Re: car audio advice
- From: "Timo Geusch" <tnewsSPAMMENOT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:38:40 +0100
Albert T Cone wrote:
I finally gave in to the pressures of practicality and bought a
primula estate last week, in replacement for the passat. General
impressions are good; it's vastly better than the VW to fling about
the countryside, and the 2.0 engine, whilst initially feeling a bit
gutless, responds well to revs and makes the car fun to take by the
scruff of the neck.
The only significant problem is that the standard fit speakers are
awful, so I thought I'd ask on here for advice. I'd like to stick to
units which fit in the original mounts - no subs taking up half the
boot space, for example. I haven't taken the grilles off yet, but
looking at their sizes, I reckon it has 13cms at the front and 16s at
the back, with tweeter units at the top of the side pillars.
Take the grilles off first, otherwise you'll end up buying stuff that
won't fit. DAMHIKIJK, OK?
First, if you want to read far too much about car audio, have a wander
over to http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/ and check out the forums.
The short version of the advice - depending on how many people you'll
normally transport in the car, forget about rear speakers. They mess up
the sound stage and make the system harder to set up unless you really
know what you're doing. And then you're talking audio processors that
cost more than your whole budget so you can time-align the whole thing.
Best setup would be a set of decent to very decent speakers in the
front doors - if you want to make use of the mounting locations for the
tweeters, you'd have to buy components which would make the whole thing
a tad more expensive[1] so you may want to forget about those and get a
decent set of 2-way integrated speakers.
Complement the whole thing with a small sub because anything fitted
into door while not be able to play really deep[2] so unless you want
your music to sound like the bass player is taking an extended holiday,
you _need_ a sub. For basic use, a powered sub as mentioned elsewhere
in this thread should do the job (I've got one in the convertible, it's
OK but not great). Ideally get a small sub (6"-8") that works well in a
small enclosure and build yourself one. It's not hard - plenty of
examples on Talkaudio.
The headunit which is in at the minute is some cheapo Clarion thing.
I have no objection to replacing that, but my total max budget is
probably under £300.
Go used. Seriously. 300 quid is either going to buy you a load of tat
at Halfrauds or some seriously nice kit second-hand.
I'd check if the H/U has pre-outs - if it does and you want a decent
sound for the money, get a reasonably good cheapish amp (JBL GTO 75.4
are mentioned fairly frequently on TA), Some decent speakers for the
front and a small sub for the back. Bridge the two rear channels on the
amp to feed the sub, use the front channels as intended. Oh, and make
sure that you feed the rear channels from the sub out if the H/U has
one. If you buy used, the lot above should set you back around 200 quid
or less and it /will/ sound a lot better than a stock system if you can
be bothered to mess about a little to build the enclosure for the sub.
[1] Components have better crossovers - most 2-way only use a condensor
to prevent the tweeter from getting hammered by the lower frequencies
and play the mid/bass full range - but are generally slightly less
efficient. To make them sound _proper_, you'd want at least a small amp
for them, otherwise you could just flush the money down the toilet.
[2] You can get door speakers to play really deep if you know what
you're doing. You basically have to seal the door (usually done with
sound deadening mats) but it's a pain in the arse if you need to get at
the window winder mechanism or the door locks afterwards. That said,
you still need fairly large speakers (I wouldn't attempt it with
anything smaller than 17cm) and unless you actually put small subs in
the doors, it'll be a compromise.
--
'89 Mazda RX-7 Convertible
'92 Mazda RX-7
.
- References:
- car audio advice
- From: Albert T Cone
- car audio advice
- Prev by Date: Re: car audio advice
- Next by Date: Re: car audio advice
- Previous by thread: Re: car audio advice
- Next by thread: Dell: You were right.
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
