Cost effective Car Audio

[LEXUSA]

I'm trying to find out what off brands perform well. Boss, Phoenix Gold, AudioBahn, Phase Linear....etc. Some of these work great, have the same features as name brand stuff for a fraction of the price.
I went crazy many years ago with Orion, Kicker, Infinity and probably some others, spent alotta $ and it sounded good. A buddy of mine had a collection of off brand stuff including 8 ohm Radio Shack speakers and a hodge podge of enclosures that were built to fit in the space available and not to tuned sizes, volume. His stuff always sounded great and cost alot less. Just wondering what stuff you have had good luck with.

 

[spf_lexus]

I have built about 3 full systems in my LS400 and arrived at this saying, "You get what you pay for". I started off with basic and ended up wanting more and compounding that again. Right now my tally is roughly over $6000 for my latest rebuild and this whole area started 2 years ago. I ended up with JL audio Amps, Subs. MB quart "Q" speakers front and back, alpine double din in-dash w/ hard wired I-pod. Monster comp. grade RCA's and silver strand wiring. In addition to that was a double independent ported box for 2 twelves and 75lb of dynamat, and 4 cans of great stuff expanding foam. What car are you looking to build?


As for cost effective brands i would recomend this site, www.woofersetc.com. I have been there in LA personally and they have a HUGE selection with super high end names like McIntosh. I would say from personal experience JL makes some very solid pieces and have an entry level thats fairly affordable that incorporates a lot fo the higher end level technology. JLaudio.com. Old school Rockford Fosgate amps are very good tho, I mean mid 1990's. I would never buy anything available at Best buy's or Circuit City's but thats IMO. I have had every single line of MB quart speakers and they make a very soid speaker, as does the Infinity Kappa's and those in particular are not very much cheese.

 

[LEXUSA]

OOpps, double post.

 

[LEXUSA]

I'm currently re-doing the system in my '89 Cadillac Fleetwood. This will comprise of 2-dash, 2-front door, 2-reardeck and 1-Sub. The dash and rear deck will be powered by the head unit. The front doors and Sub from a 4 x 50 Boss amp.

The front doors are the factory Bose units. I by-passed the integral Bose amp and am powering them directly from the Boss amp. The speakers are 1ohm so I had to put a 3ohm resistor on them to maintain a 4ohm load. I wouldn't have bothered but they sound so friggin' good.

I wanna find some 3 1/2" for the dash. Most I've heard lately are crap. Years ago I heard some that were awesome but I think they were ADS and I can't find them anymore.

One of the biggest mistakes I've made in the past was going with too large of a midrange. A 4" provides much better midrange in the vocal frequencies than a 5 1/4" or 6 1/2".

 

[spf_lexus]

Agreed on the smaller sizing. I have 6.5's in the front and 4'' in my rear. The 4'' have the stock ported speaker pods and sounded just as powerful as the 6.5's. I never dabbled under 4ohm loads for speaker sizing but if its pleasin' the ears keep goin! I tried a 4ohm set on 2ohm load and sounded great but didn't want to blow them. So whats the head unit powering?

 

[LEXUSA]

The rear deck is 2 Pioneer 6 x 9, they replaced the Bose 6 x 9 that were back there from the factory. All 4 Bose speakers from the factory, 2-door and 2-rear deck, each had their own built in amps. To me, the rear speakers are just there for fill and the focus should be on the front soundstage.

The factory head unit worked fine for awhile with CD and sounded great. Then the buttons stopped working and a CD got stuck. I replaced it with a Pioneer 1 1/2 DIN AM/FM/CD unit. Initially I tried an interface contraption from Crutchfield so it would work with the factory speakers but I had noise. I then replaced the 4" Bose speaker with a 4ohm Orion, sounded like crap. I woulda just replace the door speakers but they sounded so awesome I wanted to find a solution.

I asked so many people if I could just put a 3ohm resistor on the ground wire coming from the speaker so I would have a total of 4ohm. Everybody said no and gave me some of the most retarded answers I've ever heard so I just tried it. Works fine and sounds great. I think the speakers are similar to the ones in the legendary Bose 901 series. Unfortunately all of the automotive units are 1ohm and the home units are 8ohm. I'm not sure the speakers from the home style would even sound the same, they should though.

 

[LEXUSA]

I just got a brand new Pioneer GM-X524 amp, 4ch x 50w, off of eBay for $83 delivered. Thats less than what I paid for the Boss it is gonna replace. Thanks for the suggestion to buy brand name stuff at a discount rather than off brand stuff for list, you're really on to something here.

 

[spf_lexus]

Retail blows, thats why that woofers.com is great. I got my MB quart 6.5's "hooked up" for $500 and they retailed for $600, woofers has it for $430. The shipping on most car audio isn't too bad, heavy subs might get up there tho. If cost is your prime concern I would recommend finding exactly what you would like to have thats just out of your price range and then shop it on craigs list... lots of "gems in the rough" if you know what your looking for.

 

[LEXUSA]

Its not just low cost I'm after, rather it seems that alot of name brand stuff is the same cheap item as the off brand name in a different color container. Not always and its hard to know whats what sometimes. I've been disappointed by some Polk 4" co-axial speakers I purchased years ago. Also some Infinity co-axial 5 1/4".

Looks like most 4 channel amps from Infinity, Pioneer, Kenwood, MTX, etc. can be had for $150 or less. All have high and low pass crossovers so no external unit is needed. Simplicity is my main focus without sacrificing sound quality. An LS is quiet enough, as is my ol Caddy, to appreciate a good quality stereo. A single 10" sub is plenty. Once you damn kids get a little older you'll understand my intentions!

Are your MB Quart 6.5" a two-way component? I had that set up in an '85 Jetta. The midrange was not as crisp as I was looking for. A buddy of mine had the 5 1/4" 2-way component front and rear that sounded awesome.

 

[Jake Breyck]

This place is key to building a very nice sterio system for car or home on a budget

http://www.partsexpress.com/

 

[spf_lexus]

The MB's are QSD's, yes they are components. They take 75-150RMS and these are my 4th set of components i'v tried. The MB's sounded more accurate than any Infinity, and any major store name that i'v tried. Then again these cannot be found at most common locations, E.I Best Buy. BTW circuit City just went bankrupt today! lol

 

[LEXUSA]

I ordered some Phoenix Gold RSD3 3 1/2" dash speakers. These look more like the ones I found years ago but can't now. They are deep and don't have a seperate tweeter. I hope they really blast the vocals. If I need more sizzle I can always add a small tweeter, maybe an 8ohm on the same channel.

 

[spf_lexus]

Yeah you could, I would advise some sort of crossover for the tweets, unless they have on board? My friend had a good idea and that was to buy super high end crossovers by themselves.... no woofer/tweet and run his own speakers. I heard it myself and using Focal crossovers with cheaper kappa woofers and completely diff brand tweets, the combination was pretty cost effective and i was cool with the sound, not A+ but for what he paid it was great.

Your Pheonix Gold's are small diameter which makes anything lower than vocals hard to get, but if they are in a well matched pod, possibly slight port/chamber design? My 4'' rears sound excellent w/ their pods and ridiculously weak w/ sealed door panels. Are your dash speakers surface mounted? or pods?

 

[LEXUSA]

The dash speakers are surface mount, sorta. The speaker grills are mounted to the dash pad that covers the speedo and has the AC vents in it. The speakers can either mount under the grill or to the dash frame work underneath the dash pad directly underneath the grill. Either way I'm gonna isolate the front of the speaker from the rear which helps with mid and lower frequencies. They should cover the frequency range I like just fine and the Sub will pick up where they leave off. Might be lacking in the 100hz to 150hz range but it has been my experience thats a good thing. That area sounds ratty, especially if the Sub crossover is any higher than 90hz.

I finally figured out a problem I've had for years, I love when that happens. I had noise on the front doors and rear deck speakers when I used the deck power. No problem when powering the dash speakers with deck power. I was using the original Cadillac speaker wiring for the front doors and rear deck, new wire for the dash. The factory speaker wiring utilizes 3 wires to power two speakers. L+, R+ and a common negavite wire for both. This actually works fine with a separte amp. If you check both negative lugs on your amp, they are connected. Not so when using deck power, they are seperate. This maybe because the amp can be bridged and the deck not or who knows. When combining the negative wires and using the deck power it had noise. I hadn't used my rear speakers in years cuz of the noise that I couldn't figure out. They sound just dandy now that each speaker has its own negative wire all the way back to the deck. Trippy.

 

[LEXUSA]

Well my Phoenix Gold dash speakers be rockin'. Next is to replace my amp with a Pioneer unit I just got this morning. It's gonna be nice to have this all working again.

 

[spf_lexus]

Yeah I totally start going nuts when my system is temporarily down. I start hearing little rattles/squeaks and its because I always have something blasting so i know what u mean. I just ripped my rear door panels out and brought my rears back up dB wise to match the fronts. I had my crossovers set at -6dB and they didnt put out much, I thought the rears would be too close to my ears but it's pretty well rounded. Only problem i had was that now I have so much volume above 70hz my 12's aren't keeping up! lol I absolutely hate systems with all bass and nothing else. This was the first time I needed more bass than I already had due to speaker output. Too bad ur not i Colorado, I have a nice backup 4 channel Clarion amp that I need to sell. Puts down 80watts RMS per channel at 4ohm and 114 RMS at 2ohm. Model number is APA4320, looking for $150 usd. Any updates on your new amp?

 

[LEXUSA]

My new amp is in and all sounds great. I'm waiting on some bass-blockers for the 3 1/2 in the dash, highpass filter out of the deck at 125hz helps but they really shine above 500hz so I be needin' a little more.

I haven't re-connected my sub box yet. In the trunk you can't hear it cuz the panel behind the rear seat is solid steel, no cutouts for the boom to come thru, same with the rear deck. I think I may cut a hole behind the armrest and push the sub box snugly up to it in the trunk. I may have to relocate the ports to accommodate. I do so love modifying stuff so it is worthless after I'm done with it.

 

[spf_lexus]

Hey if you have an LS400 i can give some tips. Our trunk design makes it very difficult to get bass inside the cabin. Lexus did a very good job of sealing the cabin of acoustics. I took out my rear deck 8'' sub and saw-zawled the "circle" into a 10-12'' square. Next I mashed 2 layers of dynamat around the inside/outside of square and it stiffened up the area quite a bit. After that the bass doubled... easily, problem was all that Db was causing the rear deck to vibrate. I dumped 2 full cans of "Great-Stuff expanding foam" into the rear deck and it killed ALL rattles lol. I highly recommend this product... goes for like $5 a can but does wonders for dampening in hard to reach areas. If you have a separate box I would seriously consider making that stock sub woofer port as large as you can and still mount the rear tail light, makes worlds of difference.

I originally did not want huge amounts of bass but after 2 full sub setups I decied with this particular car i was going to need more than usual to get the bass inside. To be honest If I am playing some hip-hop type loud tracks W/ windows all up the dB outside is very very low. LS400 is a great platform for car stereos.. and i love how no one ever really tries to put a "serious" syste in one, it's just perfect.



OOps, realized you have a Caddy! Sorry mate, but you still have a very comfortable car with great interior acoustics.

 

[LEXUSA]

Now that I'm almost finished with the Caddy I need to get another car to ruin. I'm in the process of moving but after I do I'm gonna start looking for a '98 thru 2000 LS400. The Caddy runs good and isn't worth much so it really fits the bill at the moment. If it weren't FWD and so squareish I'd consider goin' RatRod with it after I found another practical car. Who knows maybe I will keep it a make it weird.

 

[stevechumo]

This place is key to building a very nice sterio system for car or home on a budget

http://www.partsexpress.com/

That's the place I used to buy the components to build my own home speaker systems. Many of their components are used by the high end speaker manufacturers that build real high end home audio speakers that cost an arm and a leg to buy. I love that retailer by all means.