W109 front speakers

I have a '71 300SEL (W109 body) that has 6.5" rear speakers installed. I'm longing for some front imaging so I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations on how to install affordable front speakers for that model. I've seen pictures of W108/109's with small rectangular housings in the footwells - I guess those are speakers??? Any suggestions?

Ian

[Mark DiSilvestro]

Ian,
Forget about those little square factory speakers in the footwells. My '72 250 had those with the original Becker Europa stereo radio. Even when new, they sound horrible. My solution was to mount a pair of 6x9" 2-way speakers in the cardboard covers under the dash - above each footwell area. If you don't have the cardboard anymore or don't want to cut holes in your original ones, one of the front speakers could go in the factory speaker hole on top of the dash (you would need the factory size speaker or make some kind of adapter to fit a different size there).
You could hang a small cube speaker, up in the front passenger footwell for the other stereo channel. Hope this helps.

Happy Motoring, Mark

Mark,
Wow, thanks for the advice. By the way, whats a cube speaker and who makes them? I'm not too familiar with that. And the factory hole in the dash - a 4x10, you think? What head unit do you use on the 250? Its difficult to find one that looks good on a classic dash! I'm attempting to have the original Becker Mexico repaired so I temporarily mounted a surplus Yamaha radio on mine.

Ian

[Mark DiSilvestro]

Ian.
What I mean by a 'cube-speaker' is one of those mini HiFi, self contained speaker units. They are rectangular, heavy metal or plastic boxes and usually come in black or white with a matching metal grill.
I've seen some at Radio Shack. I don't know if you have Radio Shack in the Philipines but you may be able to get something similar at your local car or boat audio shop. I have a pair of 'Kraco' brand cube-speakers The boxes measure 6"W x 4"H x 4"D, and don't require you to cut large holes in your interior trim. You only need a couple of screws or bolts for the mounting brackets. You might need to fabricate brackets to custom fit in your footwell area or wherever you decide to put them.

My 250 originally had the Becker Europa Chrome stereo radio with the 4 speakers. The small square ones in the front footwells were bad so I got new ones from Mercedes and they still sounded horrible. So I installed a pair of Sony 6 x 9s in the cardboard covers under the dash. If your car doesn't have room under the dash for 6 x 9s then a pair of 5 or 6 inch round speakers would probably work OK.

Later, my original Becker radio died so I found a Becker Europa Cassette radio at a flea market for $20. It's the later style with the black faceplate, probably from a 1980 240D. It goesn't have the pretty chrome like the older ones but it doesn't look as ugly as alot of modern radios. In my 250 the radio mounts in the black underdash console, so the black faceplate looks OK there.

The original dash speaker is probably a metric size, close to about 3 x 8. It may still be availible from Mercedes or you will need to adapt something else.

Happy Motoring, Mark

Mark,
We have Radio Shack here too but probably not as stocked as what you're used to there. I'll check it out. At least I'm more aware of my options now. Thanks a lot!

Ian

[SCLJA]

Here is a pic of the best way to get good sound in the front of your car! These are 6.5 in speakers.

Scott@lajollaaudio

[Mark DiSilvestro]

Ian,
My local Radio Shack no longer sells car audio. They sell the RCA mini/cube speakers for use with a home compact stereo system. They were availible, as of last summer, in black or white.

Putting speakers in the side kick panels, as Scott suggested, is something I did with another Mercedes many years ago. It's probably your best choice for decent sound, if you're willing to cut large holes in your kick panels.

If you're really fussy about cutting your original kick panels, you could remove and save them, then fabricate new panels for the speakers.

I'm testing some different speaker systems in my '60 220S, that don't require cutting holes in the interior. I'll let you know how it works out.

Happy Motoring, Mark

[SCLJA]

By the way these are kick panels I made and the customer still has the originals as you can see that they are made of a thicker wood to allow the speaker grill to be flush. Here is a pic of the alpine controller that controls the cd changer and has front/rear pre-amp outputs running to a 6 channel zapco amplifier. The stock radio is still used for the am / fm.

sclja

hey Scott and Mark, thanks for all that great info. Maybe I'll explore the kick panel route. I'll have to find out how much clearance I have to work with and see what speakers available here will fit.

just curious, Scott - you mentioned the stock radio is still used for am/fm, is it going through your zapco amp too?

oh, and just in case I push it a little and get a 6.5 component speaker set, what would be the best place to mount the tweeter?

Ian

[SCLJA]

Yes the alpine controller I used has an aux input that the stock radio is hooked into. Here is a pic of another car with tweeters under the dash.

Scott

[pentoman]

For imaging, IMO I don't think there's any way to beat dash speakers.

They have to be *good* ones though, and it's best if you can tweak the equaliser for them. And you'll get no bass from them. Plenty of people don't like the way they sound, understandably.
Soundstage & clarity is great though.

Oh I prefer coaxial speakers too, as it's hard to position a component speakers' separate tweeters so that they integrate well with the mid/bass driver.

My £0.02


later

Russ




190E :-
Boston Acoustics FX4 4" dash
Boston Acoustics FX4 4" rear shelf
Alpine Type-R 10" sealed enclosure sub, trunk
Kicker IX404 amp <---- I need more power!!
Kenwood MP-6090R MP3 CD Player

[SCLJA]

Where do you put speakers in the dash of this car that image better than this? There is only a center location for a 2x 9 inch speaker!

[pentoman]

Heh! OH shame.. guess the W109 didn't really do 'stereo', huh?