Speaker system upgrade Defender 90 Hard Top County 2007 - present

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jrogers02

New Member
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Location
West Wales
So I thought I should make an input on this forum, been using it for a while now! I will explain a bit about the speaker upgrade I did in my Landy. It does require a little bit of trimming to panels, but the speakers are mounted in the same place as the originals (tweeters by the windscreen, two speakers by your knees and two in speaker panels in the back. I think that perhaps the rear speakers aren't standard, but you can buy the same panels to fit for about £30 on eBay I think. I have also changed the head unit, and added a compact sub woofer which is mounted on the central bulkhead.

To start with I used all alpine gear so if you've got a grudge against it read no more. Also I have kept my upgrade as near to the original design as possible, so that I conserve space and also had virtually no wiring to do. If you want the best sound system possible, you're going to spend ££££s. You'd have a lot of soundproofing and recreating to do in a defender and then you'd still have squeaks and rattles, and have lost most of your practicality! The whole upgrade also cost me around £550 I think. So bear that in mind however you could potentially try and skimp on one part or another. Also I haven't put peak power ratings down because apparently they're a waste of time. I've been told RMS is what you need to look for.

The system consists of:

Alpine SPS-110TW (Component Tweeter - pair - 2.5 cm - 100w RMS power) £45 ish

X2 Alpine SPR60 (Component Speaker - pair - 13cm/5inch - 90w RMS power) £218 TWO PAIRS (4 SPEAKERS- 2 for front and 2 for back)

Alpine PWE-S8 8 inch Powered Compact Sub Woofer. Fits between two front seats perfect.

Alpine CDE136BT head unit with the usual - FM/MW/LW + DAB/DMB + CD + USB + Bluetooth Audio + 3.5mm auxiliary. It has a separate sub out too. You could use a different head unit but just make sure you've got enough outputs for however many speakers you're going to use. Don't ask me about patch leads etc, I got a guy in Halfords to fit the head unit. I will take a photo the best I can to show what's in there altogether.

So if you've bitten the bullet and bought the gear, the worst has passed! Parting with my money was the hardest part but now I can actually listen to music with a bit of clarity. Fitting the gear isn't too bad if you have some idea of what to do.

So basically the tweeters, and component speakers just need the holes trimming about 5mm, but don't use my measurements CHECK YOURSELF! But if you're careful not to cut too much off you will be fine. I used a pen knife which was hard going, but a Stanley knife might be a better option or some sort of power tool but just be careful not to cut too much off or you'll have a mess. Then just plug in the wires you unplugged when you removed the old speakers. If you wanted to get finicky you could replace the wiring as well and use super high quality wire, but I didn't feel it was worth it. I forgot to mention - you should use the tweeter wire supplied because they have components in to filter out bass. And these just tuck down out of the way.

Now as earlier mentioned I didn't fit the head unit, Halfords did so I can't guide much. The wiring isn't too difficult in a Landy provided you know what you're doing, but I wasn't confident enough. I will photograph where the mic mounts, along with the USB port and digital radio antenna.

Now the sub woofer took a bit of sussing. So there is a bit of wiring to do which was daunting for me but once I had done it, I thought it was easy. Best thing is to google how to wire up a compact sub. You will need crimps and a crimper, an inline fuse electric tape, along with various wire which I bought on Amazon. There is a loom included with the sub, so just look at what gauge the wire is and get plenty. As shown in the pics I mounted the sub but provided brackets at the top, to the central bulk head, and then placed a piece of 4cm foam behind it to stop it swinging and knocking the bulkhead, but also vibrating like hell when you've got a bit of volume.

So I haven't given a step by step guide because I haven't got all day but this a guide to what is needed and what will work. You just need to be reasonably competent at basic wiring, trimming, and if you don't already know, google how to wire each component up! image.jpg
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