Car Stereos: Mercedes 230 SL stereo, car audio speakers, mercedes benz 230

Question
Hi Brian,

I had a question regarding car audio for a 1967 Mercedes-Benz 230 SL convertible.  When manufactured, the car came with a mono radio, with a single speaker in the middle of the dashboard and a radio tuner built in.  Currently, the radio no longer functions, due to what I believe to be a malfunction in the radio tuner.

I am looking to upgrade the audio in the car, but am unsure as to how to do it, because there are no designated spots to put speakers, etc.  I would like to be able to install a good stereo package, with a good amount of bass from a dedicated subwoofer.  The subwoofer would seem to be fairly easy to install in the trunk, but I am unsure of where to put the speakers in the front section of the car.  How would I go about adding speakers?  And if I chose to preserve the car as it is, would there be any way I could add speakers into the car that, for example, just sat in the car, similar to computer speakers, etc. but still get good audio quality?  And, for a coupe, how many speakers are necessary for the front section?  I would like to try to keep the budget at $500 if possible.  But I would also be interested in hearing options for other price ranges, either higher or lower, to see what options I would have available to me.

Thank-you for the advice!

Answer
Hi James,

You can get excellent sound quality with a single pair of speakers, if you can find a good place to mount them.  There are some fully enclosed, "surface-mount" speakers available for car audio applications, but they're not usually of very good quality.  A surface mount design would minimize the modifications necessary to install the speakers in your car, though.  You can use an indoor/outdoor home speaker with a car audio head unit, but if you choose an 8-ohm speaker (like most home speakers) your head unit won't produce as much power as it would with 4-ohm car audio speakers.  

You can sometimes buy or purchase a plate that fits the factory mono speaker location, but allows you to fit two small speakers in place of the single speaker.  This lets you get left and right channel audio from the single speaker location, but you won't get much of a stereo effect with the speakers located right next to each other.  Also, this requires a very small speaker with limited bass output.  Adding a subwoofer would help a little bit, but you'll still be missing a pretty wide range of frequencies.

The most common option, and probably the best for sound quality, would be to purchase a good set of 6-1/2" speakers and install them into your door panels.  This would, of course, require you to cut holes in the door panels and probably the metal door skin underneath; you'd also need to find a way to run wires into the doors.  I haven't worked on a vehicle like yours, so I don't know the layout of the door panel; but I'd be surprised if you don't have a large, flat area that can accommodate a speaker of this size.  Another possible mounting location would be the kick panel; this is the area to the left of the driver's foot well, and to the right of the passenger foot well.

Hope this helps!

Brian