AM6 V8 Vantage - Woeful Audio

[dibblecorse]

So ive manged 1100 miles since picking the car up on the 6th, and with every journey I'm hating the audio more and more.

Somehow the original buyer seems to have ticked everything bar Premium Audio and honestly, I've had better sounding Walkmans.

So has anyone upgraded their sound system without spending 5k plus, or does anyone have any advice on car audio vendors worth speaking with?

I'm all ears ...

[Import]

Haha..I see what you did there..lol

[drac]

I can't help you but I'm feeling your pain. We picked up an FL5 Civic type R as a run around. Awesome car, really good fun but terrible audio. It too has annoyed me more and more as time has gone on.

You may have more luck on a US forum as I think it's a lot more common to 'upgrade' car audio there.

[Minglar]

May be worth having a look at this thread.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

If memory serves me well the OP subsequently upgraded to a latest model Vantage and had the system transferred from his previous car. Could be worth sending him a PM for more detail?

I suspect any upgrade you choose won’t be cheap though. BRM.

[V8 Minotaur]

The first thing I would do is to go into the audio settings and see if the fader option is greyed out.

Certainly on the Roadster models the base audio came with speaker grilles behind the seats but no actual speakers!

Also do you have a separate base unit behind the passenger seat?

If you have the rear speakers then you have the extended rear loom and can consider a decent upgrade.

If not then you re looking at the £5k option - with plenty of Skinz.

The speaker cables are pretty low quality so you re also looking at the cost of replacing all the cables from the car body into the doors.

The best reasonable swap is this 6 speaker Audison kit, which includes small passive crossovers you can find space for.

https://audison.com/product/apk-163/

Be warned that getting to the tweeters - which incidentally are only the size of a 10p piece! - is not for the faint hearted.

But there is plenty of choice out there

https://www.cambridgecar.audio/aston-martin-v8-sig...

[EVR]

If it is of any consolation, the Premium option is still not as Premium as the one in the previous gen. It sounds... decent, while previous one was quite good.

[Simpo Two]

There's a fix - buy a Vanquish 2...

https://en.aston-martin-club.com/article/bang-oluf...

[dibblecorse]

V8 Minotaur said:

The first thing I would do is to go into the audio settings and see if the fader option is greyed out.

Certainly on the Roadster models the base audio came with speaker grilles behind the seats but no actual speakers!

Also do you have a separate base unit behind the passenger seat?

If you have the rear speakers then you have the extended rear loom and can consider a decent upgrade.

If not then you re looking at the £5k option - with plenty of Skinz.

The speaker cables are pretty low quality so you re also looking at the cost of replacing all the cables from the car body into the doors.

The best reasonable swap is this 6 speaker Audison kit, which includes small passive crossovers you can find space for.

https://audison.com/product/apk-163/

Be warned that getting to the tweeters - which incidentally are only the size of a 10p piece! - is not for the faint hearted.

But there is plenty of choice out there

https://www.cambridgecar.audio/aston-martin-v8-sig...

Cheers, makes sense, we may have identified an 8 channel plus active sub solution, i have nothing out the back and the fader is greyed out

[Jay_Davis]

EVR said:

If it is of any consolation, the Premium option is still not as Premium as the one in the previous gen. It sounds... decent, while previous one was quite good.

Yup, the "Premium" audio on those cars was OK at best, but the base audio was just bad.

The upgraded audio on the older cars was definitely very good. I will say that the Premium audio on the current generation of cars is also very good. Somehow the base audio has always been pretty weak. On cars this expensive, it just doesn't seem worth the development time or parts logistics to even have the base audio systems.

[Davil]

Sounds fine if you always drive with the top down (99% of the time for me), have bass on full, volume up (which of course you need with top down) and have a decent quality music source. Sounds very average with roof up and volume low.

Fancy audio is of course a complete waste of money in a Roadster.

[V8 Minotaur]

My experience too - despite being a very average standard amp the sound only becomes acceptably decent when you push the amp a bit.

The standard speakers are paper cone ASK things, so very limited in expectations.


Upgrade journey here…

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[dibblecorse]

V8 Minotaur said:

My experience too - despite being a very average standard amp the sound only becomes acceptably decent when you push the amp a bit.

The standard speakers are paper cone ASK things, so very limited in expectations.


Upgrade journey here

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Cheers, saw that but thats big budget, ive had the following proposed which seems to make good sense for a mid range budget ..


Audison Prima APBX 8 AS - Active Sub - 8 Inch
Hertz Mille Pro MP 165.P3 - Footwell Woofers - 6 Inch
Hertz Mille Pro MP 28.3 Pro - Tweeters - 1 Inch
Hertz Mille Pro MP 70.3 Pro - Door Mids - 4 Inch
Audison Prima APX 4 - Rear Mids - 4 Inch
Match Up 8 DSP Mk2 - 8 Channel Amp

I've questioned why 2 different 4" speakers.

That's c2k of kit, then need connectors, cables etc and fitting.

[V8 Minotaur]

Apparently to keep costs sensible...

https://caraudiokent.co.uk/aston_martin_audio_upgr...

[dibblecorse]

V8 Minotaur said:

Apparently to keep costs sensible...

https://caraudiokent.co.uk/aston_martin_audio_upgr...

Yeah, I saw that but even the low cost option there is 6k all in , good shout though...

[dibblecorse]

dibblecorse said:

Cheers, saw that but thats big budget, ive had the following proposed which seems to make good sense for a mid range budget ..


Audison Prima APBX 8 AS - Active Sub - 8 Inch
Hertz Mille Pro MP 165.P3 - Footwell Woofers - 6 Inch
Hertz Mille Pro MP 28.3 Pro - Tweeters - 1 Inch
Hertz Mille Pro MP 70.3 Pro - Door Mids - 4 Inch
Audison Prima APX 4 - Rear Mids - 4 Inch
Match Up 8 DSP Mk2 - 8 Channel Amp

I've questioned why 2 different 4" speakers.

That's c2k of kit, then need connectors, cables etc and fitting.

ok, so all questions answered and car booked in for the above set up, goes in Aug 18th.

[V8 Minotaur]

Be good to get your feedback on this - both initial and once the speakers have been to the gym and bedded in a bit.

…although I can’t really see the cost / benefit being worthwhile on my Roadster unfortunately.

[AMV93]

+1 following with interest as it's the only thing I've still not got round to doing on my Vantage!

I'd be interested in the installation costs if you're happy to share, for an idea of the 'all in' - guessing it'll be around the £5k mark. There seem to be well recommended places for this around Cambridge and further south...nothing I've seen around me in Derbyshire/Midlands area though - I'm not pulling my car apart myself!

[alscar]

Minglar said:

May be worth having a look at this thread.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

If memory serves me well the OP subsequently upgraded to a latest model Vantage and had the system transferred from his previous car. Could be worth sending him a PM for more detail?

I suspect any upgrade you choose won t be cheap though. BRM.

£115k for their “ masterpiece “ upgrade - and extra if you still want car play !

[dibblecorse]

V8 Minotaur said:

Be good to get your feedback on this - both initial and once the speakers have been to the gym and bedded in a bit.

although I can t really see the cost / benefit being worthwhile on my Roadster unfortunately.

See, I disagree here, I absolutely love music in the car, top up, or down, recently did a 5 day tour in the old car to France, Spa, Luxembourg and the Ring, was solo in the car and love the experience music adds, its solely for me, if it wasn't so appallingly bad I wouldn't have touched it, but its worse than just about every car I have ever had !!!

Also odd that the owner from new spent a silly amount on options to skimp on premium audio, at least the holes are there lol

[dibblecorse]

AMV93 said:

+1 following with interest as it's the only thing I've still not got round to doing on my Vantage!

I'd be interested in the installation costs if you're happy to share, for an idea of the 'all in' - guessing it'll be around the £5k mark. There seem to be well recommended places for this around Cambridge and further south...nothing I've seen around me in Derbyshire/Midlands area though - I'm not pulling my car apart myself!

hey, less than 5k, but not by a huge amount.

That also includes things like cabling, soundproofing, connectors, speaker adaptors that aren't on the kit list above, the kit list above is just shy of 2k, basically final bill is more or less 50/50 split between kit and install.

I'm using John Kleis in Reading who have a great reputation.