Old school setup for an "old school" car

concealer404

Hi guys,

The time has finally come for me to start working on my own car again. It's a 1990 MX6 in pretty good shape. Good enough for me to want to clean it up, re-do most of the interior, and most importantly, put a nice setup in it as it IS my daily driver.

Here's the strange part (maybe.): I don't want to use a bunch of new stuff. I'm going to try to stay under $1000 for the entire stereo project, which i think should be more than enough. I'm not looking to win competitions, i'm not looking to duplicate my home 2-channel rig, i'm just looking for something that will sound nice on long drives. I want it to be at least SEMI period-correct, barring the head unit (which will still be older, or at least look older, but i'm not messing with a 1990 HU).

I've got my heart set on a Denon head unit, silver face, copper chassis, no onboard amp, and orange backlighting.

What should i look for in terms of speakers? I have 5" speakers in the dash, 6.5s in the back deck, and the car came with a funky subwoofer under the passenger seat from factory that will probably be removed unless it turns out that it sounds decent. (Doubt it.)

So... total of what i need:

Pair of 5s
Pair of 6.5s
4-channel amp
Single 10" sub or two 8s.
Another amp for the sub(s).

I would really like to get a 5-channel amp so i don't have to mess with trying to hide two, but i'm not sure that i'll be able to get anything worthwhile within my budget if i try to go that route.

Again, would like to keep this 90s style.

Thanks in advance!

arun1963

hi concealer,

Car audio is quite different from 2ch home audio. A car is perhaps the crappiest environment for listening to music. Your seating position places you much closer to one speaker, the fact that the speaker further away is more on axis and one closer to you is off axis, multiple reflection points and lots of glass, to name a few. This is the downside.

The equation for good sound in a car runs something like this. Good ears-30%, tuning ability-30%, install-20%, equipment-20%. In home audio this would be Ears-30%, Equipment-60%, room accoustics-10%, or something to that effect. So the upside in car audio is, that with decent equipment (moderate $ spend) its possible to dial in some really amazing sound. Like you said it may not be competition grade, but you'll sure enjoy your long drives.

Here is what I would do.

1. I would not use any of the stock speakers.

2. I would change the stock hu to one that offered me the most tuning functions. Time alignment to correct the seating position, independent l/r control over 10-15 frequencies and the ability to set a fully active 3 way network, incase I wanted to go active down the line. I run the pio p-880. You can look at the p-800 which has full copper chasis. It also allows you turn the internal amp on the hu off. $ 300-325

3. I would get good 6.5" components for the front doors. The polk MM-6501, Morel Dotech (this one is a bit more than the others, but its got that sweet morel sound) , ID-CX, MB Quart etc. Listen to them and others to see what you like. $ 225ish.

4. I would get a decent 4ch amp. $ 250

5. A decent 10" sub. Polk, ID etc $ 100-125.

6. Would spend about $2-300 on sound deadening, cables, wires etc.

About $200 over budget. I've taken prices off the net, I'm sure you'd be able to get it cheaper. I would then connect the comps to the front channels and bridge the rears for the sub. No rears. You wont need them.

My longish $0.02.

concealer404

Thanks for the reply!

I'm reasonably familiar with car audio, have done ~10 installs in the last 2-3 years.

Couple things to point out, no offense meant, believe me:

1) I'm not interested in moving away from stock locations or sizes, so i'm stuck with the 5" in the front dash. I could be interested in components and mounting tweeters in the front in a custom location.

2) Looking for older gear to install, i'm not interested in any new gear.

3) I've already got my head unit picked out. Don't want anything looking like an alien is coming out of my dash, and for whatever reason, i've never been a fan of Pioneer head units. There's a pioneer in the car right now. Actually, the entire system was replaced by pioneer stuff already, and i hate the way it sounds.

The "theme" here is older stuff. It'll all end up being used i imagine.

Going with a Denon DCT-A100 HU.

Thanks again!

arun1963

no prob. Good luck.

concealer404

arun1963 wrote: »

no prob. Good luck.

Thanks!

Got any brands that i should check out for older, quality subs or speakers? I had some old school Earthquakes in my last Celica install that i actually enjoyed, but i'm always up to try new things, too.

Any input on the older 1990s Denon amps? Would be neat to match as much as i could.

concealer404

Bueller?

sntnsupermen131

Where exactly are you planning to get this equipment at?

I mean, it doesnt really do us any good to recommend something to you when youre not going to be able to find it.

I'd really try and shy away from used speakers. I mean, you can find good deals on them, but car audio equipment is almost always abused. I do applaud you effort though, but I wouldn't be looking for specific recommendations, instead, I would be shopping and posting links of what you do fine.

One of my favorite places for used car audio equipment is diymobileaudio.com and their for sale section.
-Cody

concealer404

sntnsupermen131 wrote: »

Where exactly are you planning to get this equipment at?

I mean, it doesnt really do us any good to recommend something to you when youre not going to be able to find it.

I'd really try and shy away from used speakers. I mean, you can find good deals on them, but car audio equipment is almost always abused. I do applaud you effort though, but I wouldn't be looking for specific recommendations, instead, I would be shopping and posting links of what you do fine.

One of my favorite places for used car audio equipment is diymobileaudio.com and their for sale section.
-Cody

Probably craigslist/ebay. I have an old set of JBL 6.5s in my Celica that will be going in the rear deck of the Mazda. 2-ways with a line filter/crossover/whatever. Really the only hard part left is finding some decent 5" for the fronts. Not 5.25", 5". Go figure. The only thing decent that i've been able to find are Polk dbs i think. I'd be way happier if i could find some 5" components though, and just custom mount the tweets on the dash.

I'll start looking around and posting up what i find, and grab some advice from you guys, i appreciate it. Finding "old school" subs/amps won't be a problem.

cadenceclipse

focal makes some nice 5s. Be

concealer404

cadenceclipse wrote: »

focal makes some nice 5s. Be

Thanks for the tip! I'll check them out. Hopefully they're in budget. Head unit is eating up a lot of it.

cadenceclipse

yeah Be's'll eat up alot more:p

concealer404

cadenceclipse wrote: »

yeah Be's'll eat up alot more:p

Oh christ. I just finally had time to track those down.

Yeaaaaahhhhh..... i bought the car for $900.

I don't mind equaling that in stereo, but equaling it five times over? No thanks.

Any other ideas? I can find a crapload of 5.25s, but the only 5s in budget are the polks on crutchfield. I'll go with them if i have to, i've run that series before and was reasonably happy.

exalted512

where are the 5s at? Door? Dash?
-Cody

arun1963

For 5.25" comps I would first look at the mm series and the second option could be Hertz HSK 130 from the hi-energy series.

I've heard the hertz mille which is the top end and they sounded really sweet. Very natural balanced sound. I love the fact that they still make speakers the 'old school' way. paper cones. It would fit right in with your theme. See if you can get an audition.

You may also want to check with Mac. I'm sure he's heard pretty much everything there is to hear.

concealer404

exalted512 wrote: »

where are the 5s at? Door? Dash?
-Cody

Dash.

And they are 5s. NOT 5.25s.

arun1963

5.25's should fit in a 5" with little mod, I think. Cody though, would know better.

concealer404

arun1963 wrote: »

5.25's should fit in a 5" with little mod, I think. Cody though, would know better.

I would think so, too.... But i haven't been able to find any info on it on the forums, and i would think they would have tried it by now. When i get my back taken care of i'll open it up and see what i find.

exalted512

I dont know off hand, but you can usually cut 1/8" of inch all the way around to fit a larger speaker. I know diamond makes 6" speakers, I dunno about 5s though
-Cody