NA Car audio options

[smiles]

I'm wanting to update the sound system, not sure what's there already but it's nothing special!

Thinking new speakers, a sub (run by amp) and possibly a pioneer headunit.

What size speakers can you fit in the doors, any website showing details of an install?

I'd like to do it myself but haven't pulled the door triming off yet to see how much room there is.

Cheers

[Moggy]

I have 10's and 5's in my doors, so you can fit a fair bit in there! However, I think the best general setup is a 4ch amp running a decent 6\" split in each door, with the other two channels on the amp running one sub in a custom box in the boot. Go for a 10\" sub if you are into indie/punk music, or a 12\" if you listen mostly to hip-hip/R&B. The 10\" gives you a nice tight bass with an excellent sound, while the 12\" will give you more of a boot when playing songs with heavy bass.

[STV]

Steve 818,

how do you run the ipod system??
are you having an amp and speakers, then plugging directly into an ipod..

or having a headunit which you plug your ipod into...

or listening with headphones!!!

STV

[Moggy]

Must make chatting to your passengers hard though!

[STV]

As well as listening out for emergency vehicles.. (i actually thought it was illegal.. dunno why?)

[marcusus]

3 passengers simultaneously?
Where the hell did you fit them all? Was one of them sitting on the parcel shelf or something?

[Craig]

3 passengers simultaneously?

It can be done...even with a hardtop...errr so I've heard!

[sabretooth]

My install comprised of some Jaycar 6.5\" Kevlar splits (of which I'm yet to mount the crossovers and tweeters, or deaden the doors), an Alpine MRP-F200 amp and a custom-boxed 8\" sub in the rear parcel shelf.

I should have chosen a better sub than my Fusion FEW-8, but oh well. Still goes orrite.

[smiles]

I'm thinking of using a Jaycar amp, reuse a 12\" Sony sub I have, haven't looked at front speakers yet.

For a deck I'm thinking Pioneer DEH-7850BT, anyone have review on this unit? It incorporates bluetooth to work with your phone, so it's a car kit at the same time.

[Astroboysoup]

yes, that pioneer deck is fantastic but i recon you can go a step down and save a bit of money and get some really high quality splits at the front.

makes a world of a difference. Infinity reference range are all the rav now... I have DLS 6.5\" splits. paid $300 for them.

4 2\" eclipse speakers in the headrests

all running off a 4 channel Amp with a 10 inch pioneer sub in the boot.

Cos im short and i need the seats moved forward there is a bit of room behind the seats. I'm thinking a pair of 6x9s boxed would fit just fine for an increase in mid range.

[Brad]

<commence preaching mode>

Again, I can't emphasis enough the importance of the install in this system. It's pointless spending big bucks on Infinity splits (which are awsome BTW) if you are simply going to screw them into the metal door sheeting. You could spend $100 and get 95% of the same quality. You need to brace and deaden the door, both o the inside and outside skins, and mount the speaker to wood rather than metal.

$200 on splits and $200 on install will sound twice as good as $400 on speakers and $0 on install...I promise.

As for the sub, the MX5 is a compromise from the start. There is no substantial volume of air connecting the driver to your ears so the majority of the sound you are hearing/feeling will be secondary reverbaration from body panels. Unfortunatly there is no simple solution. Sabretooths install, done correctly will give you a good result as the driver is in the same volume of air as the driver (somewhat), while my personal favorite would have to be a single reflex bandpass box with the port loading through the tunnels to the back of the seats and into the cabin.



Here are some points about them from http://www.teamrocs.com/technical/pages/boxes.htm

The bass reflex box is a little more complicated than the sealed box. In addition to using a determined amount of air to reproduce frequencies, it uses a port that helps in reproducing the lowest frequencies. The port can be \"tuned\" to reproduce different frequency responses. Variables are port length and port area (i.e. diameter for a cylindrical port).

Depending on what frequency you want the port to be tuned to, the length will be given for a given area by using certain formulas. Since there are a few different theories to calculate port length for a given tuning frequency I will not give a formula here. Instead you can contact teamROCS Technical and we will help you out. A lot can be said about the bass reflex box, but let's go into pros and cons.

Benefits with bass reflex boxes are:

Extended frequency response
Higher efficiency
Higher power handling above the port tuning frequency
Drawbacks:

Harder to build and to get right
Lower power handling below the port tuning frequency
Worse group-delay/transient response than a sealed box (but better than bandpass) but still very acceptable if designed properly


An idea I have had for a while is to use 4 Jaycar 6\" woofers, 2 on each side, mounted in isobaric configuration.


This allows smalled box volume (a little more than half the size of a single driver) and would provide a decent SPL and transient response. Not the highest power rating but still each driver would handle 60-70wRMS each.

[marcusus]

Cos im short and i need the seats moved forward there is a bit of room behind the seats. I'm thinking a pair of 6x9s boxed would fit just fine for an increase in mid range.

Been thinking about this myself. There's space back there that's not being used, so why not put the 6x9's in. It'll sound much better than just having the 6x9's facing forward in the boot.

Anyone have any ideas as to how to get into that rear firewall as such, and get some speakers installed in it?

[Astroboysoup]

i cut 8 inch circles ages ago when i was doing a hakuna 8\" sub install but didn't like the quality of the sound and my roll cage needed that space.

i opted for the sealed 10inch in the boot but the sound reverbs in to the cabin cos of the holes in the firewall. I have the hard top on atm. bass sounds great with it on.

[Brad]

6x9's actually need a very large box to work properly in the lower end, though if you are just after mid range they would be fine. Good alternate to cutting the parcel shelf, though being stuck down behind the seat won't do much for sound volume or frequencies above about 3khz...which is the top end of midrange anyway.

[Astroboysoup]

yes agreed,

my other option is to make a MDF parcel shelf and install another set of splits on there. I already have the holes in the parcel shelf and the roll cage will still have enough room if they're 6\" woofers. Can't think of a good place for the rear tweeters though.