Who here has installed a fantastic E-type sound system?

I like playing some quality jazz/60's Brit Invasion while cruising around. Unfortunately, what's in my Series II at present gets quickly drowned out above 35mph by that (albeit gorgeous) exhaust note.

I know nothing about stereos, but would like some fantastic sound. Local sound shops just seem to give me a shallow sales pitch for their sponsor's gear.

RetroSound makes some great retro head units...so that's covered...what about speakers? It looks like there are four 6" speakers in the footwells?

Can anyone give me guidance on a winning setup they installed? Speaker advice? Amp or pre-amp needed? I have a friend who can pretty much install anything, but he recommended getting advice on on a successful setup.

I'd even consider a speaker enclosure to fit into the back, if needed, if someone has done it/can offer advice. I'd rig it to a plug, so it could be removed if I needed to use the boot.

No better sound than that engine, but there's also nothing better than Pacific Coast Highway at sunset in an E-type, with Stan Getz on the stereo.

Advice?


1969 Series II FHC, Signal Red

 

I have been waging this battle and you face serious obstacles.

First, speakers. They share the same back volume which leads to notchy frequency response. Back in the 60's, radios were not stereo so this was not such a huge deal. I got better results reversing the phase of one speaker (either one). Second issue, speakers contain a tweeter which is very directional. They aim high frequencies sideways into the car padding and carpeting. One solution is to use speakers with a tweeter mounted separately and pointing more towards your ears. Good luck making that look period correct. At least tweeters are small.

Finally, most speakers are deep enough so that there will not be enough room to mount a standard radio between them. So either package the electronics elsewhere or search for a shallow speaker (usually acoustics will suffer). My approach is a simple small power amp connected with a cable or Bluetooth to my phone. Far from ideal but I would rather listen to the car.

Good luck and please share any approaches you discover.

Bill Braun

 

Hello,

In October, I realized a lifelong dream and bought my first E Type - 1969 Ser. 2 FHC in Sable Brown. A prior owner installed a Blaupunkt AM/FM radio circa 1973 with stereo speakers on either side of the interior just next to each seat. It's very good stereo sound but limited to the radio. I wanted to listen to my own music on a non-Bluetooth iPod.

So I just bought a pair of JBL Extreme speakers and placed them as far apart as possible in the pocket created by the lift-up hatch just behind the seats. I had tried the JBL Flip (borrowed from my children) but the flap would slam shut every time the car moved. The JBL Extreme is big enough to keep the hatch open at a 45-degree angle, which lets the music out.

https://www.jbl.com/bluetooth-speakers/XTREME.html

Now at first, I tried one speaker in the center right behind the armrest, but the problem was it lacked any separation and was too concentrated in one ear. So I decided to try a second speaker and put one on each side. I used this setup yesterday for the first time, playing some Credence Clearwater Revival as my "first song," and it was great.

The only issue is that the speakers are very bass-heavy, so I adjusted the equalizer on the iPod settings to 'flat' and it was much better.

Since my iPod is non-Bluetooth, I bought a 3.5mm plug splitter and 2 six-foot male to male 3.5mm cables to connect the iPod to each speaker, and it was easy. If you have a Bluetooth source, the speakers will connect to it AND to each other with a feature called JBL Connect. Then you get real stereo and it sounds awesome; I tried it with my children's smartphones.

The speakers will set you back $300 each, although I bought them at the NYC store and they were handing out discount coupons. But there is no special wiring needed and when you finish driving, you take them out of the car and there is no taking away from the historic integrity by cutting holes in the car.

JBL claims the speakers will run 15 hours on a single charge, which is excellent if it's true. The smaller JBL Flip dies pretty quickly, which was a real pain when the music stopped in the middle of a drive.

I would still like to find someone who can modify my Blaupunkt to take an external 3.5mm plug, but so far, I haven't found anyone.

I hope this is still useful. Good luck.

 

I will research your solution!

 

hi there
can you tell me what you ended up doing with your stereo as I want to sort mine out.
I was thinking two six inch speakers in the foot wells. Two speakers behind the seats in side panels. Maybe two small tweeters each side of the dash board. What do you think watts etc.
i have a series 1 2+2 1967.
thanks very much any advice appreciated
harvey

 

Depends on how close to stock or at least original condition you want it. I'm currently in the process of trying to create a stereo that only uses the stock console cutouts. Here's what I've learned:
• Very little exists for the receiver part of the equation. The best options back in the day were Blaupunkt and Alpine, and neither are currently available. Even if they were, they are 50-year-old technology, limited to radio, and aren't that great. Retrosound makes something that will fit, but it's not considered hi-fi. I decided to custom-wire a Bluetooth receiver and a 3.5mm stereo jack to a passive volume control and separate amp unit.
• Space—or lack thereof—is a major consideration. There's only about 120 cubic inches of space (6 x 4 x 5) and I'm being generous. Everything needs to be miniature; especially the amp. Although 4-channel is nice, 2-channel tends to be more compact. There's a little bit of extra space under the seats, but I did not want to run additional wiring or use the cubby box.
• Soundproofing is another consideration. Cars in general are not great for audiophile listening because of all the hard surfaces (not to mention engine and road noise). I'm installing Koolmat and a small amount of Dynamat in addition to the jute, foam, and carpeting from the factory, but the audio considerations were pretty far down on my list.
• Speakers are probably where you can have the greatest effect on sound quality. Although there are lots of great options in the 6–6.5" speaker range, very few will fit the stock speaker position. Depth is the problem. I tried fitting Focals, Infinity Kappas, JL Audios, Morels, and Alpines—none fit. They fit the openings, but the magnets banged up into the transmission tunnel. I finally found a mid-cost Infinity speaker that was shallow depth (REF-6532ex) and fit. Remember that these are bottom-mount to fit within the stock grills. If you go to a top-mount install, you may have more options, but it will jut into the footwell.
• billb44 makes excellent points. Limited depth; back-to-back facing; tweeters facing your legs. you could go separate speaker components with remote tweeters, but there's no good place to mount them—the dash, radio fascia, rear deck, and headliner don't really offer any opportunities. In terms of the back volume (which is what determines your bass response), I am planning on reverse phasing as well—in theory, one speaker will 'pull' while the other one 'pushes'.
• Wiring is yet another issue. You need to match your power requirements with your speakers. Generally this will be between 25–150 watts per channel (RMS, not 'peak'). The more power, the bigger the wiring requirements. Staying at the lower end (using more efficient speakers) might let you use the existing wiring, but even that's a bit iffy. My intended amp is only supposed to draw 12A so I'm going to run it through the spare #4 fuse.
• Forget trying to get a subwoofer in. And forget about using the doors (which is the first thing that installers want to do).
• You'll probably want something that is Bluetooth compatible and something that you can plug your phone/mobile device into (3.5mm input). I searched and could not find anything off-the-shelf, except for the Retrosound units. They are expensive and I thought pretty tacky-looking. They also don't have enough power and need a boost of some kind. And once you put the head unit in place, there's no room for additional amplification.
• I'm only familiar with Series 1 cars and there is only space for 1 pair of 6–6.5" speakers. I can't imagine that the Jaguar engineers magically found room in the Series 2 cars for another pair of speakers.
• And before I forget, you'll need to consider noise suppression. Cars generate all kinds of electrical fields that create noise. A ground loop isolator is a minimum add-on to try and alleviate hum.

All in all, if you're serious about the sound quality, flewett's solution is the best of all worlds. Get a couple of decent self-powered, active speakers, build a custom mount for them (on the rear deck that you can take in or out; even use matching vinyl and Jag fittings/Lucas switches), and be done with it. I'll bet there a ton of 12VDC portable mini-stereos available—Denon, JBL, Beats…. Getting connectors is easy.

 

Thanks very much for that.
I was thinking just putting two 6 .5 speakers in the side foot wells on the A posts.
Also two 9 inch speakers behind seats in the sides as I have a 2+2 then get a retrosound Santiago dab in it and forget speakers in the console, maybe eve fit an amp in there where the speakers are suppose to be.
I just want a reasonable sound in there.
Hopefully that will work, what do you think.
cheers Harvey

 

I'm not familiar with the cabin space of the 2+2s, however it seems to me that if you're willing to give up some passenger room, that would be a good place for it. If you can surface mount your speakers, that will free up a bunch of options (honestly, surface-mount may be the only option; I'm not aware of any body cavities that can be used for speaker housing). The main thing would be to get the speakers aimed up towards your ears.

In terms of speaker size, I would stick with a good 6.5" speaker. The Retrosounds don't have a lot of power so you'll want them to be as high efficiency as possible. A component speaker system will give the best sound (with a separate tweeter that can be aimed and positioned; the deeper the sound, the more uni-directional they become). You could put a low-profile amp under the seat; two 2-channel amps if you want to get fancy about it. Again, you need to be careful not to overload the existing alternator circuit or the wiring.

It all depends on what is important to you. Mine is not a concours car, but I do want to keep it as original as possible. So I'm trying to find the best quality speakers for the stock positions and hiding the electronics inside the radio fascia. Using a Retrosound unit would solve the problem nicely (the Wonderbar unit is especially elegant), but I'm going a little more custom within that space. If I cared more about the sound and was willing to give up cabin space, I'd create a thin soundbar stretching across the rear cubby space (upholstered in matching vinyl and moquette, of course).

One more thought: Alpine makes a booster amp designed to work with existing head units that looks pretty good (some other manufacturers might as well). I wouldn't worry too much about putting speakers in the footwells if you are going to utilize your back seat/shelf area. If you aren't going to use the back areas, then using a component system with the mid-range/woofers in the footwell/console area and the tweeters mounted on the doors just below the A-posts should work decently well. You just need to be cognizant of space. I like Focal and Morel as speaker manufacturers simply because they have excellent reputations for their home audio equipment. If you are willing to forgo the factory grilles, both of these could probably fit into the console space.

 

Thanks great advice
cheers harvey

 

I have a Sony head unit, amps in the trunk, speakers in the doors subs behind the seats. This is the head unit: Sony XAV-AX8000 8.95" Apple CarPlay & Android Auto Digital Media Receiver | World Wide Stereo

AMP

Sony Head unit

Sony Head unit

Sony head unit, small display is for the EFI system.

Dash

Subs are behind the seats.