Kenwood


- Try your local car stereo shop! There is a US Web site too.
I've personally just fitted some Kenwood KFC-P305 speakers to my MX-5, after finally getting bored with the pathetic output of the standard speakers. I'm not using any extra amplification (still the old CRH-60 head unit), but having separate midrange/tweeters really makes a huge difference. Fitting took me about 4 hours, of which most was making an adaptor ring to fill in the space between the new speaker and the old speaker surround - this has to be a tight, ideally airtight, fit to get the best bass (so that it uses the whole door cavity as a resonant area I suppose).

The speakers cost 99 pounds, and I was quoted 1.5-2 hours fitting time if the dealer was going to fit them, at between 25-45 pounds per hour (depending on shop).

The sound is really much improved, especially the midrange/treble, and as such you don't need to turn the volume up so much with the top down at high speed - the bass is probably a little better than the old speakers, but not by a huge amount.

Recently, the MX-5 owners club magazine had a review from someone who has fitted the next size up Kenwood speakers, the KFC-P306 speakers into their 1.6i MX-5. It appears I was misled by my stereo shop about speaker size, as the 306'es fit exactly into the holes left by the factory-fit speakers, meaning these are a rather better bet than the 305's (too late for me though :-( ...).

One thing to note - both audio shops said that the recent MX-5's (1.8's) with the metal speaker surround have a very good audio system and it's basically not worth trying to improve it - so don't waste your money!


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