Looking for some good advice on sound systems..
Looking for some good advice on sound systems..
Author
Discussion

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

70 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
No, not 5 jiggywatt bass bins....

I want to replace the stereo system in my car - not with anything outrageous, just replacing the four speakers and head unit.

I haven't done this before so I'm looking for some good advice on what I will need. For example, I've found some good speakers that use co-ax cable and I wonder if I will need an amplifier instead of just plugging them into a headunit - that sort of stuff.

I note there isn't a specific section for this on pistonheads - are there any website out there that can be recommended?

Thanks

coanda

iAlex

18,519 posts

211 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
In my old car, I used JL audio stuff. 2 channel amp under front seat powering door speakers and a mono amp in boot with a small sub. Leave the headunit powering the rear speakers and to be quite honest I wouldn't even bother changing the rear speakers.


I don't know much about it as I had it done by an in car audio specialist sort it out but he did explain the above to me as being the best route to better sound without paying a fortune or becoming a boombox on wheels.

WeirdNeville

6,021 posts

231 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Talkaudio.co.uk is an excellent resource for all things audio. They won't try and make you build a boomer, but they probably will tell you you need an amplifier and a sub woofer - because in truth, for proper premium sound in a car, you do.
What's your car and budget?
Speakers don't take co-axial cable but you can get 'coaxial' speakers whch have the two (or more but ignore them) different speakers mounted one inside the other - or on the same axis. The other option is 'components' which is a large woofer, a small tweeter and more often than not a litte box of electronics to split the correct frequencies to each speaker. This is called a 'crossover'.

To be honest, it's a big scary world of car audio, and depending on your car and your DIY skill it may not be something you want to attempt yourself. Go to talkaudio with a clear idea of your budget and what you want to achieve and see what they suggest.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

70 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Thankyou guys....

Well, the car is an import Mk.1 MR2 SC.

The car has an aftermarket headunit and the original front/rear speakers. As you probably realise, the rear speakers are just behind the head so they are in fact closer than the fronts!

I've had a look around the MR2 forums and there really isn't much about. I know the rears are 3.5in speakers and the fronts are 4in.

What I'd like to do is as follows:

Lay down soundproofing in the cabin and doors to cut down road, engine and exhaust noise (it really does need cutting down as the exhaust is LOUD - sounds good though!).

Change the speakers front and rear.....I've seen these for front/rear...

http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product_m-in-phase... (these have to be shallow)
http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product_m-in-phase...

And change the headunit - I'm undecided but it needs t be ipod compatible with the cable coming from the rear so I can mount the ipod where ever and it is clear of the gearstick/handbrake.

I think I'll need an amp and I think that this one will do the job....
http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product_m-in-phase...

So, thats what I'm thinking about as the job to do over christmas. Thanks for the talkaudio tip - I'll take a look there.

coanda

redtwin

7,518 posts

198 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
What headunit have you got in there now?. If it isn't a good quality one, or even very powerful you might be better off just changing the headunit first and see how you get on from there. In the past I have had satisfactory improvements just by changing the headunit for a good high powered one.

Of course if you still find it lacking you can change the speakers later.

In the past I have gone through the trouble of changing speakers, running new wires etc and found that the improvement in sound quality wasn't worth the effort, and to be honest I don't think you will notice that much difference if you keep the standard sized speakers.

If nothing else change the headunit and speakers before you go down the amplifier road. In my experience, inexpensive amplifiers are usually not worth the money and may actually cause problems such as whine or alternator noise.

Basically, when it comes to amplifiers, buy very good quality or don't bother at all.

Edited by redtwin on Monday 13th December 11:03

Risotto

3,931 posts

228 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all


Just because it has valves & needles... smile

Bayeux

15,169 posts

250 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Risotto said:


Just because it has valves & needles... smile
Looks like double DIN too smile

Ben Hughes

1,937 posts

195 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Coanda = UKAR?

Hi beer

Colonial

13,553 posts

221 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
redtwin said:
What headunit have you got in there now?. If it isn't a good quality one, or even very powerful you might be better off just changing the headunit first and see how you get on from there. In the past I have had satisfactory improvements just by changing the headunit for a good high powered one.

Of course if you still find it lacking you can change the speakers later.

In the past I have gone through the trouble of changing speakers, running new wires etc and found that the improvement in sound quality wasn't worth the effort, and to be honest I don't think you will notice that much difference if you keep the standard sized speakers.

If nothing else change the headunit and speakers before you go down the amplifier road. In my experience, inexpensive amplifiers are usually not worth the money and may actually cause problems such as whine or alternator noise.

Basically, when it comes to amplifiers, buy very good quality or don't bother at all.

Edited by redtwin on Monday 13th December 11:03
I disagree. You will get much better gains out of doing a amp and speakers off the head.

If you get whine etc then it isn't installed correctly.

JL Audio and Blaupunkt both do good bang for your bucks stuff.

busta

4,504 posts

249 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
I'd echo what redtwin says. Headunit first, see what difference it makes. Then if your speakers are obviously not up to the job those ones you have linked look like fairly decent upgrades, although personally I'd go for components.

If that's not good enough, I'd look at adding a subwoofer before an amp for the small speakers. A small active subwoofer will take care of all the bass which the small speakers can't handle, so not only will you have more bass, you'll also be able to push the smaller speakers a bit harder as they have less work to do.

Only then would I consider an amp for the door/seat speakers, and I'd probably go for a 4 channel one to keep things even. Even a small low-rated 4 channel amp (4x75w RMS) will have enough power to get those speakers at their optimum, so no need to go silly.


I've messed about with various stereos in my cars over the years. 4 upgraded speakers powered by a cheap headunit and a 12" sub in a peugeot 205 was ok but not fantastic. A pair of amplified components and the same 12" sub in a peugeot 106 was superb both in terms of quality and loudness. Now I have the standard 6 speaker system in my volvo (front components, rear coaxials) powered by a decent head unit and that good old 12" in the boot and it's more than adequate, although lacks the precision and ultimate volume of the 2 components in the 106.

frosted

3,549 posts

193 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all


8" of pure gold

TheArchitect

1,238 posts

195 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
get yourself over to talkaudio.co.uk and ask on there, should get you some good sound advise, and hopefully nothing too chavvy if your sensible!

Edited by TheArchitect on Monday 13th December 11:38

WeirdNeville

6,021 posts

231 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
A mk1 MR2!!!

I had one for over 2 years and went Through several iterations of car audio options, including installs that were actually worth a bit more than the car (and it was a good one)!!

Mate, it's a cliff to climb to get 'good' sound into the Mk1. They're just not set up for it in anyway. The rear glass not only pipes the engine noise into the cabin, but it even acts as a huge reflector which really screws up the cabin acoustics.

I will type more but I'm due in work right now. Watch this space for some advice from someone who's tried!!!

(oh, and you see that subwoofer up there? The massive black and grey one? It's called a JL Audio 8W7, and I had one in my mk1 briefly!!! They don't fit!! They need a full cubic foot of box to work properly!!)

aka_kerrly

12,492 posts

226 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Colonial said:
redtwin said:
What headunit have you got in there now?. If it isn't a good quality one, or even very powerful you might be better off just changing the headunit first and see how you get on from there. In the past I have had satisfactory improvements just by changing the headunit for a good high powered one.

Of course if you still find it lacking you can change the speakers later.

In the past I have gone through the trouble of changing speakers, running new wires etc and found that the improvement in sound quality wasn't worth the effort, and to be honest I don't think you will notice that much difference if you keep the standard sized speakers.

If nothing else change the headunit and speakers before you go down the amplifier road. In my experience, inexpensive amplifiers are usually not worth the money and may actually cause problems such as whine or alternator noise.

Basically, when it comes to amplifiers, buy very good quality or don't bother at all.

Edited by redtwin on Monday 13th December 11:03
I disagree. You will get much better gains out of doing a amp and speakers off the head.

If you get whine etc then it isn't installed correctly

JL Audio and Blaupunkt both do good bang for your bucks stuff.
Regarding the noise from amps Colonial is spot on. It is good practice to run the power supply for the amp(s) down one side of the car and the RCA cables on the other and this will greatly reduce any unwanted noise.

Im guessing that since the car is a jap import you might well find that the radio doesn't have the same FM frequencies that we use in the UK, ive had problems with ones before an an American head unit which would only allow you to jump in odd numbers eg 95.1 > 95.3 95.5 etc etc which is a pain in the uk.

Also considering the age of the car it most likely has paper cone speakers which are very poor as they go brittle and often crack so replacing speakers with modern ones, perhaps upgrading to 2 or 3 ways at the same time does make a difference.

Usually I am a fan of JBL, JL audio and infinity. I know they are not the most popular style of speaker but JBL 6x9s in 4way set up are very good for not a lot of money.

dave

WeirdNeville

6,021 posts

231 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Whilst most of what is said here is sound advice, Installing a decent sound system in a Mk1 MR2 raises a whole host of problems specific to that car:

The sound system was originally 2 coaxial 4.5" speakers in the dash (I say coaxial, they've got a paper 'cup' in the middle). The dash speakers are just mounted floating on the flimsy dash metal skeleton, and have no enclosure behind them. 2 3.5" speakers at the top of the 'C' pillar which do pretty much sweet FA as they have no enclosure to drive off of, and in some imports a Sub woofer enclosure under the seat.
After 20 years, if they haven't been replaced at some point they will have fallen apart and be sounding awful by now.

As I see it you have 3 broad options. I've tried them all, and I'll list them in terms of increasing cost/ complexity.

1)Upgrade head unit to something tasteful, with enough power. Upgrade front speakers to a decent set of 4.5" coaxials, and mount them properly on a baffle to support them and isolate the fronts and the backs. Ignore the rears, just disconnect them, or if you must have them then buy £10 coaxials and disable the tweeters.
I had this system set up when I sold the car, using a Panasonic 'SQ' head unit that I got second hand for £40, and a pair of £40 'Hertz deici' 4.5" speakers up front. I have to say, it sounded perfectly acceptable and if your budget is about £100-£150 that's what I'd do.

2) The 'bigger speakers' option: The 4.5" speakers up front, whilst in a good position, have no enclosure and are horrendously inefficient because of this. The crash beam behind the dash stops you building an enclosure for them.
Bigger speakers are more efficient and therefore go louder with less distortion. My next plan of attack was this:
A set of 6.5" shallow mount component speakers in the kick panels (basically down in the footwell to the left and right side, besides the pedal box). Ideally, these would be amplified by a small 30-50 watt a side amplifier. The tweeters can either go besides the main 6.5" driver, or else I had good results positioning them on the A pillar pointing across the windscreen. The amplifier can go behind the passenger seat, because that's where the power comes in through the bulkhead, and routing cables from head unit to amp and back to speakers is actually a cinch once you have the carpets out.
This, I believe would give the best bang-for-buck. The 6.5's in custom built kick enclosures should be loud and punchy enough low down to mean you don't need a subwoofer. The limited cabin size and space of the MK1 IMO makes a subwoofer largely redundant anyway. I'd expect this route to cost £150 for a headunit depending, £100 on an amp, £100 ish on decent speakers, and £50 on cables. You'd then need to find/ build suitable kick enclosures, out of fiberglass most probably, so factor in £100 for that. Call it £500 target budget, hunting for bargains and buying second hand.

3) The all out approach:
As above, but add a custom 8" or very shallow 10" subwoofer in a box behind one of the seats, or in the footwell. Give it a 3/4 channel amp to run the whole system, and you'll have lots of low low bass. Having run a 10" JL audio sub like this for a while, I personally found it a bit much because there really isn't a huge amount of air volume in a Mk1 cabin.

A couple of notes on sound deadening:
Don't bother with the bulkhead. It's very well deafened anyway, I put an additional layer of dense luxury liner in there, and more sticky backed damping and I barely noticed a difference. Unfortunately the rear window and boot deck just transmit too many noises and vibrations into the cabin, and there's not much you can do about that.
It is worthwhile puting something akin to dynamat (cheaper alternatives available!) on the floorpan, and into the outer door skins to reduced a bit of road noise. Again, don't go overboard, all you'll notice is how loud the engine noise has become!!

I really hope that helps, it's a tortuous process believe me, I've been there. If you have any specific queries, feel free to pm me.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

70 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Risotto said:


Just because it has valves & needles... smile
This is awesome - I wonder how it would stand up t the quality of todays roads?

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

70 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Ben Hughes said:
Coanda = UKAR?

Hi beer
That's the one! smile

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

70 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
Neville, I won't quote you because it'd be a bit big, but thankyou for going into detail on this. It is good to get info from someone who has been there and done that.

The headunit is a retrofit aftermarket unit from the UK, so it works fine, but it is a bit dated. I will be going with an ipod compatible unit. I have the space for a double-din unit but I think I should probably keep the single din and cubby hole.

I have read about the crash bar getting in the way of the speakers. That's why I linked to those 'shallow' in-phase 4in speakers. I have a rapid prototyper and I wonder if I could make an enclosure using that and some fibreglass.

I don't intend to modify the car to include kick panel speakers or larger speakers in the factory positions because I want to keep the visible car interior as stock as possible at the moment. I'm not after massive volume and I have to keep it within my abilities to fabricate in the given time because I don't work fast!

I planned to go with new speakers ( I think the originals are still in there looking at the state of them!) and I think I might run new wires to them from the amp/headunit. I wondered about an amp because the headunits seem to offer 4x50W but the in-phase speakers are 160W each! Is that the maximum power they will run at? therefore the headunit will only supply them with 50W each which will be well inside of the operating extremes but still work ok?

As far as the sound deadening goes, I think I'll try some out on the engine lid (as there is only a vent for the intercooler) as well as the interior. I see what you mean about the rear window it is a big flat plate in exactly the right place to reflect sound. Guess I'll have to work around that. I'm happy with a bit of compromise here, because it will still be much better than the crackly poor sound I have now!

Thanks for the help guys, I've been meaning to start a blog about this car, so I'll hopefully get around to it soon and put progress about this in there.


WeirdNeville

6,021 posts

231 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
First things first: ignore the 'wattage' ratings on anythig other than decent quality amplifiers.
Head units will only ever give about 10-12 true watts a channel. If you look, they always have a 10Amp fuse, limiting their maximum draw to ~100W. They can't make more sound than the energy they draw!!
With speakers, the 'max power handling' is wholly meaningless. It's just a marketing ploy to sell you things with bigger numbers. Go for quality and reputation over bare figures, although the useful numbers to look at are 'sensitivity' which indicate how much output you get per watt input. Useful when you're running from a low power source, ie the headunit.

Don't worry too much about depth, it's actually fairly deep back there for normal sized speakers, but you might struggle to build enclosures (though it sounds like you may have special skills in that realm?!).

Finally, if running a headunit only, don't wory about new speaker cable. It's a dash-out job to do that really, which is a proper ball ache. The standard cable is fine, you just need to cut the plugs off of the speaker end and fit bladed terminals to plug into the new speaker terminals.

One thing though: really do 'fill' the space around the speaker edge to that odd shaped hole in the dash, it makes all the difference, along with pulling that stupid bit of paper off of the back of the speaker grilles!!

Mark34bn

827 posts

193 months

Monday 13th December 2010
quotequote all
If you're still looking for a headunit, I have nothing but praise for this -



I have one with the Becker Ipod cable. Charges the Ipod and you control all functions from the H.U.
Really nice sound but it doesn't go that loud so an amp would probably help.
Other illumination colours are available, as they say.