and then just seen how much you need to cut away, may be nothing to get them to fit into it. I know I was taking risks when I order the adaptor kit since I didnm't know whether I could use it but it sounded promising.
Oh and CMD the Seat fitted speaker are crap not "are a bit under par" LOL. Trashy paper speakers fit for a 60s transistor radio.
PAP-er speakers!complete SH!T!have 2sets of 6x9's wonder could we come up for a solution to fit them.lol...only jokin!! will try a local place or halfords to get the kit. dont use th net for mail order as have no C.card and dont intend on one!! forgot about the fact the wire was snipped on the adaptor lead, that ok, as can afford to make a mistake if comes to it! how much you pay for kit? taking it, it all came together?
p.s. just to set right.. ichecked the nexis site and found the kit, all comes together, so not too bad, price ok too.
p.s. just to set right.. ichecked the nexis site and found the kit, all comes together, so not too bad, price ok too.
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I have an Altea - new July 2006 in which I reckon the speakers are really good!
Is it just me or have they changed them perhaps from the ones in earlier years?
The sound output from the supplied head unit is very loud and clear with deep undistorted resonant base sounds from the lower door speakers (x4) with sharp clear high end sounds from the tweeters (x4) in the upper door panels. Dont know what the actual spec is (that is actual RMS sound output is) but to me it is clear, sharp and undistorted even at very high volumes.
I consider myself quite a reasonable hi fi buff and don't reckon the unit in my Altea is bad at all. Am I missing something here or do some of you just like your music so loud you like the windows to shake and not worry about the quality of the sound?
Is it just me or have they changed them perhaps from the ones in earlier years?
The sound output from the supplied head unit is very loud and clear with deep undistorted resonant base sounds from the lower door speakers (x4) with sharp clear high end sounds from the tweeters (x4) in the upper door panels. Dont know what the actual spec is (that is actual RMS sound output is) but to me it is clear, sharp and undistorted even at very high volumes.
I consider myself quite a reasonable hi fi buff and don't reckon the unit in my Altea is bad at all. Am I missing something here or do some of you just like your music so loud you like the windows to shake and not worry about the quality of the sound?
Magnus
Guest
'twas me that used the Beetle/Lupo adaptors. The tubes themselves were fine, but I only checked the mounting depth for the speakers on the front, not realising that the rears had less room.
A shallow mount speaker would work fine without mods.Many installers would just use MDF rings glued and screwed together. They can be bought, though at a greater cost than plastic tubes for the quantity to create the depth required. Anybody handy with a router and a sheet of 18mm mdf should be able to knock a few rings up in no time.
No the official line here is that the Altea speakers as fitted to the car are crap, obviously at some point Seat may change them, but in two year plus they haven't. The head end is fine. You can always remove the speakers with the TX screw driver and tell us whether they are made by Phillips and paper based cones . So far they have been and they are the crap ones. The tweeters aren't up to much either since there isn't a proper crossover between the mid range and the tweeters... running in parallel isn't a crossover you need a few more components for that. Thus in HiFi terms paper cone speakers, no crossover is the lowest of the lows and it sounds like it once you stop kidding yourself that it’s a new car with excellent sound. So us early adopters of the Altea ditched our speakers, least on here.
. So far they have been and they are the crap ones. The tweeters aren't up to much either since there isn't a proper crossover between the mid range and the tweeters... running in parallel isn't a crossover you need a few more components for that. Thus in HiFi terms paper cone speakers, no crossover is the lowest of the lows and it sounds like it once you stop kidding yourself that it’s a new car with excellent sound. So us early adopters of the Altea ditched our speakers, least on here.
not saying they completly useless, still get an ok'ish can listen to it sound from them, but go past vol10 and they muffle the sound out, they go out of phase with the sound or something along those lines, (hypothesising here) and thats just what we all are talkng about. Paper is for writing on!!not changing back ones just yet, budget wont allow. measured the speakers last night and dont know if i was seeing things, or just the cold, but i measured a depth of (from memory) 35mm and diameter of 145mm??are the stock this size?
No the official line here is that the Altea speakers as fitted to the car are crap, obviously at some point Seat may change them, but in two year plus they haven't. The head end is fine. You can always remove the speakers with the TX screw driver and tell us whether they are made by Phillips and paper based cones
Being one of the original speaker changers on the Altea i agree with Tell, the factory speakers are poor and as far as i am aware have not improved since. I recently changed my Altea for a 56 plate Leon Fr and the first thing i changed was the speakers. The only thing i have noticed is that the newer mp3 head unit is more powerfull than the old one. The tweeters are no easier to change than they were in the Altea so went with the Alpine two ways, that have tweeters you can angle. You can see from the picture the cut down mounts. The sub is just a nice addition! The sound difference is amazing. Paul
Chaps
The first thing for you to do is take your car down to your nearest Car HiFi installer!!!.
Since my very first car i have never had a standard factory Headset and when i was a teenager i used to enter sound-off's but now im to old and couldn't be bothered to strip the interior and install a system! so now i leave it to the professionals.
Anyhow
if you want to change your speakers and can afford say £100 or more for the front set, just go down to your local Car HiFi dealer to fit them it wont cost much more than £25 and especially in this weather its a safer and warmer option, and you get a guarantee incase anything goes wrong.
as for unplugging the front tweeter, yes but change it for a component set as the noise of the Altea at motorway speeds you will need the sound barrier to be above your head which at any cost of a midrange unit with or without attached tweeter will not do as the sound stage will be to low and all you will be doing is turning the radio up to get more sound out of it..
anyway that's my two pennies worth
cheers
N
The first thing for you to do is take your car down to your nearest Car HiFi installer!!!.
Since my very first car i have never had a standard factory Headset and when i was a teenager i used to enter sound-off's but now im to old and couldn't be bothered to strip the interior and install a system! so now i leave it to the professionals.
Anyhow
if you want to change your speakers and can afford say £100 or more for the front set, just go down to your local Car HiFi dealer to fit them it wont cost much more than £25 and especially in this weather its a safer and warmer option, and you get a guarantee incase anything goes wrong.
as for unplugging the front tweeter, yes but change it for a component set as the noise of the Altea at motorway speeds you will need the sound barrier to be above your head which at any cost of a midrange unit with or without attached tweeter will not do as the sound stage will be to low and all you will be doing is turning the radio up to get more sound out of it..
anyway that's my two pennies worth
cheers
N
Paul good too see the hacked speaker mounts picture and agree. Not so sure about the sub woofer, I'm all for it in home cinema but not in the car... but it could be me.
Newbie, where is the fun in taking the car to a HiFi dealer for them to tell you that they can't fit the speakers. As Paul says above and some 18 months ago or so to change the door tweeters costs about £200 per door in Seat service time let alone other costs. Basically the tweeters aren't in the correct position since you get the rear tweeter giving you an image in your ear as well as the front tweeter which is hifi terms isn't good. The high pitched sound if it isn't surround sound you want to hear from a point source. With the placement of the tweeters you get 3 x [2 front and one rear in your ear] and 2 x the mid range from the front. In the club mix stuff that I listened too with the built in speakers it sounded dreadfull since first the paper speakers are poor and second the stage for the high frequency sound is wrong in my view. Even if I could put my tweeters in the door I wouldn't. You do get use to the sound stage being low at the front rather than the mush when the tweeters are in all four doors up high.
The option to change the speakers is down to ones own judgement, but a lot of people did and you'll find a lot of Altea driving around with the VW Golf Mk IV speaker adaptor kit hacked down in, thanks to me. I do thank Paul again, for his wire cutting advice from two years back to silence the tweeters, he takes the credit for that and I get the credit for the adapter kit hack down ... your just not a man if you pay someone do you your car audio...
Newbie, where is the fun in taking the car to a HiFi dealer for them to tell you that they can't fit the speakers. As Paul says above and some 18 months ago or so to change the door tweeters costs about £200 per door in Seat service time let alone other costs. Basically the tweeters aren't in the correct position since you get the rear tweeter giving you an image in your ear as well as the front tweeter which is hifi terms isn't good. The high pitched sound if it isn't surround sound you want to hear from a point source. With the placement of the tweeters you get 3 x [2 front and one rear in your ear] and 2 x the mid range from the front. In the club mix stuff that I listened too with the built in speakers it sounded dreadfull since first the paper speakers are poor and second the stage for the high frequency sound is wrong in my view. Even if I could put my tweeters in the door I wouldn't. You do get use to the sound stage being low at the front rather than the mush when the tweeters are in all four doors up high.
The option to change the speakers is down to ones own judgement, but a lot of people did and you'll find a lot of Altea driving around with the VW Golf Mk IV speaker adaptor kit hacked down in, thanks to me
. I do thank Paul again, for his wire cutting advice from two years back to silence the tweeters, he takes the credit for that and I get the credit for the adapter kit hack down ... your just not a man if you pay someone do you your car audio...Newbi in one way your totally correct but who do you trust it the great big
world of so I.C.E experts ?? I would like to do this myself i don't want to cut,
bend,glue some after market speakers in or let a so called expert f..k my car
up like they have been known to do(you hear the story's) The factory MP3
is a good unit .It's shame it does not have a graphic equaliser like my now
sold 2005 Volvo S40 had (front/rear set up).
world of so I.C.E experts ?? I would like to do this myself i don't want to cut,
bend,glue some after market speakers in or let a so called expert f..k my car
up like they have been known to do(you hear the story's) The factory MP3
is a good unit .It's shame it does not have a graphic equaliser like my now
sold 2005 Volvo S40 had (front/rear set up).
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there's nothing like a bit of banter!!!!
Tell
Gone are the days when i wouldn't hesitate in stripping the interior of a MK2 astra or Golf but to start ripping apart a near £15000 Seat is too much for me.
Im well up to the job but the sort of system that i enjoy it would take me up to a week to install so i now leave it to the professionals and in my area their is plenty to choice from, my local installer have contract's with Bentley/porsche/BMW/Mercedes, etc. and when my install was being done my car was parked next to a Jaguar XK on one side and a Ferrari F430 on the other so i new my lowly £15000 Seat Altea was in good hands.
Just a quick note about my system i have an Alpine Component set in the front and a coaxial in the rear doors so the sound stage isnt compromised Oh and a 12" ported sub in the boot which isn't the best thing to have as iv virtually got no space but im currently measuring up for an enclosure to be fitted in the lower boot.
Unlike some im never impressed with the standard headunit that's why i always change them especially as i use an iPod as my main source of music but if you just want to have a different sound and want to keep your original head unit many aftermarket manufactures do a range of replacement speakers that sound much better than the original and fit the original enclosure with out cutting or drilling.!
Its only if you want to use an Amp with your speakers it when you might need something a bit more powerful and that's when you need to install bigger deeper speakers.
i hope this puts my point accross!!! im not trying to force my opinion on you just give an insite to what iv done to my car..
cheers
N
Tell
Gone are the days when i wouldn't hesitate in stripping the interior of a MK2 astra or Golf but to start ripping apart a near £15000 Seat is too much for me.
Im well up to the job but the sort of system that i enjoy it would take me up to a week to install so i now leave it to the professionals and in my area their is plenty to choice from, my local installer have contract's with Bentley/porsche/BMW/Mercedes, etc. and when my install was being done my car was parked next to a Jaguar XK on one side and a Ferrari F430 on the other so i new my lowly £15000 Seat Altea was in good hands.
Just a quick note about my system i have an Alpine Component set in the front and a coaxial in the rear doors so the sound stage isnt compromised Oh and a 12" ported sub in the boot which isn't the best thing to have as iv virtually got no space but im currently measuring up for an enclosure to be fitted in the lower boot.
Unlike some im never impressed with the standard headunit that's why i always change them especially as i use an iPod as my main source of music but if you just want to have a different sound and want to keep your original head unit many aftermarket manufactures do a range of replacement speakers that sound much better than the original and fit the original enclosure with out cutting or drilling.!
Its only if you want to use an Amp with your speakers it when you might need something a bit more powerful and that's when you need to install bigger deeper speakers.
i hope this puts my point accross!!! im not trying to force my opinion on you just give an insite to what iv done to my car..
cheers
N
I'm a rapidly loosing the thread on this one, since if you want a Bentley sound system then why don't you buy a Bentley and not a £15,000 car. Why put stuff in it that costs so much when the car isn't worth much ?. LOL.
If I put stuff in my Altea for all to see it would be ripped out with broken glass down the road and put on a car boot sale, as it did with my first car, an Uno where the parcel shelf, the back window and the speakers were taken in the night, hence the love of the headend and the no sight upgrade to the speakers since under statement is the watch word in London if you don't want to file a police report and brush up broken glass, but one notes that most people don't, they just leave it.
Seat's are the cars for boy racers to twigg with, but paying someone to twigg with it doesn't seem to gell in my book. Just an observation, there is no fun in that. The fun for car audio is choosing the upgrade and doing it yourself, then listening too it and thinking, that sounds good and I did it myself.
If I put stuff in my Altea for all to see it would be ripped out with broken glass down the road and put on a car boot sale, as it did with my first car, an Uno where the parcel shelf, the back window and the speakers were taken in the night, hence the love of the headend and the no sight upgrade to the speakers since under statement is the watch word in London if you don't want to file a police report and brush up broken glass, but one notes that most people don't, they just leave it.
Seat's are the cars for boy racers to twigg with, but paying someone to twigg with it doesn't seem to gell in my book. Just an observation, there is no fun in that. The fun for car audio is choosing the upgrade and doing it yourself, then listening too it and thinking, that sounds good and I did it myself.
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