Audi A5 8T Poor Sound

Having very recently had to replace a blown speaker on an Audi A5 convertible, I was struck by just how poor quality the original speakers are. For such a great car to have a stereo system that sounds like a 70’s transistor radio…..Obviously, if you opted for the Bang and Olafson premium sound upgrade you won’t have the problem, but then again it was a pricey option and a lot of owners simply didn’t feel inclined to make the car even more expensive.

The front door speakers are (and possibly the rear ones as well) 200mm in diameter and have a very poor bass response. This is almost certainly a design choice by Audi as you can optionally have a sub-woofer in the boot. It just makes them sound terrible if you have the standard audio system. The size and quality of the magnet used doesn’t help the audio quality at all – it is very poor quality and lightweight.

Luckily, there are now quite a few 200mm diameter speakers on the market. Speaker conversion rings are also available to enable them to fit the original mounting points. JustCarKits can replace them at reasonable cost.

Whilst not completely resolving the Audi sound system, replacement speakers can make it sound vastly better.

There are options to replace the head unit with an Alpine upgrade and also replace the speakers with Alpine ones – this does come at a cost – the headunit alone is about £ 1500.00. The replacement head unit has Bluetooth handsfree and music, CD, Navigation, USB, Aux – all the modern things that you would expect.. In common with many newer cars the stereo system also handles the vehicle information display, so you can’t just change it for a more modern stereo. Also, the A5 stereo (and A4 B8) is an odd shape and does not conform to single or double din standard.