[alfa] Stereo Upgrade

[Jon Pike <jhpike@xxxxxxx>]

My experience is with 70's era Spiders..  don't know what differences 
you may have in a 90's one..

The challenge of good sound in a convertable is a point well taken...  
It's never going to be great.
This can be a glass half empty, or half full thing..  since it won't be 
great due to wind and car noise, you can spend less money for what will 
be reasonable.

Spiders are tough also for the reason that they have few places at all 
for speakers,  none of them great.

The Spiders I had years ago had sound,  and one of them not bad sound 
for the era.  What made it better,  was some decent speakers in boxes in 
the back and about 25W per channel.  (yeah, Ben,  but that was POWER 
back about the time you were 3!!) ;-)   Down side was compromising the 
behind the seats luggage area with the two speaker enclosures.  I never 
did like that, and didn't duplicate it in the next Spider.  Your type 4 
Spider may be better (or not) amenable to something like this. 
There's always building a box/shelf thing,  that could house speakers,  
both adding cavity space (better for bass) and possibly a flat top 
saving some (shortened) luggage capability.

Overall, going for better quality speakers in your original positions 
that can handle high power without distortion,  and getting a moderately 
big (for today, like 50-100W per channel) amp would be your best bet.  
If you could add a second set, even smaller ones,  that could help fill 
out the sound..  Space them somewhat away from the mains.  Separate 
tweeters might help, especially if you can adjust them to blend in 
better.  You should place them pretty close to their mains, though.

I'm kind of thinking out loud,  since I might want to do something to 
ours when she's back on the road.  Haven't even heard what's in there, 
since the car was sold to me with a radio w/o the removable front panel, 
and a promise to get a replacement that was worth the paper it wasn't 
written on.

Oh,  and a starting reference point for small amps, speakers and car 
audio stuff (they do a lot more) www.partsxpress.com,  has a lot of 
things that might be easy to put under the dash or in the trunk.

Jon
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