When MUD started in business over 20-yrs ago, the second product we designed and produced was our MUD Console. Once we’d started offering our own MUD speaker housings, we’d regularly get asked whether we sold head-units to go into the console and the speakers to going into our MUD speaker trims. For many years we resisted selling car-audio products because I’m way too old to have been a ‘Max Power’ body-kit & car audio nerd and my interest lay in Land Rovers and not flashing LEDs and drum & bass. The number of requests for audio equipment got so overwhelming we had to give in, and more by accident than design MUD became a leading authority on installing aftermarket audio in Land Rover Defenders. I’d turned into ‘nerd’ without even realising it.
We’ve covered the various iterations of Defender head unit connections in a previous blog so this episode aims to cover the intricacies of speaker fitment in the classic Land Rover Defender.
You’ve upgraded that tired head-unit so naturally your attention has now turned to upgrading those factory speakers. Land Rover used the same cheap and nasty 4in speakers on Defender right up until the end of production. As a rule, you can assume any aftermarket speaker you install will sound better than the factory speakers! Fact.
Notice how on a good quality speaker you’ll witness a marked improvement in materials used in their construction over the flimsy paper cone of the original Defender speakers.
An industry contact told me ‘The original speakers can’t have cost Land Rover more than a couple of quid each and that’s being generous!’ Arguably, replacing the factory speakers ahead of upgrading the head-unit is the best starting point when improving the Defender audio since nothing could sound worse than the OE speakers.
So you’ve gone to fit your new speakers and with old speakers in hand you suddenly discover that those Land Rover speakers had a trick up their sleeve. They’re very slim. And that was for a reason.
On all pre-2002 models with the earlier traditional dashboard design, the wiper-motor sits immediately above the LH speaker which limits the depth of speaker than can be installed.
With minimal clearance (30mm) between the outer surface of the dashboard trim and the wiper-motor, you can see why Land Rover chose such a slimline speaker and even then, they had to mount the speaker onto an angled plinth/spacer.
This makes upgrading the front speakers in the lower dash on these earlier Defenders all the more complicated because a better speaker will often have a greater depth than those slimline factory speakers. With just 30mm to play with, you will have no option but to use a 4in/100mm speaker spacer to create the extra depth in order to clear the wiper motor on all Defender models up to 2002.
It is possible to stack the 100mm speaker spacers we sell but you can source MDF 100mm spacers of varying depths to suit on places like eBay and Amazon. How much spacing you will need will depend on how deep your new speakers are.
Land Rover mounted their speakers onto a wedge-shaped plinth/spacer that measures 25mm at the deepest part in order to lean the back of the speaker away from the wiper-motor. That’s why the mounting depth of any speaker you plan on installing is critical to how deep the speaker spacer will need to be in order to install replacement speakers in an early style Defender dashboard.
The KICKER DS & CS range of speakers have a relatively 46mm slimline depth compared to say the 53mm depth of the Focal 100AC so both KICKER products will work as an effective drop-in replacement for the factory speakers. The top of the range KICKER KS measures 51mm which is right on the limit of what will fit using the factory wedge style speaker spacer.
On an air-con equipped car with speakers fitted into the under dash air-con assembly you have approx 2in/50mm of space to play with. Once again, it will depend on the depth of the speakers you have but you can easily add a 100mm speaker spacer to create any extra clearance you need.
Top tip. Those funky elliptical shaped speaker grilles may look cool but they won’t fit onto any aftermarket speaker spacer without a silly looking overhang. For this reason, we always recommend choosing a speaker with a perfectly round matching speaker grille. Most aftermarket speakers will still fit onto the factory style wedge shaped speaker plinth.
Use the comparison chart to see the depths of the 4in KICKER Audio and the Focal Speakers we sell.
From 2002 onwards, Land Rover shifted the position of the wiper motor so speaker depth clearance was no longer an issue on these cars. This makes life way simpler when upgrading the front speakers as any aftermarket 4in/100mm speakers will drop straight into the factory location.
A common question we get asked is ‘Can I upgrade the size of the speaker because bigger is better right?’ Yes. Kind of… The next natural step up in speaker size would be to go from a 100mm/4in to a 130mm/5.25in diameter speaker. We have 5.25in speaker options from both Focal and KICKER.
Obviously, you’re still going to have the same wiper-motor clearance issues on any pre-2002 car (we can supply 5.25" speaker spacers) but there is room to install a 5.25in speaker - just!
On the later Puma models, the speaker mounting area on the lower dashboard has been moulded specifically to suit a 4in speaker.
A larger diameter speaker can look ‘wrong’ in this location looking rather like a square peg overhanging a 4in sized hole. The hole in the dash will need enlarging to take the larger diameter speaker cone and you’ll have to drill new mounting holes.
Lots of people do fit 5.25in speakers into the Puma dashboard (with very mixed results) but an alternative, and arguably the best way to go, is to avoid any dashboard butchery and use a 4in component kit that uses a mid-range speaker and a separate tweeter for the higher frequencies. True - component kits are a more expensive option but there will be a marked improvement in the sound with greater detail thanks to the separation they provide. Not least because tweeters mounted high up on the dashboard are closer to your ears instead of relying on the factory speaker location that point directly down at the floor!
The Focal ES100KE Component speaker kit has become something of a default install for lots of Defender owners since the woofers and tweeters drop straight into any Puma Defender dashboard.
Land Rover bodged their own tweeter install on the Puma Dashboard by simply piggy-backing the dashboard tweeters off the lower 4in coaxial speaker which of course, is that same cheap and nasty 4in speaker Land Rover has always used. The Focal & KICKER component kits are true component kits that use a crossover to separate the high and low frequencies and send the high and low signals to their respective speakers. This sounds more complicated than it is when it comes to wiring them up. The two regular speaker wires from your head-unit go into one side of the crossover while on the other side of the crossover, one pair of wires goes to the lower speaker while another pair goes to the tweeter. There is space on the back of the Puma dash moulding within the speaker aperture to mount the crossover. I typically wipe the plastic with some alcohol/brake cleaner type solution and use some good quality (3M) double sided sticky tape to attach the crossovers.
Conveniently the Puma dashboard has provision for tweeters but we recommend checking the diameter of any aftermarket tweeters against the diameter of the 45.5mm factory tweeter aperture.
Fitting a component kit into an earlier generation Defender dashboard is easy enough to do. All you’ll have to do is use a hole-saw to create the holes to sink the tweeters into the dashboard, although be aware there is steel underneath that layer of vinyl and foam so we’d recommend removing he dash top-rail from the car and cutting out the metal layer first from the underside.
Our component kits come with a multitude of fitting options including surface mounting pods that sit on top of the dashboard and let you aim all of the sound right at your face. Component speaker set-ups are best installed in the front of the car where you want most of the sound to be. When you go to a concert, the sound is coming at you from the front of the stage, not at the back of the venue.
North American Specification (NAS) Defenders were the first Defender models to have a ‘proper’ audio set-up and although the factory fit 6.5in Clarion speakers were unique to these models, there’s no reason owners can’t take inspiration from the NAS Defenders in order to improve a non-NAS car or a NAS lookalike soft-top build.
On all NAS soft-top models the factory 6.5in speakers were fitted into the door-trims that were unique to soft-top models. If you’re building a soft-top Defender and want a better sound set up then we can supply faithful replica of the NAS Door Trims for the Series style split half-doors. The panels are supplied blank so you can create your own-cut out to suit your preferred speaker size.
You can then use any of the KICKER Audio 6.5in speakers we offer whose relatively shallow depth and 123mm cut-out out dimension makes them a perfect fit for the NAS door trims.
Soft-top NAS models also used a 6.5in speaker in the NAS Rear Speaker Trims fitted into the rear body corners.
These too will accept the KICKER 6.5in options although these speaker housings provide enough space to allow owners to upsize to a 6.75in speaker
The hardtop Station Wagon NAS Defender (and 50th Anniversary Defender) used the exact same Clarion 6.5 speakers as soft-top models but these were mounted slightly differently.
For the fronts, 6.5in door speakers were used for the first and only time in the regular Defender door trims. The speakers were mounted onto the door trim using a chunky rubber speaker spacer mounting ring (Part #STC3312).
The door trims with speaker cut-outs were a factory part used exclusively on NAS and 50th models and not unsurprisingly, these door trims have been an obsolete part for many years. This means you will have to create your own cut-outs for the speakers in your door trims in order to fit the NAS style door speaker plinths.
Any of our KICKER Audio 6.5in options will make an alternative to the tired 25+ yr old Clarion speakers.
If you’re thinking of retro fitting door speaker into your Defender door trims, be aware, as any NAS/50th owner will tell you, the downside of door mounted speakers is you run the risk of kicking the speakers EVERY single time you get in or out of your Defender!
In the rear of the NAS/50th Station Wagon and some soft-top models Land Rover used a slimline speaker trim in order to clear the upright strengthening bar in the rear body corners.
Once again, any of the 6.5 inch speaker KICKER options will work in these trims and there’s even enough room to upgrade to a 6.75in speaker if you really needed that extra quarter inch of sound!
Moving into the rear of the regular Defender, (NAS models excepted), it wasn’t until the introduction of the Td5 (from VIN 4A673689) that we started to see a factory installed rear speakers. The rear corner trims were once again, fitted with the same OE 4in speaker Land Rover has always used so replacing these with aftermarket speakers is a quick and easy way to provide an improvement in sound quality.
The original factory trims have a recess moulded into them for the factory 4in speaker to sit within.
We offer several drop-in 4in replacement speaker options from both Focal and Kicker. If you want to go up in size within the factory speaker housings then it’s a relatively easy job to open up speaker aperture within the plastic trims to accommodate a larger 5.25in/130mm speaker.
Note that with the introduction of the 2007 Puma Station Wagon with forward facings seats, a different ‘stepped’ speaker trim was introduced to follow the profile of the Station Wagon bodytub but these panels can easily be modified to take a larger diameter speaker by cutting away some of the plastic material.
If you have a hardtop model, our MUD speaker trim makes installing speakers in the rear of your classic Defender a breeze. They will accept both 130mm and 160mm speakers options.
One thing to be aware when selecting aftermarket speakers is that not all speakers come supplied with speaker grilles these days. This is because on most modern vehicles the speakers are concealed behind factory trim panels so traditional speaker grilles are redundant. Of course, the speaker fitment in the classic Land Rover Defender is still very much an old-school install but rest assured MUD can supply speaker grilles to suit every speaker size if your choice of speaker isn’t supplied with them in the box. You can also reuse the 4in grilles from the original Land Rover speakers. These simply peel off the front of the Defender speakers. These are available to buy from Land Rover (Part #FXE500050) but at almost £60 each, why would you bother…?
If you still want some more audio oomph then you could consider a sub-woofer. Heck Land Rover even fitted an (Alpine) sub-woofer under the cubby box on the SVX models and offered a cubby box mounted Alpine sub as a factory option for the last couple of years of Defender production.
Bass-fiends will appreciate the power of the Focal iSub, the KICKER 8" or Kicker 10" sub for maximum window rattling oomph. If you’re not a bass-head our most basic Phoenix Gold compact sub-woofer will still provide a noticeable enhancement to any Defender audio by supplementing the 4 regular speakers and help fill the cabin with sound, without rattling your fillings loose.
On 110 Station Wagon models and Double Cabs, the dead space under the rear seat provides a convenient mounting location for compact subs. We also offer our popular under cubby sub-locker.
For more info on head-unit connectivity and the minutiae of ISO connections in Defenders, check our previous blog that walks you through the various ages of Defender and the easiest way to connect up any modern head unit.
