miltonlin

Hello fello audiophiles::

I got a stock 99 ES300 and I'm thinking about upgrading just the speakers. My ears are not that good but I can tell the difference between good sound and great sound.

Is this a viable upgrade, or is it really a lost cause? I really want to keep the original head unit in there.

What brought this about is that many, many years ago, say 1993, I listened to a co-workers car stereo with MB Quart speakers. Simply heaven.

Thanks in advance.

e-man

I had a 98 GS 400 with the stock Pioneer system. I swapped out the stock speakers for some 6.5 Boston Acoustics speakers. Let me tell you something -- not only did they not sound any better, but they actually sounded worse. And this is not a knock on Boston Acoustics. The problem is that the weakest link in almost any stereo system is the head unit. I was not willing to change out the head unit because I wanted to keep the stock look. You might notice a slight improvement in sound with aftermarket speakers, but you'd be better off spending your money elsewhere. After one week of listening to the Boston Acoustics speakers, I swapped them out and put the stock speakers back in. Hope this helps.

e-man

baddis es

iTrader: (3)

i've recently changed out all of my speakers in my 98 ES from the nakimichi speakers to JL Audio XR series....the difference is a great improvement IMHO, i kept the stock headunit for now as i am goin wiht the eclipse avn, but still the stock Nakimichi headunit does its purpose and delivers good quality sound thru the JL speakers.....

also i have the speakers wired thru a 300w 4ch amplifier too

e-man

Actually, that's a great point. If you're going to add an amp to power the speakers, then it might be worth it. However, if all you're planning on doing is changing out the speakers, it is my opinion that you are wasting your time.

Lexkost

Miltonlin, When using a stock system it is important to replace the speakers with ones that have a sensitivity dB of 90 or higher for the stock system to power them to sound better that the originals...............So find speakers with a high sensitivity and also ones that can handle a high wattage incase you upgrade the rest of system later.

miltonlin

for all the responses guys. I'll stick with the stock system for now because the speaker upgrade will definitely mean an amp upgrade too.

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

MBQuarts or Bostons or Polks are a great upgrade from stock, assuming you add an amp to handle the impedances better, and also give you some gain adjustment and balancing capability. No need to spend a ton of money on an amp, any reasonable 4-channel amp will be better than stock, just don't buy junk. You can add a Line-Level Converter to take your existing stock amp outputs and send them to the new amp's inputs. Search the threads if you want more info on this, it has been done many times with good results. Can also be similarly done with sub.