Stiff

The standard speakers in MY96 (pre-facelift) WRX are pretty good but I've been offered a pair of Alpine 6x9" SPE-6903 (150W PEAK, 30W RMS, IMP 4 OHMS) Different people are telling me different things, so can I ask....
Will they sound better in the back? (been told they won't)
Or in the front doors? (been told they will)
Will they be a pain to put in the back (been told they will)
What should I be paying for them second hand but in VGC. (he want's £30)
Thanks,
Steve.

DJNafey

I'm presuming you've changed the head unit? If you haven't, then, at 35w per channel (max), the standard Clarion unit won't push enough power into those big speakers to make them sound much better than the original speakers that are already fitted, as the standard ones are designed to sound good with relatively low power (i.e. 35 watts) going into them.

A 6x9" won't go into the front doors without some modifications as the original speaker is 16cm (6.5") ....... and round!

The parcel shelf comes with a 16cm or 17cm round speaker as standard as far as I recall (it's a while since I took mine out of my MY96 WRX) but it's mounted on a 6x9 adaptor plate, which you can remove in order to fit the bigger speakers. Only problem is that you'll need to mount them from underneath so that you can leave the original speaker grilles on top of the carpeted parcel shelf and, therefore, you won't have your back window smashed in so that someone can nick the Alpines that they can see.

With regards to the difficulty, it's definitely a lot more difficult to get to the back speakers than it ought to be. You have to take off the plastic trim in the rear quarters, which goes right the way forward to the middle of the car, then you have to get the back seat out, then you have to get the parcel shelf out, which is awkward ......... and what looks like a 5-minute job ends up taking a couple of hours. Once you've got that far, swapping the speakers is easy, even if you have to make up MDF spacers like I did. Then you fit it all back together and find that a load of the glue has dried off of the parcel shelf carpet and it doesn't sit flat properly. So then you spend another two hours using both hands to maneouvre the parcel shelf back into place, whilst trying to use the third and fourth hands that you don't have in order to pull the carpet tight so you can trap it against the back window.

Eventually you get everything back together, connected up and you switch your head unit on and think to yourself "oh bu**er, they don't sound as good as I thought they would" and you wish you hadn't bothered.

Fitting better front speakers (if you've got an uprated head unit) makes much more of a difference. But beware - the front doors and trim resonate - you need Dynamat sound deadening on them!

£30 doesn't sound too bad but check out http://www.cel-direct.com - new Alpine 6x9s are surprisingly inexpensive.

If you want any more advice, I've replaced the fronts and rears and the head unit in my MY96 WRX and I'll be happy to help with whatever I can remember. Also, Chiark (a moderator here in the ICE forum) has a web site with some really good illustrated guides - www.chiark.com

DJNafey

P.S. If you've got the standard head unit, it'll be branded "Addzest" but that's the Japanese name for Clarion