Standard Speakers Upgrade, can you help?

[Rumica]

Hi All,
I've bought a XC40 T5 plug-in, but it came with standard performance (speakers in the front only) instead of high performance sound.
I was thinking to do an upgrade, but...
- have backdoors cabling pre-installed? Or should I also buy speakers cabling?
- It's easy to unmount doors to install the speakers?
- is it necessary to do something to the radio (to give balance front/rear for example?

May thanks in advanced.

Regards

#StaySafe

[Felindre]

"I've bought a XC40 T5 plug-in, but it came with standard performance (speakers in the front only) instead of high performance sound."

Are you sure? Certainly the UK brochure shows default for ALL models
- 8 Speakers / 250W Output

I wouldn't imaginethe rest of Europe is vastly different or all 8 speakers all in the front. (I don't know for sure, waiting for mine at the moment)

[Rumica]

Yes. For sure.
At least in Portugal:
Standard Performance 4 speakers (front only)
High Performance 8 speakers (front and rear)
It's a nasty way of saving a few bucks... I didn't realize when I order it and now I don't like the sound.

[Muted]

For the XC40 it's
1) Standard,
2) High Performance and
3) Harman Kardon

In the UK we get the choice of 2) or 3), other countries differ.

[eugen61]

Upgrading speakers have been discussed at length in this forum, do a quick search at the top of the page. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the standard speakers, wiring and DAC, for better sound you would probably need to upgrade everything at a car audio specialist.

[Felindre]

Rumica, thanks for enlightening me, i hadn't realised (but should have) they shipped reduced spec to other countries in EU

[Rumica]

Unfortunately yes...

By the way... back door unmount and no pre-cabling there... So it seams that it's not possible to upgrade to 8 speakers.

[eugen61]

Unfortunately yes...

By the way... back door unmount and no pre-cabling there... So it seams that it's not possible to upgrade to 8 speakers.

XC40 uses a modern sound system with fiber optic cables that don’t pick up interference from other electric components. Besides cabling, adding extra speakers require new channels and existing amplifier recalibration, it's difficult to find a professional car audio shop with enough experience to do it right.

The other option is to upgrade the amplifier and add new speakers with new corresponding wires. But contemplate the mess with removing door and pillar parts with the risk of something not put back tight and clean, resulting in squeaking sounds that will be far worst than your current issue...

[Felindre]

That's interesting to know as a newbie (in waiting) to Volvo.

[Peter8642]

In the UK, the basic option of eight speakers and 250 W is a specification that you might expect to be fairly good.

We were really disappointed with ours. It’s not dreadful, but really not what you would expect in a £40,000 car.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we rejected our first 2020 car as it had numerous faults in the first month. The replacement car was a 2021 model– We could only get the surround cameras that we loved in the first car as part of the lounge package, which included the Harman Kardon stereo.

The Harman Kardon stereo is much better, but it would grieve me to have to pay hundreds of pounds for a sound system that you might expect in a car at this level to be standard.