recommendation for no amped speakers

eatsleepplayscc

Hey, i purchased m2124 12" polk momos a couple months back, and i promised myself i wouldn't get new speakers until i got a job, which i finally did. So it's time to get some speakers, but I really didn't want to buy another amp for the speakers.

So my question is, what are some good recommendations for speakers which work almost as nicely when powered by a CDE-9843 Alpine Head Unit?

My other question is, what's the major difference between round speakers and component speakers?

Thanks

unrealii

If you are looking for polks, I would suggest going with the db series. For components and coaxials, it depends on your setup. Round speakers (aka coaxials) usually have multipel speakers in one and are meant for mounting in a single location. Components offer better flexibility where the tweeter is seperate from the mid range. I would take components, but I dont know how well they would work being powered from a head unit.

Seriously though, speakers sound much better amped. You can go the cheap route and get an eclipse or mtx 4 channel amp on ebay for around $100 shipped. Both of which should last forever (some how my mtx did not). Polk also makes wonderful amps, but they might be more than what you are willing to spend, even for used. Other bank breaker things would be the additional cost of rca cables, running new wires, additional power cables, distro block, and mounting.

1996blackmax

I would amp them as unrealli has stated. World of difference.

neomagus00

this amp and this wiring kit will get the amping job done for any of the polk dB coaxials, for a combined cost of <$150... consider this route carefully...

and component speakers are generally round, and separate, like unrealii said... coaxials can be round or various shapes of oval...

MacLeod

The differences between components and coaxials is first components are usually built better with better materials and a better tweeter. Plus you get an external crossover that is not only built much better but is usually tunable for eaiser tweaking of your system. On top of that you have the advantage of mounting the tweeter wherever they sound best.

If youre just wanting a drop in replacement for your crappy factory speakers and dont want to use an amp then coaxials would be the best choice. While the DB series works best with little power the Momo coaxials wouldnt be a terrible idea either. I ran my MMC690's off head unit power for a while between amps and they worked ok.

eatsleepplayscc

If my Headunit only has one Preout, which is already used for my subwoofers' amp, can i still have an amp for my speakers?

neomagus00

certainly... if you buy the right amp, you can run that single preout into your main amp, then from the preouts on the main amp to the inputs on the sub amp... you can do it the other way around, but that's not quite as tasty... you can also use 2 y-splitters to directly split the signal, but that's less preferable than either of the first two...

MacLeod

Actually I prefer the Y splitters. Dont really have a good reason, its just always seemed more practical to me.

PoweredByDodge

sometimes the sum-out / daisy chain out / whatever you wanna call it, isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes if you engage the onboard crossover on an amp, the sum-out will be the opposite of it (say u HP the amp.. the out will be LP)... which always annoyed me. Other times, the sum out may not be directly tied into the inputs so it may be weaker or have altered signal. That's why I had always used Y-splitters... but I played around with the Blue Thunder 754 when I rebuilt it, so now the pre-outs are just direct tie ins.

eatsleepplayscc

thanks a lot guys, i appreciate all the help

cam5860

Actually i prefer a headunit with three sets of preout puts. That alpine puts out 18 watts rms per channel you have. I would just get a set of the polk db's and run them off the headunit, because they will not sound worth a damn running highs, mids and lows on one preout. You loose to much signal trying to run one preout, and that alpine you have only has a 2 volt preout.

cam5860

The headunit is the brain in a system! It don't matter if you have the best amps and speakers money can buy. The headunit will determine how good your system's going to sound.

1996blackmax

This is not totally correct. I will let others chime in.

MacLeod

cam5860 wrote:

The headunit is the brain in a system! It don't matter if you have the best amps and speakers money can buy. The headunit will determine how good your system's going to sound.

Not really. The speakers are the most important part of your system, followed by your amps then the head unit. I guess you could make the case that the higher priced h/u's have more and better EQ's and crossover networks that can affect the overall SQ but the primary purpose of the h/u is to deliver a clean, uncolored signal to the amps and any model from any of the name brand units will do this.

Its better to spend less on the source unit and put that extra money into the speakers.

cam5860

Well i tell you what i went from a jvc headunit to a alpine headunit and the difference in the sound quality was like night and day in my system. Jvc don't impress me at all.

MacLeod

Ive gone from several different head units to several different head units and other than the new look and different features Ive noticed no difference in SQ.

By definition, a head units signal is supposed to be neutral, flat and uncolored. So how can one sound different than another?

cam5860

There was a big difference in the way my subs hit for one. They were cleaner and had more definition. They just hit flat out cleaner.

MacLeod

How can one flat, uncolored and transparant signal sound different from another flat, uncolored and transparant signal? They cant.

Now Ill grant you that you take a h/u with 1 volt output and one with 8 volt outputs and youll get a stronger signal, so with the same gain settings the 8 volt would be louder. But you adjust the gainst properly and itll sound the same as the 1 volt model.

skydeaner

cam5860 wrote:

There was a big difference in the way my subs hit for one. They were cleaner and had more definition. They just hit flat out cleaner.

sounds like gain settings were set wrong on the hu that didn't sound as good. Like just what I would think. a lot of jvc's have awesome sound quality.

cam5860

No alpine just sound's that much better than jvc the gains were fine. Im not going to make a argument out of this. Im just stating what i have heard. I have owned sony, jvc, poineer, headunits and this alpine sounds the best to me by far. Now everyone likes different things this is just what i think sounds best.

PoweredByDodge

the head unit will affect the pre-amp signal sound in a few ways, the following is not all inclusive, but its the big hitters...

- quality of the laser pickup
- quality of the digital to analog converter (design, construction, and bits)
- voltage of pre-amplifier outputs (indirect relationship to quality - lower voltage units will result in the ratio of induced noise to true music sound to be greater than if the pre-out voltage were higher... however, speaking truly subjectively, this is not the fault of the head unit, but of the interconnects, the way they are routed, etc etc).
- signal to noise ratio of the head unit.
- stereo separation of the head unit.
- onboard bells and whistles (BBE, incremental divisions of bass/trebble/mid boost or decrease [the smaller the interval the better - if you had two identical head units, with identical levels of total trebble boost, say 8 db's max, and one had plus or minus 16, and the other had plus or minus 8, then the one with plus or minus 16 would be "better" because it would allow you to adjust trebble in 0.5 db increments rather than 1 db increments... "finer" fine tuning], adjustment of boost points, adjustment of boost curve width, etc).

other than that... you're grasping at straws when you say one deck is better than the other ... however... that is a lot of criteria above, and it may very well be that our friend here had a low end JVC model with poor ratings for the above, and then he migrated to an Alpine of mid or high end quality and saw much better ratings for the above. I would imagine that JVC's top end stuff is comparable in overall quality to alpine's top end (non F-1) stuff... personally I prefer the Alpine, but I honestly haven't looked at the specifications to be able to say one way or the other. My gut feeling says "Alpine's better", but that's totally opinion and personal bias based on everybody hating JVC over the years.

As far as the most important part of an audio system...

... there's no way to answer that.

If you're keeping a stock head unit and not getting amplifiers, then I guess speakers are the most important.

If you're doing a head unit and speakers, but no amps, then both speakers and the head are equally important because a good head with **** speakers is worthless... and good speakers with a **** head isn't much of an improvement over stock.

If you're doing all three - the "chain rule" still applies... all 3 are equally important.

I don't think anyone can say, "get the best head unit (or amp or speakers or whatever) that money can buy, and then spend whatever is left on speakers and amps". That's an assanine way of going about it.

What one needs to do is budget their money - say you've got X dollars and then go from there... figure out what kind of a system you want to build, and then realisticly divide the cash up among those areas... person A may compromise deck quality for better amps and speakers because that's their preference... persom B may compromise speaker quality for amps and a head... but in the end... the audio system is only as strong as the weakest link.

skydeaner

Hey to answer your original question the focal 165cv's are pretty effecient at 93db/1watt, so they would sound pretty impressive just ran off of the deck. I am probably going to get beatin on for recommending focals, but I have always thought they sound pretty good.

PoweredByDodge

focals are really nice speakers. even their lower end stuff won't let you down. i'm not sure, but i think they only make components, because that's all i've ever seen - but i may very well be wrong about that.

skydeaner

the ones i recommended are coaxes, but they still have an outboard crossover. You can't have a good coax without at least a 12/db crossover. Here's a pic

MacLeod

Yeah, Focal makes coaxials in their bottom two lines. They even have a 6x9.

MacLeod

And sure, there are lots of differences in head units only you wont be able to hear them.

Take an amp with THD of .004% and one with .0004%. The latter is has much less distortion but its irrelevant because you cant hear anything below 1% anyway.

Same with the other aspects of the head unit. Sure one type of lazer works better than another but the differences will be inaudible.

PoweredByDodge

MacLeod wrote:

Same with the other aspects of the head unit. Sure one type of lazer works better than another but the differences will be inaudible.

the following are audible...

- signal to noise ratio of the head unit.
...............with some decks as low at 85 and others as high as 110... ya.
- stereo separation of the head unit.
...............virtual crosstalk between channels can lead to a mono-type sound, or at least what sounds like a mono-sound.
- quality of the digital to analog converter (design, construction, and bits).
...............we already covered this one a bunch of times... the 24 bit Texas Instruments Burr Brown Division DAC's outperform the other one bit **** on the market... in an audible manner.

MacLeod

Yeah, you go out and buy a flea market unit there will likely be a difference but you wont hear a difference between a Kenwood, Alpine, Pioneer, Eclipse or Clarion.

MacLeod

Think of it like this. You shoot a person with a slingshot and itll piss him off and maybe hurt. You shoot him with a pistol and he'll be severely wounded and possibly killed. You shoot him with a 12 guage and he's dead as a doornail. You shoot him with a .50 cal and he's gonna be dead. You shoot him with a 30mm chain gun and he's gonna be dead.

The point being, each one of these weapons outperforms the previous, and the chain gun far outperforms a 12 guage; but will the guy be any more dead?

PoweredByDodge

you're not going to get me to agree on this one.

there are audible differences between various levels of quality decks. entry level KW's, Pio's, Alpines, etc etc... all have differences between their same brand's top of the line... some have more differences than others... some may very well be inaudible, but many are audible.

skydeaner

I'm not usually one to say, but please get off the topic of decks making a difference. Anyone else have any suggestions for higher efficiency speakers that sound good, this is an interesting topic for me, I want to replace my sisters stock speakers.