I have a 91 300E that has the stock Becker with the door mounted subs, two woofers and 4 tweeters on the rear parcel shelf, and of course the really odd sized dash speakers.

The paper cones on my speakers were degraded (13 years will do that) and sounded like they had sand in them. I didn't want to spend the $$ for the Rainbows for the front, and who knows how much for the rear shelf.

Here is what I did: I spent $100 on two pairs of Pioneer speakers, one 4" and one 5.25". I have had several Pioneer speakers over the years in several different cars and my boat and they have always satisfied me as a very good, solid performer.

I then removed the stock speakers, front and rear. (I haven't worked up the courage to take off the door panels yet to investigate those.) BTW, the speakers DID have sand in them

I took the stock speakers and carefully cut out the speaker cones and voice coils. After about 1 hour of carefull Dremel work I had some pretty decent mounting brackets for my new speakers. I was able to carefully preserve the stock speaker wiring and soldier pigtails from the new speaker terminals to the stock speaker wiring. On the rear speakers, this allowed me to keep the stock tweeters

I used a strong non-hardening adhesive to glue and seal the new speakers on the stock brackets. The speakers went back in after the glue dried with no problem at all.

The stock stereo now sounds much, much better. The advantage of this is that I did not alter either the car or the wiring of the stereo and it still looks totally stock. The disadvantage is that I now have slightly smaller speakers installed. But if one wanted to, then could do this with much higher end speakers, like Infinity Kappa or JBL or whatever. I still could, it would be extremely easy for me to cut the adhesive and de-solder the wires and then drop in different speakers. But like I said, the Pioneers have been very solid performers for me and currently sound great.

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On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait, and waiting -- died

Sounds great. Good ideas.

I have a question for you, and I don't mean to post jack, but how the hell did you remove the rear speakers? I can't get them out for the life of me.

I used the speaker removal walk through here on MercedesShop but that didn't help me.

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-Sam
93 300D
210k - Sold, but not forgotten.

Have you gotten the grills off yet? That is the hardest part. The way I managed to get the grills off was not according to the instructions in the DIY section. The DIY says to look for the little hole under to back shelf and to push up through it with a screwdriver. I couldn't find the hole they were talking about.

From inside the car, with a long handled, thin flat blade screwdriver I inserted the screwdriver between the grill and the parcel shelf, about in the middle next to where the headrest goes when they are flipped back. After I got the screwdriver inserted I inserted a flat, stiff paint scraper blade and applied some upward pressure. I gently worked the screwdriver blade towards the rear window a bit and applied some gentle upward pressure, and it gave away pretty easily without breaking anything. Once one corner came up the rest came up pretty easily.

After the grills are off, get back in the trunk. Looking up you'll see the plastic clips that secure the speaker to the shelf. With two flat bladed screwdrivers, compress two plastic clips and the speaker pops right up.

Just take your time, double check yourself and you won't break anything.

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On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait, and waiting -- died

Strider, what is a Dremel? I own a MB but don't have the tools or know-how that most of the other users on the site have. I just want to replace the speakers with minimal hassle. Thanks.

A Dremel is a high speed rotary tool. I used it for cutting. Without some tools, knowlege and skill this project might not be for you, but don't let me discourage you, just take your time and be carefull.

Probably the least hassle speaker replacements are the front Rainbow speakers that Scott sells.

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On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait, and waiting -- died