[Timlin]

Hi all

I'm thinking about upgrading the front & rear door speakers in my 2011 i30 SR 5-door hatch (Australian R/H drive).

Can anyone advise me on the diameter of the existing speakers and how deep in the door the replacements could go? As I'm reasonably happy with the rest of the sound system I'm thinking that just a speaker upgrade should have a significant difference. I'm a bit of a JBL fan, so if I can get something that fits in their range, and they're affordable then I'll probably go with their products... but, I'm happy to listen to advice from anyone who's done this before too!

Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

I'm also contemplating a soundproofing kit (http://www.sharkracing.com/soundproof1_1_12) which would take up some of the available depth in the doors, but I'd be keen to learn from anyone who's done this before!

The soundproofing kits from SharkRacing seem to be the go as I'm lazy and a pre-cut arrangement suits me just fine!

Any/all advice will be gratefully received.

Rgd's


Andrew

[Dazzler]

Welcome to the club

Soundproofing and speaker upgrades have been covered on here. Have a browse and a search and be patient for replies as some only visit periodically.. If you don't get helpful answers in a few days we will find some links for you    (sorry had a late night last night so a feelin' a bit lazy today  )

[Doggie 1]

Hi Andrew and welcome to the forum. 

[Phil №❶]

Welcome Timlin,

What Dazz said 

[Timlin]

Hi Andrew and welcome to the forum. 

All

Thanks for the welcome, and yes, I did see a few posts that covered my answers, I noticed them as soon as I posted my question! So apologies for wasting peoples time!

I'll have a thorough dig through to see if I can get some actual details to sort me out.

Thanks for your collective time!


Rgd's



Andrew

[Asterix]

Hi Andrew.

Welcome to the forum..

No need to apologise. People in here are very helpfull, whenever you have questions. 

[Dazzler]

Hi Andrew.

Welcome to the forum..

No need to apologise. People in here are very helpfull, whenever you have questions. 

 

I was being a bit lazy.. sorry

Please don't get the impression it is wrong to ask for help.. Anything you can't find please ask.. One of us will find it (if it is on the site) 

[Timlin]

Hi all

Thanks for the warm welcome, I only participate on a few forums as I've not had terribly good luck with them in the past. But, this has been most welcoming and very informative thus far!

Thanks for your time and reply's! I'll be attacking the speakers in my i30 sometime after Xmas when my personal economics improve!

Can anyone advise some speakers perhaps? I'm happy with the factory radio/amp, but I'm nervous to not put to high a rated speaker set with it. Does anyone know what the outputs are on the factory fitted system? And am I right in assuming that there's no provision for a sub-woofer without a complete upgrade of the system?

I'm also looking at the Shark Racing soundproofing kit too, are they difficult to fit in the doors? Is it a DIY job or should I take the car to a mechanics?

Thanks for your time in answering my questions!


Rgd's



Andrew

[Phil №❶]

@Timlin,

I know very little about speakers, but are there any other makes that use substrates like vinyl wrapped styrene or similar. My son's old car speakers were destroyed by moisture, the driver ripped the cardboard to bits. 

[Dazzler]

Tim, You might pick up something from these links..

https://www.i30ownersclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=6350.0

https://www.i30ownersclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=2356.0

https://www.i30ownersclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=586.0

https://www.i30ownersclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=1052.0

https://www.i30ownersclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=568.0

[Waja]

Hey Andrew, welcome to the forum! And now it is time for a bit of a comprehensive post =P

I don't remember if I have actually posted what I have done to my 2007 i30 CRDi SLX but since you listed your car as a SR, I am assuming that you have the FD so we would be talking about the similar base layout.

Removing the door trim is pretty simple as there is one screw in the door handle well and one where the arm rest is. I don't remember if there is one more as I am currently overseas and am unable to check, but after that there are just little pop rivets (I think they are called that) which you just pull the door trim directly out and the trim eventually comes off with a bit of force and pops back in when you push the trim back together.

I will start simple and work to the more time consuming processes as this post goes on To start with, I had the exact same thoughts as you and I ended up purchasing the sharkracing pre-cut sound deadening kit. It isn't the best soundproofing out but it does the job and relatively cheaply as it adds a bit of lows and mids and stops vibrations. NB: you need to buy a lot of spray adhesive and I recommend 3M spray adhesive which you can pick up from Repco or Supercheap. It would be a lot more expensive and time consuming to install Dynamat and this stuff worked pretty well for the price and the ease of installation (especially on a hot summer day in Australia). Also, I'll give you a heads up that you can save some money by asking them to exclude the bonnet proofing as due to engine heat, the spray adhesive just lifts off so in the end I just tossed the bonnet proofing which did barely anything.

The i30 is easy to add a subwoofer into the car by just putting a line convertor and tapping off the rear speakers and I was happy with just adding a decent subwoofer into the car for a while before changing my front stage speakers. But I am pretty sure that the SR are amplified speakers with the amplifier located in the rear left trim of the car (there was a schematic somewhere on the forum) and the stock SR speakers are meant to be upgraded speakers from the SLX and someone said they may have been JBLs.

The front speakers are massive 6.5" components and the rears are 6.5" (I think) woofers (I am not 100% sure about the rears since I never have passengers so I just fade everything to the front only and left the rears as stock thus cheaper and clearer sound). Do note that if you do plan on changing the speakers, it isn't just drop in since there is a weird plastic spacer that Hyundai used and after multiple hours of trying to adapt the spacer to work with my new speakers, I just resorted to screwing 6.5" 25mm thick carpeted MDF spacers directly onto the door frame which worked out so much easier and better.

Like you, I love JBL speakers (we had dual 18" JBL subs at church and they thump and I love JBL house speakers) but for cars there are so many other options that are more cost effective and sound a lot better. Your music choice will be a large deciding factor but I listen to club, vocal trance, older RnB, some light rock and a bit of dubstep meaning a large variety and pretty fast action and I found that Morel Tempo's are the best sounding speakers for me with a wide soundstage and hit pretty hard and were within my budget or the equivalent are the Crescendo Opus 1. Your main brand Sony/Kenwood/JBL/Pioneer speakers are pretty hopeless unless you look at their competition range. Have a look at mobilelectronics for reviews and they have a great forum that can help.

If you don't intend to install an amp, it is pretty simple to change the speakers. Find a speaker that is quite sensitive and can cover from 15-100w or so and after picking up some MDF spacers, it is a relatively straight forward change. I ran my upgraded speakers for a while without an amp and they were decent but when I did turn the volume up high, it triggered the safety mechanism in the stock headunit leading to it turning itself off and not working until you turned off the car and on again so amping power hungry speakers happened very soon after. I am unsure about how many watts RMS the SR amp puts out though so you could be fine?

If you intend to install an amp and change front stage only like me and install a sub the easiest and cleanest sounding way without having to change the stock headunit, you will need to install a line converter (don't cheap out on this and make sure you get a good powered one as these can be the culprit for terrible sound quality) and then run the corresponding wiring.
Run the proper gauge wiring from the battery to your amps, install an AudioControl LC2i line output convertor (this is two channels + 1 sub channel and is highly recommended) and tap the speaker outputs from the rear of the stock headunit for front L and front R speakers (schematics available here on the forum or HMAservice) and solder connections to change to thicker gauge cabling and run this to the LC2i inputs. The LC2i outputs will provide RCA connections for L & R and also for a clean subwoofer output. Run these to your amps and the remaining wiring should be pretty simple to the speakers themselves and you will need to drill a hole under the rear seats to screw in a proper grounding point. NB: I had a bit of a issue running the wiring from the cabin to the door so I cheated and used a section of the stock wiring loom to provide this pass through. I then went to a smash repair and picked up two tweeter housings from a written off SX i30 (SX has a flat black housing since they have no tweeter) and using a hole saw, cut a hole for the tweeter housing to sit in (my tweeter housing itself allows for adjusting the angle of the tweeter). And most of the remaining things should be pretty obvious

All up, I have installed front L & R Morel Tempo 6.5" components in stock woofer and tweeter location powered by one Pioneer PRS-D800 amp (should have gone for a different amp as this amp peaks at 600w but has 125WRMS but this amp is so clean since there is no equalizers or bass boost meaning it replicates the input sound without messing with sound quality), and I have a JL Audio 12w1v2 12" subwoofer in a slot ported enclosure (looking to upgrade to two 12" JL's in an sealed enclosure later) powered by a JL a1400 amplifier and I am pretty happy with the sound quality. There will always be someone with alot better sounding cars, but they probably paid 10x the amount I paid in the end.

Also, if you wanted to change front and rear speakers, just pick up a four or six (LC6i for a sub/dual subs) channel line converter (look at sonic electronics and crutchfield for reviews and mobile electronics) and it will follow the same procedure above.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I can try and help you out but I can't really provide any pictures since I don't really fly back home until Jan 14. If you live in Sydney, I might let you listen in my car to see if it was what you were aiming for sometime later so you can know if you like it or not as speakers are quite subjective to the user.

Josh

[Phil №❶]

That was a huge effort to go to for a forum member. 

Personally, I'm happy with the stock ones. 

[Doggie 1]

That was a huge effort to go to for a forum member. 

 

[Timlin]

Hey Andrew, welcome to the forum! And now it is time for a bit of a comprehensive post =P

I don't remember if I have actually posted what I have done to my 2007 i30 CRDi SLX but since you listed your car as a SR, I am assuming that you have the FD so we would be talking about the similar base layout.

Removing the door trim is pretty simple as there is one screw in the door handle well and one where the arm rest is. I don't remember if there is one more as I am currently overseas and am unable to check, but after that there are just little pop rivets (I think they are called that) which you just pull the door trim directly out and the trim eventually comes off with a bit of force and pops back in when you push the trim back together.

I will start simple and work to the more time consuming processes as this post goes on To start with, I had the exact same thoughts as you and I ended up purchasing the sharkracing pre-cut sound deadening kit. It isn't the best soundproofing out but it does the job and relatively cheaply as it adds a bit of lows and mids and stops vibrations. NB: you need to buy a lot of spray adhesive and I recommend 3M spray adhesive which you can pick up from Repco or Supercheap. It would be a lot more expensive and time consuming to install Dynamat and this stuff worked pretty well for the price and the ease of installation (especially on a hot summer day in Australia). Also, I'll give you a heads up that you can save some money by asking them to exclude the bonnet proofing as due to engine heat, the spray adhesive just lifts off so in the end I just tossed the bonnet proofing which did barely anything.

The i30 is easy to add a subwoofer into the car by just putting a line convertor and tapping off the rear speakers and I was happy with just adding a decent subwoofer into the car for a while before changing my front stage speakers. But I am pretty sure that the SR are amplified speakers with the amplifier located in the rear left trim of the car (there was a schematic somewhere on the forum) and the stock SR speakers are meant to be upgraded speakers from the SLX and someone said they may have been JBLs.

The front speakers are massive 6.5" components and the rears are 6.5" (I think) woofers (I am not 100% sure about the rears since I never have passengers so I just fade everything to the front only and left the rears as stock thus cheaper and clearer sound). Do note that if you do plan on changing the speakers, it isn't just drop in since there is a weird plastic spacer that Hyundai used and after multiple hours of trying to adapt the spacer to work with my new speakers, I just resorted to screwing 6.5" 25mm thick carpeted MDF spacers directly onto the door frame which worked out so much easier and better.

Like you, I love JBL speakers (we had dual 18" JBL subs at church and they thump and I love JBL house speakers) but for cars there are so many other options that are more cost effective and sound a lot better. Your music choice will be a large deciding factor but I listen to club, vocal trance, older RnB, some light rock and a bit of dubstep meaning a large variety and pretty fast action and I found that Morel Tempo's are the best sounding speakers for me with a wide soundstage and hit pretty hard and were within my budget or the equivalent are the Crescendo Opus 1. Your main brand Sony/Kenwood/JBL/Pioneer speakers are pretty hopeless unless you look at their competition range. Have a look at mobilelectronics for reviews and they have a great forum that can help.

If you don't intend to install an amp, it is pretty simple to change the speakers. Find a speaker that is quite sensitive and can cover from 15-100w or so and after picking up some MDF spacers, it is a relatively straight forward change. I ran my upgraded speakers for a while without an amp and they were decent but when I did turn the volume up high, it triggered the safety mechanism in the stock headunit leading to it turning itself off and not working until you turned off the car and on again so amping power hungry speakers happened very soon after. I am unsure about how many watts RMS the SR amp puts out though so you could be fine?

If you intend to install an amp and change front stage only like me and install a sub the easiest and cleanest sounding way without having to change the stock headunit, you will need to install a line converter (don't cheap out on this and make sure you get a good powered one as these can be the culprit for terrible sound quality) and then run the corresponding wiring.
Run the proper gauge wiring from the battery to your amps, install an AudioControl LC2i line output convertor (this is two channels + 1 sub channel and is highly recommended) and tap the speaker outputs from the rear of the stock headunit for front L and front R speakers (schematics available here on the forum or HMAservice) and solder connections to change to thicker gauge cabling and run this to the LC2i inputs. The LC2i outputs will provide RCA connections for L & R and also for a clean subwoofer output. Run these to your amps and the remaining wiring should be pretty simple to the speakers themselves and you will need to drill a hole under the rear seats to screw in a proper grounding point. NB: I had a bit of a issue running the wiring from the cabin to the door so I cheated and used a section of the stock wiring loom to provide this pass through. I then went to a smash repair and picked up two tweeter housings from a written off SX i30 (SX has a flat black housing since they have no tweeter) and using a hole saw, cut a hole for the tweeter housing to sit in (my tweeter housing itself allows for adjusting the angle of the tweeter). And most of the remaining things should be pretty obvious

All up, I have installed front L & R Morel Tempo 6.5" components in stock woofer and tweeter location powered by one Pioneer PRS-D800 amp (should have gone for a different amp as this amp peaks at 600w but has 125WRMS but this amp is so clean since there is no equalizers or bass boost meaning it replicates the input sound without messing with sound quality), and I have a JL Audio 12w1v2 12" subwoofer in a slot ported enclosure (looking to upgrade to two 12" JL's in an sealed enclosure later) powered by a JL a1400 amplifier and I am pretty happy with the sound quality. There will always be someone with alot better sounding cars, but they probably paid 10x the amount I paid in the end.

Also, if you wanted to change front and rear speakers, just pick up a four or six (LC6i for a sub/dual subs) channel line converter (look at sonic electronics and crutchfield for reviews and mobile electronics) and it will follow the same procedure above.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I can try and help you out but I can't really provide any pictures since I don't really fly back home until Jan 14. If you live in Sydney, I might let you listen in my car to see if it was what you were aiming for sometime later so you can know if you like it or not as speakers are quite subjective to the user.

Josh

Josh

Firstly, thank you so much for such a lengthy detailed answer! And secondly, thanks you again for your time with this! Much appreciated!

It all sounds quite complicated and time consuming... without sounding like a tosser, I'm not too phased by the cost of all this, I guess I'm prepared to spend $1k or so to make it all good.

My problem is that I've migrated from a 2010 Honda Legend, to the i30 - and again, without trying to sound like a tosser, the stereo systems in both cars are miles apart! But thats ok, I really, really like the i30, I thought I'd hate it, but I'm really very attached to it and its only been two weeks! For the price of these cars, I believe they cannot be beaten. They are outstanding value for money, and I really look forward to driving my new little car! Plus its about 1/2 the cost to run as the Honda!

The sound system in my i30 is good, but I'm sure with the mods you've suggested  it could be a whole lot better!

I'm curious about the spacers. Did you make these yourself or are they an "off-the-shelf" item form some retail outlets? I've taken the r/h rear trim off for a quick look and I was a little intimidated by it all I must admit. I think the sound proofing material is a definite must-have item as there appears to be no sound proofing material at all in/on the doors, so in the New Year this'll be the first thing to get I reckon.

Under my bonnet there seems to be some factory fitted sound proofing installed already, so I'm thinking that I just need the floor, doors, wheel arches and boot area done, I'm sure this is not an easy job to install either...

Regarding sub-woofers, I'd love to have one as I'm used to having one from the Honda etc, but I can't sacrifice any boot space as I need to carry my equipment around with me all the time. (I'm a freelance film/TV sound-recordist, so I have to carry a fair bit of gear around). So I think I'll be just able to upgrade all four door speakers and see how that goes. I may need an amp to boost the signal somewhat as running the existing system flat out all the time is not good for it and it will compromise its performance anyway. As you say, if it starts to cut out by itself, something is not right!

I might look at going to a professional installer to get the job done, it just depends on time and of course, cost... Do you have any recommendations for a supplier/fitter?

I am in Sydney, St Leonards actually and if you had the time and/or inclination I'd really love to check out what you've done to your car at some stage? I'd be happy to buy you a beer/wine/coffee for your time!

Josh, thanks again for your time and considerable efforts in your reply - above and beyond the call of duty! If you'd like to catch up, maybe you could PM me and I can send you my contact details?

Take care and I hope to talk with you soon...


Rgd's



Andrew

[Waja]

Haha, yeah, thanks guys. I was in a bit of a dead town at the time as a stop over so it gave me something to do

And yeah, the stereo system between the Legend is quite different to the i30 because it has the subwoofer and an active sound system, I do believe, so it will give that orchestral feel in the car  (my uncle has a Legend and it is amazing but it lacks a bit for my style of music). I think if you are looking to have modifications done for your car by an installer, don't go some cheapo store like Autobarn or Supercheap or JB Hifi because they always do botch jobs (you have your rare specialists working there but they tend to move to more specialist companies) but give Marty from FHRX a shout fhrxstudios.com.au and you can also see the work that they do and have fixed up for customers going to JB Hifif etc on their site. They are located on the northern side of Sydney as well so that could be convenient for you but do note, Marty will not do any speaker modifications to any car until the car is sound deadened as you don't experience the maximum capabilities of the speakers (which makes sense) and they can lower the cost if you do the deadening yourself onsite with Dynamat (so expect atleast $500-600 to be cut from your budget) but these guys are the guys I would have gone to if I didn't do the installation myself (I am pretty sure Marty told me they do the installation and deadening for the limited range of Lamborghini's in Australia so do expect to see and hear a few when you are there.)

And no, I was going to make the spacers myself but I decided it was better to get it premade since it will be all to measurement and since I just wanted to get the job done in one sitting so I ebayed it from a store selling the Aerpro spacers http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/6-5-165mm-Black-Carpeted-MDF-Speaker-Spacers-25mm-/260823714280?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3cba4e09e8&_uhb=1#ht_3141wt_993 but the size will be determined by the speaker themselves and they are't too hard to make yourself if you choose to DIY (Marty makes them all for you with custom holes to fit in stock location)

As you said, sound proofing will be the first step and a very intelligent one as there is barely any in the doorframes. I didn't do the arches or the floor though since I put a CAI and straight through exhaust on my crdi so I like to hear the engine and intake a bit as well (no point in making the changes and not hearing them at all!)

In regards to the subwoofer, you could easily get two JL12v1v3 which is their lower range subwoofer but two of these in a sealed enclosure are clear and hit very hard and they are still a lot better than the competition. There are two alcoves on the left and right of the boot so you could have a custom mold fashioned to fit into those spaces whether it be one or two? This would result in large cone area and also minimal obtrusion into the boot of the car. Or you can get the shallow, under the seat subwoofers and it will provide that needed punch since it is directly in the cabin.

But yes, I (and many others from mobile electronics) recommend Marty from FHRX for NSW or Rick from formAudio http://www.formaudio.com but Rick is in the Illawarra region so a bit out of the way and I haven't personally chatted to him as much.

Sounds like a good idea to meet up! I wouldn't mind meeting up with a fellow i30club member but I apologize in advance if I am unable to schedule time since Uni will start immediately once I come back from overseas

Cheers!
Josh

[Timlin]

Josh

Outstanding effort!!

Thanks mate, I certainly do owe you a beer!

You say when/where etc!


Rgd's



Andrew

[Dazzler]

Are we an Awesome club or what! 

[Doggie 1]

Are we an Awesome club or what! 

We are, thanks to the members. 

[Timlin]

All

I absolutely agree - I've never before known such openness and gratitude on any forum before.

This of course, speaks volumes about all of us! Hyundai would be well advised to participate in this forum, I believe it would show them a great deal about us, their customers - they could learn a sh_tload of information about what we want from future models.

Merry Xmas to all!


Rgd's



Andrew

[Phil №❶]

All

I absolutely agree - I've never before known such openness and gratitude on any forum before.

This of course, speaks volumes about all of us! Hyundai would be well advised to participate in this forum, I believe it would show them a great deal about us, their customers - they could learn a sh_tload of information about what we want from future models.

Merry Xmas to all!


Rgd's



Andrew