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Or else, you have embarked on a difficult, expensive, but potentially very rewarding excercise. Starting with the 9-5, and now on the 9-3SS, Saab has become suddenly very very serious about audio quality. As I wrote in the NINES story about the 9-3SS launch, Saab's great concession to car radios up through the design of the C900 was to put a couple of 4 inchers and a radio hole in the dash. But now, the systems are tuned to the car, balanced for uniform perceived response across the audio spectrum, with low distortion and relatively good volume, within the constraints of packaging and "reasonable" cost. It's the constraints of packaging and cost which you, as an audiophile, can overcome if you arer willing to spend the time, $$$, and sacrifice some of the trunk or interior space. Within that context, you can put together a system that will blow away anything Saab ever has or ever will put into a car.
To better the factory system, you probably need to install a higher power, multi-channel amplifier and EQ box, and speakers to match. Having a sound level meter and test tone generator at hand would be a big help, too. The factory amp is behind the passengers kick panel, and I suspect you will need distribute your replacement system around the car due to the space available. Probably the very best approach is to start with a wagon and use the space under the "false floor" for the power amps, but that does add considerably to the project. At least, the wiring from the radio head to the amplifier is conventional - front left, front right, rear left, and rear right signals which are divided up inside the amp to power front, center, rear, and sub-woofer channels.
The cheap way out, and the way I would go (OK, so I'm cheap) is to purchase a good aftermarket 6X9 3-way driver and clip the leads going to the midrange and tweeter. At best, the aftermarket driver will be more efficent than the factory unit - you can fix that by gluing "BBs" to the speaker cone right at the dust cup on the cone. The weight will lower the speaker resonant frequency (lower bass sounds) and reduce the efficiency (more balanced upper bass). We're talking physics here, and for a given speaker size (6X9), voice coil diameter, air gap flux, and number of turns, the driving forces are the same. All of the above aren't going to be much different from one speaker to another (within a given general manufacturing cost range), because every manufacturer is faced with the same availability of materials, manufacturing equipment, and generic component supplier industry. The final result,then,will accurately match the Saab OE unit - except of course the Saab speaker lacks the enfeebled midrange and tweeter hardware. You could be tempted to try to remove the extra components - don't bother. At the frequencies in question, they are "invisible" to the sound waves.
For a middle road, there's some room for "boutique" suppliers, such as Boston Acoustics and a dozen or two others, to go hog wild and make meanignfully improved designs, but the more commercial names: Sony, Pioneer, Jensen, etc. etc. are going to be pretty close. Then there's the no-name knock-offs - I'd avoid them. You might even find 6X9 "sub woofers" somewhere - check Crutchfield - but I'm guessing that the 6X9s you find will mostly be full-range. Good luck and report back!
posted by 24.166.10...
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