LX470 Mark Levinson front door speakers: conflicting info on OHMs

[gerbilunit]

I have a 03 LX, is this recommendation for the new speakers a direct replacement? Plug and play I should say? I saw you mentioned its not a perfect fit, but is that more-so the screws are slightly off but still manageable without hacking away at things?

Ha, since @cdoglesby and @X5TOLX asked, here goes:

TL;DR: DO NOT REFOAM! Buy new Visaton speakers for about the same price! Listen to @Pucker5 !

Full Story:
2002 LX470 here with the Mark Levison system.
- Bought it in Sept 2020; almost no sound coming out of most speakers.
- Found this thread around Oct 2020
- Re-foamed all the speakers using that $60 kit from Simply Speakers. Initially its almost magical as I got all the sound back, and I felt like a genius! Proudly showed it to my wife - who was unimpressed with the 'tinny sound' she claimed.
- About a month in, I realized that the sound is indeed crappy (wife is always right) and I couldn't stand it anymore. LOL
- Winter came; spent every spare minute on the slopes.
- Now, I finally got around to replacing all the speakers with:
2x Front doors: Visaton BG17-8 6.5" Full-Range Speaker with Whizzer Cone 8 Ohm
2x Rear doors: Visaton R10S 4" Full-Range Speaker 8 Ohm
1x Subwoofer: Visaton W170S-8 6.5" Woofer with Treated Paper Cone 8 Ohm
The tweeters in the door by the mirror seem to be fine.

The Visaton speakers all fit into the plastic enclosures fairly easily. Not a perfect fit, but there's enough space to just screw them into the plastic.

Now the sound is so much better! I'd say it now sounds like what a 2002 OEM Mark Levinson system would have probably sounded like new. All for about $100. There is no saving those 20-yr old Lexus speakers at this point. New speakers are clear; can hear every high and low, and all the sound adjustments work.

Some audiophiles will disagree with my assessment, and will recommend new high-tech gear, but that's an entirely different discussion. I didn't want to tear it all up, replace the amp, head unit, re-wire, and all that. I just wanted a clean, original look, with good enough sound to stream music from my iPhone to the radio via a simple $15 Bluetooth car transmitter. Extremely happy with it, and totally regret going that re-foaming route at all.

Hope this helps: DO NOT REFOAM! Buy new Visaton speakers for about the same price!

 

[cdoglesby]

@KosPar may have had a different experience, but for me:

no hacking of the original speaker housing or the new speakers. With two small exceptions - for the front door speakers, I had to remove two small plastic “studs” that protrude from the original housing so that the speakers could sit flat. I clipped them off with snips and then sanded flat. For the rear speakers, I had to bend up some of the metal mounting tabs on the new speakers so that they would sit flat in the original housing.

for all speakers, you need to cut the pig tails from the original speaker wires and solder to the new speakers. You also will need to purchase some self-tapping sheet metal screws that can dig into the original plastic housing.

I decided to replace my lock actuator motors while I had the door panels off as well. Good time to do so since they are already coming off. Big weekend of upgrades for the rig!

 

[hatch]

Ha, since @cdoglesby and @X5TOLX asked, here goes:

TL;DR: DO NOT REFOAM! Buy new Visaton speakers for about the same price! Listen to @Pucker5 !

Full Story:
2002 LX470 here with the Mark Levison system.
- Bought it in Sept 2020; almost no sound coming out of most speakers.
- Found this thread around Oct 2020
- Re-foamed all the speakers using that $60 kit from Simply Speakers. Initially its almost magical as I got all the sound back, and I felt like a genius! Proudly showed it to my wife - who was unimpressed with the 'tinny sound' she claimed.
- About a month in, I realized that the sound is indeed crappy (wife is always right) and I couldn't stand it anymore. LOL
- Winter came; spent every spare minute on the slopes.
- Now, I finally got around to replacing all the speakers with:
2x Front doors: Visaton BG17-8 6.5" Full-Range Speaker with Whizzer Cone 8 Ohm
2x Rear doors: Visaton R10S 4" Full-Range Speaker 8 Ohm
1x Subwoofer: Visaton W170S-8 6.5" Woofer with Treated Paper Cone 8 Ohm
The tweeters in the door by the mirror seem to be fine.

The Visaton speakers all fit into the plastic enclosures fairly easily. Not a perfect fit, but there's enough space to just screw them into the plastic.

Now the sound is so much better! I'd say it now sounds like what a 2002 OEM Mark Levinson system would have probably sounded like new. All for about $100. There is no saving those 20-yr old Lexus speakers at this point. New speakers are clear; can hear every high and low, and all the sound adjustments work.

Some audiophiles will disagree with my assessment, and will recommend new high-tech gear, but that's an entirely different discussion. I didn't want to tear it all up, replace the amp, head unit, re-wire, and all that. I just wanted a clean, original look, with good enough sound to stream music from my iPhone to the radio via a simple $15 Bluetooth car transmitter. Extremely happy with it, and totally regret going that re-foaming route at all.

Hope this helps: DO NOT REFOAM! Buy new Visaton speakers for about the same price!

Thanks for the info, I'm thinking about ordering these. In a couple of earlier posts you had the front doors as 4" speakers and in this one they are listed as 6.5" Can you clarify/explain? Does the front door have both 4" AND 6.5"? OR if it's just one size, which size is accurate? Thanks!

 

[cdoglesby]

I recall the front door speakers being 6.5in (visaton bg17) and the rears being 4in (visaton r10s)

 

[NVRSMR]

I viewed this thread awhile ago and finally ordered the visaton front door 6.5", and rear door 4"ers. Thanks to the info in this thread, was able to complete the replacement with no real problems, speakers sound great to me. As mentioned before there is a bit of soldering of the factory speaker plug pigtails to the new speakers required, and installing some self tapping screws to mount them to the original plastic speaker trims that attach to the door body. I suggest watching a couple youtube videos on the interior door panel removal technique before attempting, so nothing gets broken, releasing the window control
pods was a bit tricky for me. Be sure to pry-up from the forward facing side of the window controls to release, not the back. The front doors on my '06 LX470 have the high up tweeter, a smaller midrange speaker mid-door, then the lower door 6.5" speakers that were blown. So if your lower fronts are blown, I can confirm the 6.5" size is correct size.

 

[KosPar]

Thanks all! I'm re-visiting this thread now, as I plan to do this all over again ...sold that 2000 LX470 in Vermont, then moved to Denver and bought another identical LX470. . Any good LC/LX mechanics anyone can recommend out here?

 

[garrettlwn]

Is there a replacement for the ML mid front door speaker?

 

[willyroo]

ML mid front door speaker?

I've started planning my upgrade. Got some Audio System M165/3 Evo 2s (on clearance) which are 3 way, was planning to run 2 channel active via an Alpine Optim8 DSP/Amp.

Luckily the M165/2 has the same drivers in a 2 way, so I can drop the 4" midrange if needed.

TL;DR? don't bother - virtually no room in there!

Just above the speaker is the cutout for the power window controls, and the harness drops in behind the speaker. The other issue is the mid is on the same wiring harness as the tweeter, a "crossover" of sorts seems to be a diode just below the tweeter.

I suggest a good 2 channel system with a low Fs tweeter would be a big improvement. And it's easy to go 2 channel active with separate wiring for the woofer and tweeter.

 

[Pucker5]

I've started planning my upgrade. Got some Audio System M165/3 Evo 2s (on clearance) which are 3 way, was planning to run 2 channel active via an Alpine Optim8 DSP/Amp.

Luckily the M165/2 has the same drivers in a 2 way, so I can drop the 4" midrange if needed.

TL;DR? don't bother - virtually no room in there!

Just above the speaker is the cutout for the power window controls, and the harness drops in behind the speaker. The other issue is the mid is on the same wiring harness as the tweeter, a "crossover" of sorts seems to be a diode just below the tweeter.

I suggest a good 2 channel system with a low Fs tweeter would be a big improvement. And it's easy to go 2 channel active with separate wiring for the woofer and tweeter.

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If you’re using a dsp amp your rewiring to all the speakers anyway right . High inputs from factory into dsp amp then amp channels to speakers.

Seeing how much space you have to work with is generally valuable thing to do before you buy speakers. 2 way active will sound good but 3 way activehas its benefit

 

[willyroo]

High inputs from factory into dsp amp

Not quite - co-ax from T'eyes CC3 into Optim8.