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DIY Headrest Speaker Upgrade

by Chris Lewis

I love cruising in my MX-5 with the top down stereo blasting out. Problem was I couldn't hear the radio at moderate to high speeds. I wished I had the US style seating with the speaker cavities, however all but the oldest European spec cars have separate headrests without the cavities. I decided to have a look to see what I could do.

After removing the headrest from the seat, there is a push catch on one of the holes that the bar slots into, I found that it was fairly simple to remove the fabric covering. From below there is a plastic slider, similar to those used for binding sheets of paper. Slide the fabric from the sliders starting with the short pieces on the outsides. The cover can then be removed. The headrest construction can now be seen. It is just a piece of dense foam mounded onto the U-shaped bracket. There doesn't look like there is much space to install a speaker, but there is!

I obtained the smallest car stereo speakers I could find. These were BOSCH 8cm speakers, intended I think for the in-dash speakers on a VW Polo. These are full-range speakers with integral tweeter, it is important that any tweeter does not project in-front of the speaker. Using the speakers as a template I positioned them towards the bottom left and right of the headrest foam, and marked a circle for cutting. The foam was then cut using a sharp craft-knife all the way back to the metal bracket, angling in slightly to form a truncated cone shape. The foam plug was simply pulled out and saved. It it is decided to reverse the modification the foam can easily be re-inserted and glued with Copydex or similar glue.

The speakers were then inserted into the holes just cut. To stop them vibrating against the bar I placed a small piece of foam behind each one. I covered the speakers with a mesh, which came from an old car-speaker enclosure I had. I found that the sound was muffled by the fabric headrest cover so I picked away some of the foam lining where it covered the speakers. The fabric headrest cover was reapplied. The wires were run down one of the pillars of the bracket, into the seat and routed down behind the covering of the back of the seat. I used a wire coathanger, straigthened out to do this. Then the wires were run behind the carpet into the centre console and connected to the REAR output of my SONY Head Unit.

The only visial clue that I have done this is the short piece of wire between the headrest and seat, which is not apparent if you have the headrest fully pushed down, and the wiring behind the seat, which is out of sight. The sound quality and volume is much improved, especially speech. At high speed with the top down, if the FRONT/READ fader is set to REAR only, so the sound comes only from the headrest speakers the sound quality is poor, similarly with the fader set to FRONT, but at the mid-point the improvement comes, with the headrest speakers filling in those frequencies lost from the door speakers. Stereo separation is good, the headrest speakers are positioned below each ear. Comfort is not reduced, the back of my head rests against the upper part of the head-rest, which is still foam, the speakers are at about neck level.

So there you have it, a cheap and simple speaker upgrade that greatly improves sound quality. It does involve altering your car slightly but it is easily reversed and doesn't make much visual difference.

� 1996,1997, 1988 Chris Lewis. These pages are not endorsed or approved by MAZDA Cars (UK) Ltd. or the MX-5 Owners Club.