The Student Room Group

Best speakers/sound system for a Corsa C

Buying my first car soon and Ill probably be one of them annoying lads that plays loud music in their Corsa

What I'm wanting to know is what are the best speakers out their for a corsa that are worth the money, i don't really have a budget but i do want to know how much i need to save

I don't know much about cars and/or speakers but i want them to be loud with lots of bass which isnt distorted

I'd like names of the speakers/sub woofers and prices please
You could spend 50k+ if you wanted to. But that's missing the point.


There is a hell of a lot more involved in this then slapping some speakers into a car. You could spend thousands on just front door speakers alone.

Yet if the installation isnt correct such as the door being dampened against vibrations, a solid mounting surface and a whole number of things then it will sound tosh.

Google talk audio and look around that forum. Look at the budget cars and look at just how much work goes into them. Oh and a budget car isn't 200 quid or so. Normally runs up over a grand at least.
Get a half decent stereo, upgrade the door speakers and get a sub with a built in amp for convenience.

Pioneer stereos usually have an audio connection dedicated for the sub and allows a lot of sub control from the stereo so i'd recommend one.

Probably looking at £200-£300 total.
(edited 9 years ago)
So you're likely to have a sub woofer supplied with 500w RMS. Against the front end ran by a head unit running at best 25w RMS of "Clean" power.

Great move that! Plus a car where everything vibrates around and resonates.


Honestly if you want something that you can actually listen to an enjoy your music and are on a teeny tiny budget forget the sub
Original post by Sam Walters
So you're likely to have a sub woofer supplied with 500w RMS. Against the front end ran by a head unit running at best 25w RMS of "Clean" power.

Great move that! Plus a car where everything vibrates around and resonates.


Honestly if you want something that you can actually listen to an enjoy your music and are on a teeny tiny budget forget the sub


Naa adding a sub is great as long as you balance it well with the rest of the speaker set up. You don't want the door speakers handling low end because they rattle and will rattle anything you've got lying around in the door cards.

Sub gets its power from the amp which gets it power directly from the battery. The head unit shouldn't be supplying power to it apart from the turn off and on signal. ( I may have misinterpreted what you meant on this)
If you've got the sub completely overpowering your front speakers, yes that's going to sound terrible. All about dat balance.

Adding a sub was the best thing that improved my listening experience in the car.
(edited 9 years ago)
You would have been better sound deadening the inside of your doors. Gluing an MDF Ring to the metal inner of the door. Then sealing the door cavity off as best as you can. Getting some reasonable door speakers (£80 quid or so second hand) (A component set). Then run these speakers directly from an amplifier. Play full range into them and use the passive crossover provided. To make it even easier and for you to be able to adapt back to standard if required buy an ISO extension loom and wire the speaker cables from the amplifier directly into that. Utilizing the wiring from where the head unit originally is through to the speakers. Makes it easier to return to standard.

Its not the correct way of doing it, but it will certainly sound a heck of a lot better than just throwing a sub in the boot.

All about dat balance? A head unit providing 25wrms to the front speakers. Turn it up and the signal becomes clipped. This is the quickest way to damage speakers.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 6
For a cheap system, a small sub in the boot with a good head unit is more than enough. My mk3 Golf has factory 6in mids in all four doors, and factory tweeters on top of the dash and in the rear door handles. While they wouldn't win any "DROP DAT BASS BRO" comps, they sound more than adequate for normal use when powered through my semi-decent Blaupunkt head unit. When coupled with a 8in 100W RMS sub in the boot, it sounds a lot more expensive than it cost me. I enjoy listening to music on it, and it has a bit of kick if I feel like turning it up.
Still better off amplifying a decent set of mids and sound deadening the doors. Will cost just as much as putting a sub in a generic box in the boot.
Reply 8
Original post by Sam Walters
Still better off amplifying a decent set of mids and sound deadening the doors. Will cost just as much as putting a sub in a generic box in the boot.


This is just the way I chose to do it. I have rear seat passengers a lot so having sound balanced front to back in terms of the mids/highs was fairly important, so I'd have had to have done a four door speaker build with a four channel amp, and my lows still wouldn't have been as low for marginally better sound quality for 99k% of the time spent listening to it. Granted, if you want proper sound quality you want to amp all your speakers, but for a budget build you get fairly good all round sound quality the way I've done it. It may be that mk3s have a fairly good sound system, speaker wise, from the factory - I've heard it said before - but I'm happy with the way it sounds for the money I've paid. Less than £150 including Blaupunkt head unit, fairly good 2ch bridged amp, sub, and enclosure.
For good sound quality the rear speakers would be removed/disconnected.

For a budget build you get:

All second hand kit:

Amplification:

Something like a Dragster Da602. No one knows about these little gems any more. Rated at 60wrms per channel. I just bench tested one at 85wrms per channel. Internals are made by Denon. Sound quality is superb from these amplifiers. Or maybe a Diamond D1.300.4 These pop up at around £40. I picked up a Da602 for a tenner. Never used till in its box. I also own 2 Da606 amplifiers. 85x6wrms @ 4 ohms. Again 60wrms rated. The rest of the dragster stuff is tosh though mind. They only ever made 3 great products the Da602 the Da604 and the Da606. All of these blow away anything Vibe has to offer from any of its range in regards to quality.

Front Door speakers:
Some entry level rainbow speakers. Perhaps some hertz components. You might get lucky and get some infinity reference component speakers. £50

Source Unit:
Pioneer P77. £60. In its day this was the sound quality head unit to have. It was pioneers flagship unit plus it looks great!

Sound deadening for the front door cavities:
Sound skin. You can get enough to do both front doors in a medium sized car for £15.

MDF speaker rings:
£6 delivered from ebay

All cabling can be had for £15

£150 or so and most people whom wouldn't be able to tell you don't have a sub and will play flatter and will sound better than just throwing a sub into a car.

Run your rear speakers from the head unit. Makes it easier to turn them off when you don't have rear passengers.

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