Installed new speakers in C2 - my experience

I have the stock C2 headunit and have no plans to change it out (I like the factory look and it already has all the features and functionality I want) but I wanted better sound. So I added an infinity basslink (all in one subwoofer and powered amp, small size unit) which gave me decent low-end bass but it made the factory speakers seem underpowered so I decided to replace them with infinity reference 6030cs (component) speakers for the front and 6032cf for the rear. Boy am I glad I did it was money so well spent. I snagged both together for $150 on amazon. My friend helped me install them and this was our experience, hopefully it helps some people decide which things they may want to upgrade. First of all I have to tell you just how bad those C2 factory speakers really are. I would describe them as paper plates with wires attached. Literally a stiff breeze could lift them out of your hand they are so light and have no substance to them. The magnet on the back is the size of a small stack of quarters. Seriously, I'm not joking. I am shocked that they sounded as good as they did for just how cheaply they were made. The size of all four factory speakers are indeed 6.5 inch, however, the plastic surround that they rest in (and the spacing of the holes on the doors) are actually 8 inch size. You will either want to go with a larger speaker or get some kind of adapter plastic surround to make 6.5's fit the holes. We didn't have an adapter so we got creative. We cut away and removed the speaker material from the factory plastic surround and mounted the new speakers right on that. Another thing I should mention, the factory speakers/surrounds are not bolted to the door, they are secured by rivets. Those rivets are a serious pain in the butt to remove (we had to drill them out). You will need nuts, bolts and washers to replace the rivets once removed. We soldered wires to the old factory leads inside the surrounds to be able to keep the factory speaker harnesses which also allowed us to mount the surround before mounting the new speakers to it. Also another problem we ran into with the component sets in the front (separate tweeter and woofer), is that if you disconnect the factory tweeter no sound will be sent to the woofer below. The factory sound actually hits the tweeter first then runs down to the woofer (four wires connect at the tweeter harness). We had to clip and connect two wires from it to run to the crossover (the positive is the one marked with a blue line on the harness head on both sides and the negatives are blue on the passenger and purple on the driver side). To clarify that's driver side pink = positive and purple = negative, on the passenger side it's green = positive and blue = negative. Mounting the new replacement tweeters was another problem we ran into. The infinity's came with a plastic ring (8 inch size... yes I know what your thinking... if it came with an 8 inch mounting ring why didn't I use that to mount the new speakers to the doors? The holes would not line up properly to the door holes no matter how we oriented it, it was off by just a little bit making it impossible) the mounting holes on the ring were in various places. It turns out that three of the holes match up perfectly with the two holes that the factory tweeter metal bar mount to and the third center hole we mounted the new tweeter onto. This lined them up almost perfectly to the door panel tweeter openings. (we used about a quarter piece of the plastic mounting ring). Hopefully in the future there will be some speaker installation kits available for us DIY Prius C owners as I don't think most DIYers will want to go through this much hassle. With the door panels back on we gave it a test listen and man I am blown away by the difference, and I can't believe it sounds this good coming from the factory stereo either. I've seen people on here debate if they should invest in a new stereo first or speakers first. If my experience is any indication, it's without a doubt better to get new speakers first, then if your still unhappy with the sound, consider the headunit but do not waste your money on a new stereo if you have no plans to change out the speakers because it would be like driving paper plates with a high end stereo!

This install took us about 12 hours to complete. You may want to wait until the weekend to attempt this, but then again we were improvising and figuring things out as we went, and that includes a trip to Autozone and Lowes trying to figure out a way to mount them, and working very carefully to avoid any damage to my new hybrid baby. So if we had to do it over again with the knowledge we gained I bet we could do it in 1/4 to 1/2 the time. Sorry I didn't take any photos, the majority of the time we were working by flashlight.

 

update: I've since installed a backup camera:

And a bazooka tube:


And a pioneer AVH-X3500BHS receiver.

 

It definitely works! It sounds more bassy than the basslink and it gives me more room in the trunk for cargo. Bazooka is a much better fit for this car. The bazooka tube I bought used from a friend, so it's a little beat up looking, but if you mean the shape, it comes that way.