jwollam

I've been an audiophile for awhile now, and after owning our HHR for 5 days my first modification is going to be getting some decent speakers in her.
I have the non-sub system. Down the road I wouldn't mind adding a 10" sub in the factory location to liven things up a bit.
Any recommendations for speakers I can just swap out while using the factory radio?

Greenied1

Ooooh, I'm gonna follow this thread. I've been thinking of new speakers as well!

Oldblue

Get the best ones you can afford! I like most have swapped out a system or two over the years.
For now and the last 5 years the stock Pioneers work for me.
I like Sony products, Rockford Fosgate, Check Crutchfield's for prices and such, I'm sure more will add an opinion or two

jwollam

I've been looking at a set of Components (mid-bass drivers in the doors, and tweeters in the A-pillars). Rockford Fosgate has always done good by me, I've checked Crutchfield and Sonic Electronix, both seem to be pretty competitive in pricing. I'll be rocking soon enough :)

Twistedtat

As you know Infinity, MB Quart, and Focal all make great speakers. And they go from entry level to extreme in pricing. However as an audiophile Im suprised you are not upgrading your signal source first.

Grizzly old man

I had some stereo problems back when we bought our used '06. you can search on the site here for stereo problems and read the whole saga if you desire.

While I was trying to get my radio to work I tried many things like a totally different radio. When it finally dawned on me that my whole problem was the speakers I tried several different speakers from the big box of speakers in the garage.

But, {you knew there was a but coming didn't you?} the doors on our little truckletts leak moisture so badly I really don't think a really high end set of speakers are worth putting in unless you really like to spend money on more every now and again.

I currently have the cheapest set of 4, 8 ohm speakers Walmart sells in my car. {think they are Scosrche brand} I had a decent set of Bose speakers in it for a few months but those were a bit pricy and really to me did not sound any better with the built in tweeters working.

I have problems in that part of my hearing anyway, the high frequencies just bother me.

The Walmart speakers are two way with a smaller tweeter in them but they do not bother my ears at least with the music I tend to play so its all good.

Twistedtat

There are ways to keep the moisture off the speakers. You can buy the baffles for them. As for speakers, you can put any speaker in your car and you will not be impressed with the sound difference until you upgrade the source. Kinda like hd tv. You can have the worlds fanciest hd tv, but if your signal is still old school cable, you will not see hd. Just my two cents.

jwollam

I don't live in the best of area's (not a horrible area, just a bunch of college kids). I really don't want anything that screams aftermarket head unit (plus I like the way the stock unit looks like there). If I had somewhere I could park it in a garage every night that would be a completely different story! :)

Oldblue

I'm confused as to the statement improve the signal source, cable tv and HD tv no improvement , so FM radio and any FM radio head unit would be the same just more money!
Signal is signal , improving the processor to deal with it and how that signal is dealt with would be the improvement

Grizzly old man

The source of the sound is important but as stated the equipment that processes the sound is just as important.

A crystal set made with a hunk of galinite, a sharp stiff wire, and some high impedance headphones will tune in a local AM stations so you can listen to it.

The sound will suck big time.

Adding a few more components and a battery to power your improved radio will make your listening enjoyment better.

Some folks will go to extremes insisting on silly stuff like oxygen free copper wire to run to their speakers, gold plated speaker connectors, and other just plain stupid things.

These folks consider themselves to be audiophiles but mostly I consider them to be audiofools.

They have more money than brains sometimes, and many are adamant that they are 'right'. Sure they got an asswhackinmonsterkiller 'system' but so do I at less money.

For many years they all said tube amplifiers were 'so yesterday', now they covet them and will pay top dollar for simple single conversion amps.

I do not care if they produce printouts of the absolute frequency range they can reproduce nor do I care how many dB their system can put out. I happen to have a fairly wide spectrum hearing range but I simply can not hear much below 50 Hertz {can usually feel it more than hear it if I'm close enough to the source} and don't care to hear much in the really high range.

If a system has enough bass you can feel it and enough mid range to cover the annoying high range its good for me.

I'm happy with the cheap speakers in my HHR. There is enough bass that I feel it in my left leg when I'm driving with the volume set to a relatively low setting. The built in tone controls in the stock radio are easily set to where I like them all bass, some mid, and flat line on the highs.

For a short while I had a bass bazooka speaker rolling around in the back of the car. While I did like the enhanced bass it provided it was mostly in the way, so I traded it off.