new system

sophie

i turned 16 on thursday so now i will be geting a car, i want to replace the stock speakers with somthing nice. i want somthing that sounds crisp and clear, more than loud. i dont have a lot of money for this($750) is this going to give me somthing nice or should i get a job if i do this i want to do it right the first time. i under stand almost everything except the sound stage. i dont understand how having speakers in the back can change the way it sounds much. also i dont realy want to mess with tweets on the A pillers, how much better would this sound if i did use seperate tweets rather then the ones built into the mid's?

sorry for all the spelling mistakes:o

brettw22

Rear fill is a preference. Personally, I have speakers in front and back because when I'm listening to music at home, rarely is it from just the front speakers.

It will save you some money if you just get fronts for now and when you get more money from the job get some rears if you want, but you can also do this in stages. I wouldn't necessarily recommend having new speakers up front with the old ones in back because it will sound too different, so first thing is to figure out specifically how much you're spending on each component, and also who's installing it. Installations from shops cost a lot of money, but I don't know what your comfort level is in doing it yourself........

MacLeod

Rear speakers are good if you haul passengers around a lot and want them to have good sound too.

If not, Id ditch em. Having speakers in the back will pull your soundstage to the rear, decrease the focus of the imaging, cancel some low end response and smear some detail. It does this because when you have the same frequencies coming at you from different distances, they arrive at your ears at different times and cause problems.

I recommend getting a set of MMC6500's (if theyll fit that is) for your speakers and then a good 100x2 stereo amp. Something like this Rockford Fosgate would be perfect and at $225, its a great deal.

That would be $525 shipped!!! Youre not going to beat that deal!! That leave you $225 left over.

sophie

mac, would i use the Xovers from the speakers or from the amp? i know this really has nothing to do with me but if the bridged out put is 450W @ 4 ohms then would this amp be stable at 2 ohms?

MacLeod

You would use the crossovers with the speakers.

This amp would be stable at 2 ohms stereo but not 2 ohms bridged mono. The Power series from RF is tho.

sophie

i think im going to need a new head unit to. what are some brands that are nice and some to stay away from? is there somthing that i should look for in a HU?

Joelsbass

on head units Pioneer, eclipse, or alpine are probably going to be your best bets.

[Deleted User]

Are you doing the install yourself? If not, you will have to include labor and materials such as a wiring kit and a kit and harness for the HU.

audiobliss

For HU's I'd check out Pioneer Premier, Eclipse, Alpine, Kenwood eXcelon, Panasonic, and Clarion.

sophie

i am planing on doing the install myself.

Josh wrote:

Are you doing the install yourself? If not, you will have to include labor and materials such as a wiring kit and a kit and harness for the HU.

[Deleted User]

Okay, have you ever installed before? Seeing that you're 16, I'm guessing no. Please do a lot of research on basic installation techniques and your particular vehicle before you start. You will save yourself a lot of headache and possible damage to your vehicle. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here.

sophie

if my car has 5.5 speakers now is there any way i can get 6.25's in there. i was hoping to have everything behind the factory grills but i would rather change somthing then have to use 5.5's. i think im going to do this over the summer because now that track has started i dont have any time on week days. and dont have much time on weekends to spend on this. i see on crutchfield they have them for $270 w/ free shiping, is this an ok place to buy them? and would there be somthing rong with scratch and dent for $230? thinking of buying them then buying the other stuf later when i have time to put it all in.

edit: would pics help? i might be able to get some, but its not relly my car its my dads but i get it till my sister is 16. and dont want to pull stuf off untill im going to put them in if i dont have to.

ledhed

Crutchfield is an excellent place to buy from. What is the car?

sophie

toyata corola. i think i might end up with are ford windstar:(

ledhed

sophie wrote:

toyata corola. i think i might end up with are ford windstar:(

Well, Vans are very safe vehicles for first time drivers. I would not have been caught dead driving one last year to school though

I would think 6.5s could fit. My Avalon uses 5.25 factory but, when I had the rear door panels off, it seemed it could fit much, much larger speakers.

EDIT: As far as a HU, you may want to look into something like the JL Cleansweep (or similar, i know RF makes something that does the same thing) so you can utilize the stock radio instead of a HU which would ruin the flow of the dash (if it is like mine)

sophie

is there a way i can add a cd player with those? because i dont want to convert all my music to tape. for the pain and the loss of sq.

ledhed

I have no clue about that. I'm sure a more experienced CA member will chime in

sophie

Bring
Up
My
Post

Jack from Indo

Consider going with Mp3 in stead of CD or tape. I'm gonna get hanged for saying that here, I'm already ducking under the table as I type. But if you rip your Mp3's at 320, you can't tell a difference. Some people think you can tell, but I would happily put money down that in a blind test, they couldn't.

They have a disease called audiophilia which convinces them, for example, that paying $2,000 for their "oxygen negative ion coated super molecular attentuated, gobble **** gobble...." speaker cables makes an "astounding, miraculous difference!"

ANOTHER MYTH: at 16 years old, I salute you early interest in this, and I wanna share the following with you:

I'm a professional musician and piano tuner, I have highly trained ears, esp. when it comes to harmonics, and other sound subtleties. One day I'm going to post a lengthy pc. about the ridiculous audiophile myth called "The way the engineer wanted it to be heard". As a musician with enough experience in the studio, I can tell you this entire idea is based on worshiping a false, imaginary "engineer" God.

The only way to know how the engineer wanted it to be heard, by you, is if he sat in your frickin car and specifically RE mixed for your sound system. What gets pressed and sold is always a compromise mix, designed to sound good on all things from a cheap boom box to a high end system, but it is absolutely not the mix he WOULD have done, were he to know exactly what your system is like. So, my friend Sophie, when you hear these "engineer cult" worshipers go off about this, go ask a musician first what they think.

sophie

i dont understand what's rong with my cd's, iv all ready coppied all the real cd's to cdr's and the real cd's are under my desk. all i use are the backups so when they get stolen or scratched all i have to do is burn another copy. i dont care if i have to change the cd every hour, most of the time i will use this is wating for track/xc to start. about 1/2 hour everyday for 2/3's of the school year.

if there is somthing spical with the mp3 format i could re rip/burn all of them. also i have an extra p3 and can get a 120gb hdd for cheep, could put this under a seat or somthing and not have to mess with cd's just play from the computer.

MacLeod

Jack is right. HIGH QUALITY Mp3's will sound just like the real thing. Same with a burned CD.

Digital music is nothing but 1's and 0's anyway so 100101101 on the original CD is going to sound exactly like 100101101 on an Ipod or burned CD.

The key is as long as its kept in its original form by not being compressed. You take a 5 minute song that would normally be 10 MB at 320 Kps and compress it down to a 1 MB song at 96 Kps and youll naturally lose SQ because youre not transferring the full information.

Jack from Indo

You bet Sophie, nothing at all wrong with your CDs! But so many people have ipods or other mp3 players nowadays that I figured you might too, and if you have an AUX input on your HU, you can just plug right in.

One of the reasons I like this is so I don't have to carry a large amount of CD's in the car with me. Not to mention changing them when I'm driving, which, although you know you shouldn't do that, like all the rest of us, your gonna do it anyway.

bknauss

F MP3s and go with lossless compression if you want the best quality sound in a compressed format. If you're listening to a system that isn't all that great, feel free to go with 128kbps. I do that on my MP3 player cause I just listen through some "meh" headphones and won't hear all of the subtleties.

sophie

well i have a cheep 256mb mp3 player i got 3 years ago at bb on black friday, dont use it much unless we go on a long drive with my sister who is the only one in the family who doesent like clasic rock. \

any one know if i can add a cd player to my stock HU if i use somthing like th Cleansweep?

Jack from Indo

I don't know that answer, but whatever you do stay away from those gadgets that broadcast your CD player through the radio on your HU.
A lot of people in your position fall for those, and they're crap.

I would say your best bet, if your on a budget, is find a HU that will take AUX in. That gives you the most flexibility. OR

If you have a friend who knows electronics well enough, you can sometimes just wire in your own AUX in to your stock HU. I read about a guy on another forum who did that pretty easily and it worked great for him.

sophie

ya i know those arnt any good. two people on are xc team have them and they were using them to listen to their ipods on a small radio on the bus, even with it taped to the antenna it was fuzzy.

is their a cd player that has a volume on it so i can just run that into my amp? or is their somthing the HU does that i dont understand.

Bill Ayotte

sophie wrote:

ya i know those arnt any good. two people on are xc team have them and they were using them to listen to their ipods on a small radio on the bus, even with it taped to the antenna it was fuzzy.

is their a cd player that has a volume on it so i can just run that into my amp? or is their somthing the HU does that i dont understand.

I would LOVE to see a picture of an iPod taped to a small radio....God that would make my night.

exalted512

even the base model pioneer 1900 has an auxiliary input for iPods and such. The Pioneer 4900IB actually comes with a iPod adapter thatll completely integrate your ipod with the radio...use playlists, genres and all that jazz as well as charge it.

I'm not really sure what youre asking when you say is their a cd player that has a volume on it...???
-Cody

ben62670

MacLeod wrote:

Rear speakers are good if you haul passengers around a lot and want them to have good sound too.

If not, Id ditch em. Having speakers in the back will pull your soundstage to the rear, decrease the focus of the imaging, cancel some low end response and smear some detail. It does this because when you have the same frequencies coming at you from different distances, they arrive at your ears at different times and cause problems.

I recommend getting a set of MMC6500's (if theyll fit that is) for your speakers and then a good 100x2 stereo amp. Something like this Rockford Fosgate would be perfect and at $225, its a great deal.

That would be $525 shipped!!! Youre not going to beat that deal!! That leave you $225 left over.

I just installed some alpine 6x9's in the rear of my car, and didn't install the fronts yet. I hate it. It is like being at home, listening to your tunes while facing the other way. In past systems I have focused on the fronts, and didn't have anything in the rear. To me this sounds best. If you do haul people around they may like to have more tunes in the rear, but you won't be able to have a conversation with them with you facing forward. As stated above rears do help with fill but should not be over bearing. I would IMHO run separates of good quality in the front, and some decent coaxial in the rear. Just make sure you have the fronts done properly before doing the rears. They can be a future upgrade.

Enjoy Ben

Bill Ayotte

sophie wrote:

is their a cd player that has a volume on it so i can just run that into my amp? or is their somthing the HU does that i dont understand.

I am not quite sure what you are asking.....all HUs have volume control, when you hook the amp up in the car, you run RCAs to the HU. That is what the amp receives it's signal from, and reproduces the sound through the speakers. The majority of HUs have what is called pre-outs, they are generally labeled as to what they belong to.....(Front, rear, center, sub) The deck you buy may not have all of those, most likely it will have at least two sets, maybe one. I would look into replacing the HU, the set of fronts, and MAYBE an amp for them, depending what you have left. As far as installing all of this yourself, you may want to enlist a friend that has done this before as well as research it. Never hurts to have someone there that has done it before.

Bill Ayotte

Since you mentioned iPod......This one comes with a free iPod adapter...

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-sOdVSJyQBjR/cgi-bin/prodview.asp?I=113kdcx591&wm=cl