Is This A Good Speaker Setup?

[Steve S.]

Hey Guy's

The factory radio in my 98 VW new beetle daily driver died on me so I decided to go ahead and install some new audio gear. I already installed a new headunit and an Alpine PDX-4.100 (that's putting out 131 watts RMS per channel per the birth sheet) and am planning on replacing the speakers next.

My budget is ~$750.00 for speakers and I'd like to use the same brand all around. I'm thinking of going with a set of Polk Audio SR6500's in the front and a set of Polk Audio MMC650's in the rear for rear fill.... what do you think?

I do a lot of driving and I'm going for sound quality, and don't care for excessive bass.

Thanks!

[kross]

I love those Alpine PDX amps! Nice choice!

Most people on here will say that you will get the best sound quality with a good set of component speakers in the front, and no rear speakers (except for a subwoofer). You'll get much better stereo imaging and staging.

I would suggest a pair of Rainbow Powerline CMX 265 Kick's, for about $330 shipped. Bridge the Alpine amp for 200w per side, and those babies will really fill your car with sound!

With the rest of the money, I would put into a subwoofer and amp for it. Even the best midrange drivers can't reproduce the entire audio spectrum, you need a subwoofer to fill in the bottom end. You can get some compact subs that put out a lot of bass for their small size. You can get some pretty good 6.5" subwoofers to mount in the rear panels (properly deadened, of course), or some 8" subs for under the seats. I'll let others make some recommendations for some good compact subs.

Hope this helps!
-- Kevin

[azbass]

look in to this, Rainbow speaker set, built for your VW

http://www.iqcaraudio.com/vw/vw_beetle.htm

[PremierAudio]

The Iq line is nice if you are just replacing the speakers for the Factory unit and do not want to modify anything. Amping them is another issue. Not meaning a bad one, just that if you amping something you obviously are looking for better performance than say stock. Which you should be looking into a set of components, or a set of full size coaxials. But then again, if you do not want to modify anything then the IQ line is great.

[Steve S.]

Interesting feedback, now I'm thinking about ditching the rear coaxials in favor of a set of tang band 6.5" subs or maybe a set of the new JL audio 6W3V3's...

[DejaWiz]

Great idea! With 131w rms per channel, you could run comps off of 2 channels and 2 tang band 6.5's of of each of the other channels (4 subs total).