UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

as per title- have my reasons for asking- just want to know what others are running first

I, Curently running 4 Pionner 6x9's on 25mm thick parcle shelf which is SOLID. The speakers are amped (200w each)

They sound good, But i am wanting to change it and stick a compnent set in the back as well as the front.

This wont be anytime soon, though so the 6x9's will be staying.

Yes, because I had some spare speakers and I felt like it. Soon to have no front speakers as well, as I've just bought a coupe S interior and I'm not cutting great holes in the doorcards again. Standard layout on a mk2 is 2 in the back and 1 up front in the centre anyway, so I'll be going back to this eventually, just with slightly higher quality speakers than the factory rubbish..
Also, because I often carry passengers and I don't want to blast my ears out in the front so that they can hear the stereo in the back.

Mine are the Standard rears in the side panels(car is a 3-door). They are probably about to melt cos my HU is 4x60W and i think they are starting to complain. May replace them with a set of co-axials eventually but i don't find them important, though can be nice to have a little rear fill.

I sit in the front, very rarely have people in the back and don't really feel rear speakers are needed. A decent set of fronts is way more important.

Front speakers in mine i felt happy with for a while but now that i have customised the rear quarter panel and installed rear speakers it gives off a more fuller sound

Im hoping ppl understand what im sayin

old polo:
because needed extra beef to back up the fronts (which were mainly midrange/treble in both incarnations). Never quite worked right, but sort-of, and it was the thought that counted. Old hifi speakers* on a stealth shelf.

new astra:
they came with it. But there's a definate capability balance between them, and they're all a little too small so you need all 4 for volume's sake without distortion. Fronts are good for bass and top treble, but can't cope with LOTS of bass (good quality, but have to be careful on the boost). Rears aren't quite so loud and are more of a telephonic mid-range, but do good fill in and dont crack up with bass boost.

In most cars putting speakers front and back i think is both an exercise of spreading the load of high output through a greater number of higher fidelity, cheaper low-output units, rather than just a few high-output, more basic quality, expensive jobs. Plus it gives a nice surround-sound effect. Really it should be roughly the reverse of how it is in the astra and more like the polo (if it had worked) but hey... i didnt have to work to put THAT one in (unlike the dub), so i'm not going to mess with it any time soon.

(bass works best in the back of a hatchback rather than the front, as the bootspace is a natural woofer/subwoofer sounding box, whereas the windscreen tends be better at reflecting mid and high frequencies right to your ears - though to make it seem more natural its good to have some mid/high coming from behind as well, and fronts that arent totally devoid of bass)

* this was my downfall - they were 8ohm rather than a more normal in-car 4ohm, and so were not only twice as far away, but needed twice as much power to even sound as loud at the same distance, which my head unit struggled to do. would have rocked with an amp, but hey.... i'm a scrub.

I haven't run rear speakers for years.

It's highs and mids up front and bass (and sub bass) at the back.

It mucks up the soundstage something rotten having rear speakers!

(well, i was kinda thinking along those lines - vocal and hi hats at the front, bassline and atmos to the rear )

As standard i have 4 up front and 4 in the rear, sounds good!

Josh_PoloGTi wrote:I haven't run rear speakers for years.

It's highs and mids up front and bass (and sub bass) at the back.

It mucks up the soundstage something rotten having rear speakers!

I'm the same as Josh. Haven't run them for years, never intend to.

Josh_PoloGTi wrote:I haven't run rear speakers for years.

It's highs and mids up front and bass (and sub bass) at the back.

It mucks up the soundstage something rotten having rear speakers!

but doesnt it sound soooo rubbish in the back?

toXXin wrote:

Josh_PoloGTi wrote:I haven't run rear speakers for years.

It's highs and mids up front and bass (and sub bass) at the back.

It mucks up the soundstage something rotten having rear speakers!

I'm the same as Josh. Haven't run them for years, never intend to.

ditto. totally destroys the soundstage- hence my reason for asking the question in the first place.

My old system in consisted of the following:

Alpine IVX C806 6.5" flipscreen
Alpine MDA 5051 3 md changer
Alpine CHA S634 MD changer
focal Utopia 6.5" mids
focal Audiom tweeters
3 x 10" MTX thunder 6000's (ported enclosure tuned to 33htz)
rockford 100.2 on tweeters
rockford 200.2 on mids
rockford 225.2 on subs
(amps all old school handbuilt landmine type when rockford REALLY built decent kit!)
kenwood KEC-600 6 channel active x-over
(all this was in my punto now sold)

around £5K worth of kit- all stolen

point being- had the components in kick pods up front in either footwell. a proper SQ install. never had need for rear speakers and i dont think you do in a car the size of a polo. even rear fill is somethign that is not only unnessary but cant really be accurately acheived in a small hatch.

im looking at new kit now but gonna keep the system far simpler than above. current considerations:

head unit: clarion VRX928 6.5" flipscreen DVD unit
amp: DLS A5 3 channel
sub: not sure- possibly a phase linear aliante or PPI pro flat piston, MAYBE a resonant engineering XXX 10
components: crystal CS60.5 or resonant engineering 6.5's (running passive- not active)

a cut down in kit but should sound a little warmer than previous one.

will do a proper boot build and document once im up and running

carmadaaron wrote:

Josh_PoloGTi wrote:I haven't run rear speakers for years.

It's highs and mids up front and bass (and sub bass) at the back.

It mucks up the soundstage something rotten having rear speakers!

but doesnt it sound soooo rubbish in the back?

I don't sit in the back!

Keep us posted Bass_M... I'll be really interested in seeing what you do in the boot.

even when you ARE sitting in the back its alright so long as the controller of the stereo either allows for you being there and tones down the bass - or you make them (then again you might like it)

not as rubbish as the situation of having no rears at all - simulated in my mums car when she (typically and unsurprisingly) totally knackered up the balance and EQ trying to retune it (method: hit all the buttons but pay no attention to what they do or what happens on the display)... fader all the way to the front on a 4 speaker system, full car, occupants in the back trying to talk to those in the front and getting nowhere... we thought they had the radio on low and so didn't talk loud, they thought it was up high, couldn't hear a word we said and kept shouting too much.
(eventually got the volume reduced and the fader balanced through the medium of yelling and sign language)