I have an 01 S60 with the base system. I am going to swap the front door speakers with JBL and was wondering what the difference is between getting 2ohm vs. 4ohm speakers? My factory speakers sound horrible if you crank up the volume.

Also, is it ok to disconnect the battery while doing this...it won't ask for a radio security code?

cheers

Ohm's are the amount of resistance the speakers are rated for. The lower the ohm the less the resistance. While lower resistance sounds better it is only good if you have an amplifier that is rated to handle a lower load (i.e. output more watts). Most speakers are 4 ohm except subs which come in all different ohm ratings.

If you are using the stock radio or stock amplifier to power new speakers you'll want them to be 4 ohm. The factory radio is designed for a 4 ohm impedance. New speakers may or may not sound much better if you 'crank them up'. That bad sound could have a lot to do with whatever is currently driving your speakers (i.e. factory headunit or amp). Look for speakers with a higher sensitivity rating, usually expressed as a number like 92db. The higher the number (anything above 90db is OK) the louder they will play with less power.

Impedence and Sensitivity seem very similar but you can have a 2 ohm (less impedence) speaker with a sensitivity of 85db (low sensitivity), or a 4 ohm (more impedence) speaker with a sensitivity of 92db (high sensitivity) and vice versa.

Disconnecting the battery is OK. My '02 s60 doesn't require any codes after unhooking the battery.

Thanks! Thats great info.

i'll also add that 99.9% of headunit will turn off when driving a 2 ohm load.

The best thing you can do to a car's stereo is remove the manufacturers unit and replace with a high quality unit as there are better amps within the unit and better designed circuitry aswell.

The first thing often considered and a stereo upgrade is the head unit first as you interact with it and it has connotations with your actions, eg turn this and the volume goes up.

Speakers are usually the next thing to upgrade. you have got to be careful as you can buy a cheap set of speakers say £30 or $45 as it were and they 75% chance will sound wrose than the speakers currently in the vehicle. if your going to upgrade your speakers in your doors, i would suggest with going with a well known make within the audio world that is associated with quality such as JL Audio or Alpine, Kenwood and Pioneer.

I have installed an alpine headunit and a set of 16cm JL audio coaxial speakers with JL 6x9 speakers in my fathers skyline and believe me when i say this, the system doesnt has a sub, but when you turn the volume up it truely sounds like there is a sub hidden away somewhere.

When it comes to speakers it really does come down to what you pay for. personally i wouldnt bother looking at anything under £50 $75 mark if you have spent money on a good headunit (cd player etc..)

SyKe

the best thing you can do is use an amp to drive your speakers. you may find the stock speakers are more than adequate but just not getting the right amount of power. an amp will help alot. look for 50 to 70 watts a side and get the amp scoped to set the gains. if the gains are set right you will have a very nice sound coming from your speakers. too much gain and you will kill them. good luck. i agree with the change the head unit, but if the stock one has pre outs then i would keep that.

lower impedance (ohms) equals degraded sound quality. You should only consider anything below 4 ohms if it's a sub. Distortion is most distinguishable at 1khz and a sub will get nowhere near that (80-100 hz max is common in car audio). In my other car I stepped up to 8 ohm mids and tweets while keeping my sub at 2 ohms. Efficiency is a double sided sword too. sure a 96 db @ 1w/m would get insanely loud, but with that also comes the risk of hearing noise more noise when you have a questionable source. anything you do, short of a full system swap will only net marginal results. depending on how the stock system was set up... you could even get worse sound quality from you partial upgrades. If you're not willing to take the plunge first start out with an amp and door speakers then maybe move onto a new head unit. another thing that will help you out is adding a sub. by adding a sub you relieve your door speakers from playing (read distorting) the lower frequencies and therefore allowing them to play with more power within their ideal frequency range.

just an example, at my house i have some 3" tang band drivers in a small cabinet. they are rated at 15 watts per chan. rms. My receiver is a 75 watt receiver. The speakers dont play any lower then about 100 hz and the subs take over from there... i've never had any distortion nor am i in danger of burning out the voice coils because I eliminated the lower frequencies from ever getting to the small speakers.

hope tihs helps