What size can I fit

[chris172]

I am going to upgrade the stereo and want to know what size speakers I can fit. I have had a look and both front and rear are 5" (13cm). Now the fronts look as though 6.5" (17cm) would fit but has anybody managed this without major mods.

Also, what wattage speakers match to what wattage amp, this also applies to subs/amps. Like should the wattage of the speakers match or exceed the amp wattage?

Also along the same line, what is the wattage ratio between speakers and sub. like say....speakers are 100W and the sub is 200w should it match the speakers or be twice the wattage.

If you can decipher that lot your comments would be appretiated

 

[Nick Read]

Im trying to remember...errrmmm...firstly always deal in rms not peak power or any other weird measure. Anyway if your speakers could handle 100w (thats quite a lot for 5s) then youd want a 100w per channel amp at least.

The sub will need to be at least 2 or 3 times more power. Generally a good guide is to look at specs for 4 ch amps - they give say 50w left and right then 150w bridged mono for the sub. Thats about right.

If your speakers are rated a lot higher than the amp, they will still sound hit when the amp is really cranking it out. If your amp is rated a lot higher than the speakers, they will sound OK until you start to overpower them and then you will knacker them. So its safer to have higher power-handling speakers than the amp that drives them, but theres not really any sonic advantage to it, so you might as well try and match the speaker rating to the amp rating.

 

[luke.B]

please dojnt take offence here nick, but i think you are wrong. most american manfactures of amps tend to sereosly underrate the rms rateings of there equipment (e.g rockford fosgate, pheonix gold etc..) and if you used that rule of thumb then you would never buy a good amp. in every proffesional instalers i have been to they recomend getting the most powerful (and good quality amp) you can afford and then when you install the speakers turn the gain down to 0 then slowly turn them up until you get a good ballanced sound with no distortion when the head unit is turned to full.... when the speakers have run in for a while then you can turn the gain up following the same rule. i know a guy who has five 1000w (rms) monoblocks runing every speaker individually with the gain only at about 1/8 on some of the speakers... although there is some power wasted it means the amp can power the speaker to the peak of its ability without getting to hot, losing its sound quality or it efficiancy (db.


sorry for the essay but i like amps!

luke

 

[nedbeard]

Assuming the mk2 doors are similar to the mk1, 17cm speakers will fit with relatively little work... youll need to cut out a few mm from around the speaker hole, plastic and metal, depending, of course, of the size of the speaker basket and magnet.
I managed to fit some Emphaser midbass items with a squeeze:

http://www.mgk.es/clio/6f0f0554.jpg

Id advise you to soundproof the doors when fitting bigger speakers to lessen the chance of rattles from the extra bass. Adhesive asphalt sheeting (Dynamat or Brown Bread) should do the trick.