Question about sound system

[vladgladbag]

My wife and I bought our Smart Passion Coupe three days ago and we're absolutely loving it!

The only disappointment I have at all is the lack of rear speakers. We went with the upgraded sound system, and as far as I know there was no sound-related option which we did not purchase aside from the additional six disc changer (we figured 6 in the dash plus an aux jack for an MP3 player was more than enough).

The sound is not bad for what it is (a few more EQ-ing options would have been nice). But without rear speakers, I'm just not getting that happy feeling of sonic envelopment that I crave. The subwoofer helps a little because bass frequencies are perceived less directionally, but I was hoping for a little more feeling of space than that provides.

Does anybody know of a good way to add some rear speakers to a Smart with a minimum of impact on anything else in the vehicle? I'm not looking for window-rattling bass mind you. Just enough sound coming from behind us to move the center of the gravity of the music back to where we are sitting.

[The Rigger]

Originally Posted by vladgladbag

Does anybody know of a good way to add some rear speakers to a Smart with a minimum of impact on anything else in the vehicle? I'm not looking for window-rattling bass mind you. Just enough sound coming from behind us to move the center of the gravity of the music back to where we are sitting.

Do some searching here, in the forums. Some folks have successfully put 6-1/2" round speakers in the side panels behind the seats. The rear interior panels are pretty easy to remove; you might just pop 'em off and see where you could fit rear speaker magnets in the holes in the tridion cell steel without modification... Well... Without too much modification, anyway.

You'll probably need to use a pair of spacer rings to space the speakers out a bit from the trim panels, as there just isn't a whole lot of depth anywhere back there, epecially if your chosen rear speakers have any kind of magnet size to 'em.

But yes; it has been done in coupés, and there are photos floating around here somewhere.

[gbryers]

Originally Posted by vladgladbag

Does anybody know of a good way to add some rear speakers to a Smart with a minimum of impact on anything else in the vehicle? I'm not looking for window-rattling bass mind you. Just enough sound coming from behind us to move the center of the gravity of the music back to where we are sitting.

If you don't find some small surface mounts to use, you will need to build some spacers to put in the side panels (assuming you don't have a cabrio). I built 1" thick MDF rings for 4" speakers, and love the result - I can actually hear the stereo now with the windows open at 55... Here is one shot of the final product, there are a couple more in my gallery (click the link under my name on the left side of this post).
If you are interested, I can give you more in-depth directions on how to build the rings and do the install...

[Gilbert's]

Check with smartmadness...