Cost effective Car Audio

[spf_lexus]

Hey what ever happened to Retrodrive's LS400? He had a lot of time into his, I know it was a few years back but his black LS was the reason I bought mine. Beautiful system tho.

 

[LEXUSA]

What size speakers do the 98-2000 LS400 have from the factory and where are they located? How 'bout the earlier LS400's?

This will give me something to think about and plan for until I find one.

 

[spf_lexus]

Well I know up to 1995 they have 4'' door speakers front/back. Dont know about newer years. Speaker pods are chambered w/ port, very nice design.

 

[LEXUSA]

Well I know up to 1995 they have 4'' door speakers front/back. Dont know about newer years. Speaker pods are chambered w/ port, very nice design.

What brand of stereo is in the LS over the years besides Nakamichi? Are the speakers each individually powered by their own internal amp? Bose does that alot. Have you tried powering the factory speaker with an aftermarket amp?

So four 4" speakers, one in each door and a sub on the rear deck? Are they located in a good spot on the front doors?

 

[spf_lexus]

It's got individual amps, 1 per speaker and it's an expensive procedure to install an aftermarket amp with the stock head unit... but do-able. Pretty sure Nak is only manufacturer for LS. Aftermarket deck and map is another story, very easy. I rocked the stock 4'' speakers with my clarion amp and they lasted a few months before they blew, but still sounded great tho. I had these stock 13watt (something like that) speakers taking 80 watts clean power, amazed they lasted that long! Pioneer makes the stock speakers themselves.

The rears are in the rear doors, down low. I used 45 degree mounting cups for my tweetes on the tops of the door panels so they are aimed away from my ears. My rear tweets are 10'' from my ears so aiming them at me isn't a good idea

 

[LEXUSA]

How many ohms are the LS door speakers? I would guess your Clarion amp is 2ohm stable so if they were not the standard 4ohm it could still handle the load.

Bose likes 1ohm in cars and 8ohm for home. I just put a 3ohm resistor on each ground wire from the speaker back to the amp so I would have a 4ohm load. At least 5 people told me this would not work but it does like a charm.

I have a strange question for the experts. Lets say I have some 3-way MB Quart crossovers from a project I did many moons ago. If I only connect a tweeter and a mid to the crossover, no woofer, will it still work? I suppose I could hook it up that way and see but I just wondered if anyone already knew.

 

[spf_lexus]

Sure it would, but since the x-over is built for 3 speakers each speaker is going to have a frequency range that complements the other 2 speakers, so if one is left out you probably end up with a low frequency gap but it sounds like your a stereo VET like me so i'm sure you would match your sub with the mid to smooth everything out. Thats crazy tho, 1ohm speakers? If my MB's were 1ohm stable I swear they would be taking into the 200 clean watt range. I guess if used w/a properly matched amp there's quite a bit of power on the table out of a small speaker... hence, "BOSE" hehe.

Pretty sure the Pioneer stockers were 4ohm. I can vouch these can take 50 RMS before they start becoming risky. If used w/ their pods + amp they will put out as much door bass as most 6.5's on average power.

 

[LEXUSA]

My next addition will be to hook-up a portable MP3 player like an iPod Nano or the like. I'll use the AUX input on my Pioneer deck. Any advice on picking an MP3 player would be appreciated. Is there anything wrong with the Nano *CLONE* I see on eBay for lots less than the real deal?

A buddy of mine complains that he hates the poor sound quality of an MP3 because of the way it compresses and disposes of some of the frequencies so as to save space. Can you hear the difference? I guess I've heard them before but can't recall thinking it sounded wrong.

 

[spf_lexus]

Only way to go is get an IPOD supported deck and run it hardwired. Cable itself is like $35 and is an optical line, my IPOD has all of it's buttons on my 7'' screen, and there is no lag, instantaneous response and I never have to see it. I would rather have 8,000 songs unseen than 8,000 songs on disk in my car lol. I have mine wired through the dash and the IPOD itself is in the glove box unseen. The cool part is my computer is set for 380kbps at 48khg sample rate... highest quality i could get, much better than your standard mp3. Quality is near CD but not quite. Also I have 20gb of movies I can play at a touch of the screen, so no storing movies in the car too.. probably the best upgrade i did.


Whatever you pick make sure it has the same IPOD type bottom connector because it's what all the cables fit. Some manufacturer offer "universal" USB type inputs which are better than the crappy circuit city speaker jack will provide but no where the versatility of the hardwired route. Problem with that is the screen will run $700-2000 but they are pretty powerful.

 

[LEXUSA]

Uh, $700 would be my total build cost for everything, deck, amp, all speakers including sub and wiring. Been there done that with the grande budget, spare no expense approach.

 

[spf_lexus]

You could pick up a good alpine deck w/ ipod compatibility for about 2-$250

 

[LEXUSA]

Has anyone built their own custom crossovers? I've been searching and reading, they get kinda complicated. 2nd, 3rd, 4th order designs. Wiring I don't understand. Crazy stuff.

 

[LEXUSA]

Wow! Thread revival!

I finally got an LS400, a dark green '97 Coach edition with 119,000 miles, don't think it's the Nakamichi system because it doesn't say so on the head unit. I'm going to try my hardest to leave the factory stereo alone as much as possible.....however.....I would like to use an MP3 player or tablet as a source for music. Is there an easy way to accomplish this? I suppose I could tap into the CD input from the trunk where the changer is..... or.... what have you done?