Honda City Audio Upgrade: Morel Speakers & Damping for Better Sound

I liked the sound signature of Morels as it was little more warm with the highs rolled off. It was tough to decide between the two but finally went with Morel.

BHPian saket77 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Finally some upgrade work done on the City.

The music system on the City ZX with 8 speaker set up was OK for normal listening and has decent bass for a stock set up. But what I was missing in the audio was rich mids and clarity. I was very much OK with the highs and lows of the stock set up but the rich mid frequencies bring the sweetness in the music which the 8 speaker system of the City lacks.

I don't prefer too much bass & have a liking for a natural tone. Didn't want to spend too much on the music system as well since for any serious listening, I prefer home listening sessions on my Polk. Hence, decided to just upgrade the front speakers. I was not sure how the stock system would power 4 components, hence decided to go with the front first. Thanks to TeamBHP members on the City review thread, who had some first hand information about such an upgrade and I got useful information from them to start my search for components.

Crutchfield is a great website to compare speaker specs and even listen to the sound signature of many brands. Very nifty tool. I checked Infinity Reference, Infinity Primus and Morel Maximo 6. The Infinity Reference was the one which had a very open sound stage but it was a little too bright for my liking. It is a great set of speakers who like their music coloured. I liked the sound signature of Morels as it was little more warm with the highs rolled off. It was tough to decide between the two but finally went with Morel. Although some websites were retailing these for lower prices than the local shops, just for the ease of installation, I went with the offline purchase. Also, took the opportunity to get the doors damped. I was little wary of water being trapped in the door by the damping sheets hence I didn't get the outer panel damped. I just got the inner panel damped mainly to reduce road noise and also for some improvement in audio quality. Used Morel damping sheets for the job. Added some more hardware such as speaker mountings and silicone rain guards for the speakers.

I was little worried about the fitment of tweeters since they are well integrated in the mirror sash but glad to say that even the new ones fitted perfectly, sporting the Morel logo on the new grille. There is a marked improvement in the sound quality and the overall clarity has gone a few notches up. The mids are much better and the bass is tight. These speakers are capable of much more with an amp. Also, the rear speakers remain the same OE products of flimsy quality, hence there is ample scope of improvement there as well. You will be shocked to see the old speakers which come with the car. They are made of plastic frames, with paper diaphragm, feather light and the size of magnet is appalling to say the least. In fact the tweeters have better build. The magnet size of tweeters and the woofers are the same or may be even bigger In fact, one would be amazed that how these speakers still sounded decent when played

The OE Tweeters. Compare the size of magnets on the OE tweeters and woofers!

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