Audio Upgrade Stage-1 . . . . Blam Relax 200rs Speakers From Skipton.

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Audio upgrade Stage-1 . . . . BLAM Relax 200RS speakers from Skipton.

As the title says, so i thought i would bring you along for the ride . . . . . . . . .

stage 1 was to sound deaden the doors and door cards and fit the new 8" speakers and tweeters.

stage2 will be fitting the amps and sub . . . but for now lets have a look at stage1 . . . . . .

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Audio Upgrade Stage-1 . . . . Blam Relax 200rs Speakers From Skipton.
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Audio Upgrade Stage-2 - Vibe Micro Amplifier Plug & Play - How I Done It -
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Audio Upgrade Stage-3 - Vibe Micro Sub Amp + Jbl Sub - How I Done It -
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Audio Upgrade Stage-4 - Kicker 15" Sub + Kenwood Amps - How I Done It -
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These are the speaker kit from Skipton Car Audio. (8" 100W woofer plus tweeters and crossover)(plus new mounting rings)(and a set of OEM speaker connectors)


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The first this was to remove the door cards and drill out the rivets holding the OEM speaker/pods inplace. A simple enough job providing you had a couple of trim tools and some decent drill bits for the rivets. . . . . plus a few Torx bits for the bolts etc. oh and a spanner for the bottom 90deg twixt fixings.

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The rivet mounting holes lined up nicely with the holes in the new collars, but we ended up just fitting new self drilling screws to mount the new speakers and mountings. . . . . you can see the difference in speaker sizes clearly here.

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while the old speakers were out we started the sound deadening with, 1x layer of dynamat type mats stuck to the outer skin behind the speaker port and then another layer of dense foam insulation over the top. . . . . . .just had to keep checking that the window mechanism was still free to move. . . . if you wanted to cover the whole outer skin you would need to remove the inner panel, but we wanst that bothered and were happy to just cover as far as we could through the speaker opening.


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The next thing was to cover the steel inner door panel with a layer of dynamat sound deadening, i was easy to cut into shape with sharp scissors and stuck on nicely with this hot weather we are having,... . . . .

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next was to fit some dense foam to the back of the door card itself . . . . maybe overkill . . . but i was having fun so just kept on sticking . . . .

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doors now done it was time to move onto the tweeters in the A-pillar . . .

the OEM tweeters popped out easy enough once the plastic tabs were cut off . . . . but didn't realize that the tweeters had a different connection on them than the woofers, . . . . so ended up cutting off the old tweeter piece of loom and crimped onto the new tweeter x-over . . .

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the new tweeters lined up nicely, and with a quick go on the hot-melt glue-gun they were firmly fixed . . .

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so put all the panels back together and time for a test.....

The results?

well they sound awesome, even though its still just the head-unit driving them. In stage 2 we have a new 100w amp to run them from. The bass and low-end is massively improved with a nice tight punchy mid-range. The tweeters and top-end clear and precise with great stereo separation.

The sound deadening has made other improvements too, the road noise has been reduced now with a more subtle low-end rumble than before and the door closing sound has nice and reassuring thud when closed compared to the previous tin-can-van type noise. we have a load of sound deadening left over and plan to use it on the roof of the cab the next time the roof trim so down . . . .

Other things to note were that we have a full height bulkhead with no window, this had previously been carpeted on the back side which helped massivley to the road noise preiously . .

Also after we was finished we done a full-van-scan on the Autel Maxisys which showed some error codes logged relating both the woofer speakers being disconnected! obviously set a code when we had the ignition switched on to test the window function wasn't impeaded.... these codes all cleared down with no problem . . . . which was good as the new speakers are rated at 3ohms where as the OEM speakers are the standard 4ohms, so all is withing the range for generating a low resistance fault code. All good.

Total time ? . . . about 3 hours and 6 bud lights =]


stage2 will be soon, using the Skipton audio radio loom so we dont need to cut any factory cables and using a AudioControl LC2i with high level inputs which will also generate a remote Amp switch on feed. Then of course the amps and sub . . . . . but thats for another day.


+++edit:

water on step from deeper speakers:

yes . . .

@Absolut5 gave me this advise. ( top man !! )

+++

get another sheet of that sound deadening stuff . .

stick it of the back of the door carrier (inside the door void)

so it creates a "rain shield" and diverts any rain droplets back into the middle of the door void.

that will drip to the bottom of the inner door skin, then exit via the drain hols at the bottom of the door.

just use one full sheet, only peel off the backing at the top where it sticks to the door, that way it wont stick to the back of the speaker.

we are just looking to make a rain canopy for the speaker driver,


rough sketch bellow.

+++

1617993139131.png



+++

this is option 2..

stick the sheet on the front of the door . . .

and push it into the speaker hole.

then mount the speaker ring and speaker over the top...


again creating a rain shield for the speaker,

to divert any water drops away from the speaker.



+++

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....
 
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Some other pics (8 pic limit per post)

The OEM kit after removal . . . .

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New Blamo Speaker rear conector . . . .

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Gluegun for A-piller post . . . .

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A-piller tweeter x-over . . . .

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1st layer of dynamat on passenger door . . . .

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inside inner door through speaker opening . . . . . dynamat with foam layer over top . . . . .

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Nice job, I got the Focal kit from Skipton, wasn't amazed until I added an amp and then boom, much much better.

It's amazing what an improvement you get from the factory speakers just by adding insulation and silent coat, I had this done first and then retrofitted the speakers afterwards.
 
I got the phoenix gold kit from Skipton. It’s certainly better than the factory speakers but I’m still slightly underwhelmed. Treble was way too hot by default, a bit better turned down a couple of notches on the VW head unit. The integration between the mains in the door and the tweeters still isn’t fantastic. They provide them with simple inline 1st order filters on the tweeters instead of the 4th order crossovers the speakers often come with - I wonder whether this doesn’t help.
 
Great write up I went with the MTX speakers from skipton and the Phoenix tweeters much better than the OEM tripe.
 
So the speaker upgrade worth doing if keeping just with the standard headunit?

Yes defiantly . . . . . BUT . . . . . it does depend on the speaker set you choose.



You need to pick a set that has a LARGER woofer cone than stock, that has the effect of producing the low end bass much better richer sound. (my set was 200mm or 8")

You need to pick set that has a HIGHER wattage handling than stock, (these are 100W RMS)

You need to pick a set that has SEPARATES so you have the remote tweeter to fit in the A-pillar. ( these were glue gunned in)

You need to pick a set that has a X-OVER built in or separate (these come with a x-over on the tweeter side)


so if you just swap out the OEM speakers for a similar spec and size then they will most probably sound the same, follow the above and you will notice a difference.



Now for the sound deadening, thats an essential part, you need to sound deaden the lot, especially the external panel of the door behind the woofer. i chose to use a 2 stage approach using the dynamat stuff and then the dense acoustic foam ontop.

im very happy with the results. (these help deaden the panel vibration that effectively can cancel out the acoustic sound waves and cause a poor sound, they also help out with the dreaded panel rattle) And on the plus side i just love the door closing sound now, it sounds like the dull thud of a high end motor



Now the speakers are so much better i find myself turning the volume up more (now and again), to the point where the headunit is starting to struggle. This is the Que to start looking at a small purpose built amp upgrade.



You dont need all the massivce amps and subs if thats no your thing, skipton do a nice plug and play set that would suite most people. I've not heard them myself, but from the specs it looks like a nice upgrade after you have fitted your new speakers and sound deadening....


have a look at these :

VIBE MICROAMPLIFIER PLUG % PLAY


kenwood plug & play amplifier


Then if you want more power its time to start looking at adding a subwoofer, an example here :


amplifier and 8 sub package
 
I've fitted the focal 20cm kit from skipton and the vibe micro amp, all with the standard discovery head unit...sounds mint. Nice deep bass for a only a replacment set. Peter at Skipton is a top lad...he's helped me out no end and now I go no where else.
 
I've fitted the focal 20cm kit from skipton and the vibe micro amp, all with the standard discovery head unit...sounds mint. Nice deep bass for a only a replacment set. Peter at Skipton is a top lad...he's helped me out no end and now I go no where else.


+1 for the Vibe Micro Class D Amp then. . . . . . . . .


i this that must be very new.

when i was looking a few weeks ago they only had the kenwood plug and play kit.

the vibe kit look nice though.

I've got separate amps and a 15" kicker sub already so ill be going that route.
 
Have any of you had problems with water appearing on the step into the cab? I did, and when I spoke to VW the first thing they asked me was have I fitted new door speakers? I had obviously, and the chap said most of the aftermarket speakers are a little deeper and will catch water from the "wet " part of the door panel. I don't know what the solution is, and neither did he, and to be honest I haven't had chance to investigate, but the problem persists.
 
Yeah I have noticed but thought it may have been the way I put the door card back on.

Skipton do splash guards but I’ll need to pull the door card off and investigate a little. Only seems to be the drivers door.
 
Check your window seal in area shown by arrow below. I had to put a bit of packing behind mine on drivers door. No problems since. I'd rather no water was going down inside the door anyway!

Screenshot_20180820-140017.png

Screenshot_20180820-140017.png
 
I got the phoenix gold kit from Skipton. It’s certainly better than the factory speakers but I’m still slightly underwhelmed. Treble was way too hot by default, a bit better turned down a couple of notches on the VW head unit. The integration between the mains in the door and the tweeters still isn’t fantastic. They provide them with simple inline 1st order filters on the tweeters instead of the 4th order crossovers the speakers often come with - I wonder whether this doesn’t help.


I got the Phoenix gold front speaker upgrade and one of the speakers lasted about 2 months
:mad:


To be fair to Phoenix gold though the other one is still working:D

Until it ends up in the bin within the next few days:thumbsup:
 
Have any of you had problems with water appearing on the step into the cab? I did, and when I spoke to VW the first thing they asked me was have I fitted new door speakers? I had obviously, and the chap said most of the aftermarket speakers are a little deeper and will catch water from the "wet " part of the door panel. I don't know what the solution is, and neither did he, and to be honest I haven't had chance to investigate, but the problem persists.


I haven't noticed anything yet...

Though we haven't exactly had much rain lately.

The rear of the speaker is on the WET side of the door and the OEM speaker pods do have a foam sealing ring on the back.....

Though any water that gets passed the window seal should just run down the inner sides of the door and out the drain holes at the bottom of the door to the outside of the van.
 
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