Volkswagen Bettle Sound System Upgrade

Basic Upgrades To Your Beetle's Sound SystemTech Facts:
Blaupunkt Heidelberg CD50
Receiver, $399.95; Kicker Impulse i6.1 component speakers, $300; Kicker Impulse IX702 amplifier, $330; Kicker Impulse i600 2-way speakers, $190; Kicker loaded sub enclosure with two 12-inch F12c subwoofers (enclosures now only available with Kicker's Solo-Baric L7 subs), $550
MSRP: $1,769.95

Shameless Plug: Blaupunkt Mobile Audio, 800/950-2528, www.blaupunkt.com

Another Shameless Plug: Kicker, 405/624-8510, www.kicker.com; Crutchfield, 888/292-2595, www.crutchfield.com

Volkswagen's New Beetle is probably the easiest car to recognize on the road. The |design is both nostalgic and nouveau with people all ages grasping onto it as some sort of generation-defining auto-mobile. This, however, isn't the point of this article. You've probably already read about how out of the ordinary or "classic" the car is, but have you taken a look into the interior and how it can be both an audiophile's worst nightmare and best dream? Didn't think so.

Accurate sound reproduction in car audio environments is an interesting concept. To those in the know, it's a science that can be broken down into mathematical calculations. These calculations can be used to set up the "ideal" listening environment within a specific vehicle. The New Beetle is both a dream and a nightmare because of its design. Though the high, dome-shaped roof is much like the shape of many auditoriums, if speaker placement isn't perfect, the sounds that you are looking to reproduce could be turned into a garbled mush. Also, because the ceiling is so high, low-frequency road noise may be able to travel further into the cabin, thus producing a higher noise floor, disallowing you from hearing your music.

Whatever an audiophile's interpretation of the sound reproduction capabilities of the New Beetle, there's no arguing with the fact that the factory sound system isn't quite up to snuff, even to the least discriminating tuning enthusiast. Whether this is because of the lack of CD player or simply because of the desire to tinker with any element of your vehicle that can be tinkered with, you'll want to do something about the factory sound system.

It all begins at the head unit. Simply swapping out the head unit for one that produces more power and has better features than the OE unit may do it for many. For us, it was only the starting point. Blaupunkt is the European alternative to the many Japanese and American (mostly Japanese) mobile audio companies. Their products are innovative, stylish, and practical. Blaupunkt is also a division of Bosch, the main company that designs most of the electrical system for VAG vehicles.

Back to the head unit. Blaupunkt's Heidelberg CD50 head unit from its Funline series of receivers has what many of us are looking for in an in-dash CD player. The Heidelberg features a blue-hued backlit display that matches the Beetle's blue gauges quite well, fold-down access to the CD slot, and a removable face. The 40Wx4 outputs are what we used to power the speakers, while the 5th channel of the pre-amp outputs was used to power the subwoofers.

For speakers, we employed Kicker units to replace the factory ones. This is where it truly got interesting, because VW really doesn't want its speakers messed with. This is clearly evident in the way things are installed. The front door mid-range woofers are riveted into place while the A-pillar mounted tweeters have the plastic pegs that are installed on melted around the back of the tweeters. VW definitely didn't intend for these to be easily removed. The rear speakers are held in place with screws, but getting to them is difficult, requiring removal of the rear side panels.

Head unit installation is pretty straightforward stuff, especially if you received your head unit from a large supplier like Crutchfield. Crutchfield is probably one of the best places to buy a head unit from if you intend to install it yourself, as all the equipment necessary to install the unit (wiring harness, receiver surround, instructions, etc.) are included. To ensure long life and low signal degradation, our installer soldered the wire harness adapters from the car and from the head unit together.	If you didn't know any better, you could mistake the head unit for an OE piece. The Beetle's dash will accept single DIN head units, but a Beetle-specific surround like the one we used is required to make it look seamless.	Getting to the front door mounted speakers can be a pain if you don't know where all the screws reside. One is hidden behind the thin plastic panel of the door handle cap, which can easily be popped off to allow for screw removal.
Once the door panels are removed, the speakers' rivets must be drilled out to allow the new speakers to be put into place. Don't plan on reusing your OE speakers because the cones have to be cut from their surrounds so that the surrounds can be used as a mount for the new speakers.	Because the speakers were originally held in place by rivets, our solution to mounting the speakers was to employ long bolts and nuts that would mount through the rivet holes and through the speakers' mounting holes. Be sure to cut any excess bolt length off, as it will impede the fitment of the door panel.	With the stock speakers, the crossover appears to be of a rudimentary internal design. That kind of thing won't fly with Kicker's intense designs, so we had to find a place to mount the external crossover included with the component speaker system. The only flat portion of the door support appeared to be the best place and we mounted it here with short sheet metal screws.
After removing the A-pillar panels (where the front tweeters are housed) the tweeters were cut from their mounting posts and removed. Finding optimal placement for the new tweeters was instrumental in getting everything to fit back together correctly. After test fitting, a black marker was used to trace the outline of the tweeter and the material was cut from the A-pillars.	To get the new tweeters to stay put, a hot glue gun was used. To improve upon the high frequency imaging, we aimed the tweeters ever so slightly towards the driver's seat.	Once we were getting towards the end of the install, we went to work on the rear speakers. Can't you tell how glad he is that this is almost over? Be careful when removing these panels so as not to scratch the paint; they aren't the easiest things to remove