OK, so seeing as most information around the web pertains to USDM fits (which have 6 speakers and other differences) I thought it would be useful to post some info on how I did my 4 speaker install this weekend.
Firstly, the headunit in UK Jazzes is made by Alpine and is 41W peak per channel (41x4) which equates to 29W RMS per channel.
Part number is TUNER ASSY. (41WX4) (ALPINE) in case you're wondering
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Anyway, I decided to buy a set of 4 Alpine speakers to go with the headunit because the stock speakers are pretty rubbish.
They have no treble, and no midrange with woolly bass. I had to listen with Bass set at -2 and treble +2 and voices still sounded muffled and indistinct. Listening to Talk Sport was pretty unbearable tbh.
The other option is to replace the Headunit.....well, that's an option in the rest of the world but not in the UK
NO ONE makes the fascia needed to convert to single or double din for RHD cars that includes the space for the seatbelt light as well. Until they do, a speaker upgrade is the best way to upgrade the sound as a first option.
So, on to the procedure (apologies for the piccies, some are from the net and some from my iPhone, so they aren't necessarily the best).
Stage 1Remove the screw inside the door handle recess. You will need a philips no2. BE CAREFUL, this black screw is VERY secure and you need to be careful to apply enough force without stripping the head.
Now remove the bottom plastic cover of the "arm" of the door. It is secured in place via plastic tabs and should pull off. To do this safely, I inserted a thin plastic card into the upper right side where it meets the arm cloth. A slight twist will expose a gap which allows you to get a purchase and pull the plastic off.
Now unscrew the big silver screw shown in the middle of the picture above using the philips screwdriver
Now unscrew the big silver screw shown in the middle of the picture above using the philips screwdriver and don’t forget to unclip the wiring plug (note that UK 'ES' Jazzes have electric windows all round so you'll have to remove plugs for all the four doors, inc. the rear passenger ones).
Now try and get your finger behind the plastic where the speaker grill is and pull the corner towards you. This is the easiest to pull off, after this pops out, the rest of the "plastic pins" will pull away and the door will be "free" at the bottom/middle.
This picture shows where the 6 lug holes for these plastic pins are, so you'll know where they are. The pins are bright red so they're easy to spot.
With the door hanging "loose" there is NO NEED to proceed to remove the plastic panel completely because you can lift it away enough to get to the speaker screw at the bottom (image above shows when I was putting it all back together with the new speakers, the stock speakers look a LOT cheaper and nastier
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...plus, the rear doors have this plastic wedge which makes it harder to pull the door panel completely off anyway, so I just left them hanging there.
Now unscrew the speaker from the door:
...and pull up in order to lift the speaker from the two clips holding the bottom into the door. After this, remove the speaker and unplug it.
Do the same for all four doors and take the 4 speakers into the house/garage.
Total time so far about
30minSo now we need to install the drop in speakers into place and do some modding.
Stage 2The stock speaker is in the top right of the piccie. Notice the cheap, small magnet. Also, these are simple cheap paper cones, not even dual cones and certainly not coaxials (which Honda charge an arm and a leg for upgrading to).
The cone is actually part of the spacer, so you need a dremel to cut it away from the basket (about 12 or so thin plastic "legs"). Then cut the top 2 and bottom 2 supports from the input plug.....you'll use these later.
Once done, rip the cone out of the spacer and peel it away fromt he outer edge where it's glued in as well.
You should have a spacer, a female connector plug and a ruined/ripped out cone. Throw the cone away.
At this point, if I had a 16.5cm speaker, it'd be a direct drop in.....however, I chose Alpine SXE-1725S 16.5cm speakers. Unfortunately, the speaker
is 16.5cm but it has a wide flange around the edge that brings it up to 17cm total. In order to fit into the spacer, I had to dremel away that extra edge
This then slots right into the spacer snugly, after which you can screw them into the spacer via the screws supplied with the Alpines. I then had to sand the sharp points of the screws at the rear by a mm or so as they are ever so slightly longer than the spacer depth.
The end result is a speaker that is shallower than the stock speaker and thus won't obstruct the window when wound down nor hit the speaker grill in the door plastic in front.
In order to be careful to not damage the Alpine cones, I was very careful here and doing all four housings and speakers meant this was quite time consuming, total time here about
1-2 hoursIf you don't need to trim the speaker edges, then preparing the spacers and screwing your speakers in carefully (and sanding the points down) might take half that time.
Stage 3So that's the speakers mounted, now it's time to address the electrical connections.
You could of course, simply cut the plugs off and directly solder the oem wire onto your new speakers, but I thought a better way (which would also preserve polarity with less of a chance of making a mistake) is to simply transplant the stock electrical plugs onto the new Alpines.
I araldited the plastic plug from the housing (from earlier) into position on the Alpines and then soldered the connections into place using thick gauge speaker wire. BE VERY CAREFUL HERE. Not enough heat and the solder won't tin the wire correctly.....too much heat and you could damage the speaker/voice coil.
Also, when putting the plug into position, I bent the Alpine pins back in order to allow enough room for the door plug to fit all the way down onto the connector.
Note, after soldering into position like above, take some time to tidy up any stray strands (which I did afterwards by tinning them into the wire).
Time for this stage was about
1-2 hoursStage 4So here is the new speaker in position.
There are a few things to note when putting the doors back together again.
Remember to reach behind and pull the electrical connector through before pushing the door panel back into place.
The door arm plastic has a very tiny plastic pin toward the front end that is easy to miss and easy to damage. It also has a spade-like part on the back end that you have to slide into the door panel in order to fit it. To avoid damage and have an easy fit I inserted the "spade" bit first, then moved to the other end and made sure that plastic pin aligned correctly. The rest of the pins then followed after a slight push and clipped back nicely.
Remember to push the handle against the door and slide to the right in order to "hook" the handle into position. It is held in this way by 4 L shaped hooks that you need to align correctly first. Doing this also means the screw hole lines up correctly (it's easier to understand when you do it yourself).
Total time to put it all back together again about
15-20minTrim all fitted back perfectly, there are no knocks or rattles and you can even see the silver reflection from the new speakers
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The sound?Well, it's a BIG improvement. I now have adequate treble, decent (tighter) bass and a midrange at last. It's not massively louder, just massively better balanced. Good enough in fact, that I have gone back to Bass set to 'C' and Treble set to 'C' (i.e. neutral for both) and everything sounds much clearer.
I can also now listen to medium wave and whilst it doesn't sound great (headunit at fault here) it's MUCH better than it was before, with more clarity to voices.
The extra treble does mean that it's easier to hear a small hiss if radio reception is poor, but that's a sympton of good speakers exposing poor headunit reception and isn't a problem imo (the overall improvement in sound far outstrips this minor niggle)
Yes, given the option a headunit upgrade would be a good move but unfortunately, being in the UK, means that this is out of the question for most of us (it's possible by getting the satnav option's plastic surround but Honda insist they can't supply that part to me).
For £60, this is a great little upgrade that takes a bit of time to do right but is well worth it when you do
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EDIT: Full install guide up here as well: http://gafferlicious.com/jazz.html.