[Zacorias]

As far as car audio goes, speakers are for mids, tweeters, for highs, and subwoofers for lows, and when you try forcing speakers to play lows or tweeters to play mids, etc. it just doesnt work. If you are interested in a high quality, full spectrum system, you are going to need some kind of subwoofer or mid-bass speaker.
As far as headunits go, there is not much of a difference between all of them, but I know through experience that the Alpine head units are very solid and reliable. A lot of choosing a head unit is personal preference and of course, in the end everything is ultimately your decision.

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zacorias /img/forum/go_quote.gif First thing i learned before setting up the audio in my car is that you should never have circuit city, best buy, etc. install anything in your car (they do not do a neat or organized job on the wiring, its just plain BAD!). I would see if there are any car audio specialty stores in your area to install the headunit, or just do it yourself. For speakers, there is a small company in Newton, IA which I would highly recommend that have highly praised sound quality. The speakers you are looking for are the 6000s v.2 - http://www.edesignaudio.com/edv2/pro...products_id=49 they are two way speakers and you have the choice of leaving the tweeter in the speaker or mounting them somewhere else in you car, they also come with crossovers. btw, they are $95 dollars a pair if you buy them with the forum discount: http://www.edesignaudio.com/edv2/pro...roducts_id=349

ah yes, i've talked at long length with fellows from ED (no, not the one you need viagra for

) ..........sorry had to

yes, i really like what they do, though i haven't heard them, just heard great things about them, and they're one of the very few car audio companies that seems to go for quality sound rather than crappy loud bass, overthetop style, or some other marketing gimick; if i was buying car audio now, i'd go with them

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MD1032 /img/forum/go_quote.gif What would CC/BB do differently? I mean, if I order the thing through Crutchfield, it's the same price, BUT it would take about a half hour to put in, and I don't know what I would be doing differently. It's just a head unit swap. I certainly wouldn't trust them to do my speakers, but I don't see why a head unit swap is all that difficult or something you could mess up. Would those speakers you linked to offer any significant advantage over Boston/JL? Also, where would I put those crossovers? I do like the idea of a good crossover and recognize that it's important, but do other speakers not typically come with one or something?

CC installed my pioneer head unit with no problems, clean job, the guy even went out of his way to pick up the right adapter for me; so to each their own i guess, i wouldn't avoid them

 

[uzziah]

my opinion:

with your noisy car, low-ish budget, and no install experience here's what i'd do:

go to CC and have them install a basic head unit from pioneer or alpine; don't stress about it; just get a basic one with the features you want, shouldn't cost you more than a hundred bucks

then get some coaxial speakers; just forget the component speakers since you don't see to want to install them, with all the drilling tweeter holes, running wires, setting up x-overs etc.

i suggest CDT speakers. go on crutchfield and find the size you need, putting them in should be a snap; or you can just buy from CC

in the end, unless you went all out on components, amps, subs, and some HEAVY sound proofing, just go for the eazy fix and get some good coax speakers and a decent pioneer or alpine head unit

you should pay less than $150 for the HU installed, and $50 or so for the speakers

here's something though: if you have a DAP you want to plug in (and i highly reccommmend it if you do), make sure you get the "aux in" adapter or what-not and have CC put it in and run it out of your dash somewhere so you can plug in your ipod

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zacorias /img/forum/go_quote.gif speakers are for mids

you mean midranges

 

[uzziah]

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Pione...oductDetail.do

holy smokes! they finally wized up and got a FRONT AUX INPUT; thats for your ipod YOU WANT THAT ONE FOR SURE

i nearly fell out of my chair; for some reason NOBODY except the lousy budget brands has been putting aux in on the front (line in); almost makes me want to get a new head unit honestly; that's a big deal IMHO, get it, no lame wiring with an aux-in on the back

looks like pioneer has at least a few with aux in on the front; my advice to you is whatever else you get, get that; and buy the cheapest one that has what you need, they'll all sound the same; most of it's just marketing; if you want satellite get a sat-ready, if not, fine, but get teh AUX IN...........man why did it take them sooooooo long to wize up???????

 

[uzziah]

alright here's the final word on your situation: $200, spend that, you don't need to spend more; one of those pioneer hu's and a decent pair of coax's, like i have the cl6's or some such

don't waste your money, go buy cd's

go to CC and have them put in one of those pioneers (the cheaper the better), then get some good cheap coax's sent to you (a CDT dealer on caraudio.com sent me my cdt's for $50 shipped) and pull off the speaker cover (or door panel if you must) and attach em and screw em in, problem solved; won't sound great, but it probably will sound a lot better, and with a noisy car, don't waste your money

if you don't take my advice, for which i have labored long over i shall smite you with mine own head unit remote control and thou shalt be pissed; i'm done

............and all rejoiced

 

[MD1032]

Dude, you can use the edit feature.

Those CDT speakers aren't on Crutchfield. Where else can I get them (that's reputable)? Basically, I want to put in a system right now, HU, 4 speakers that for a decent price will serve me well through the full spectrum (a sub isn't on the order right now, an amp and sub would cost an equal amount to this expense) and at the same time provides possibility for expansion in the future.

FYI, I do have some experience with installation. My dad and I installed a new CD player in my mom's Odyssey and we've taken apart the whole deal before to see how you get to the HU to remove/replace it. I'm confident that I would be able to replace the HU with ease, and the speakers would also be simple.

I can see your point, though. That's why I wasn't interested in spending much to begin with.

 

[Zacorias]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uzziah /img/forum/go_quote.gif you mean midranges

 

[oicdn]

Boston Acoustics > *

 

[chris downing]

like I said before, if you are going to remove these such items when the car dies, and put them in the new one after it, why not spend a little extra on higher quality stuff? This is the alpine head unit I have http://www.crutchfield.com/S-GFY8LQV...0&I=500CDA9883 . It has some very nice features and the display is a two line display. I have a sub and amp, using the head unit, I can turn off my subs and tune my rear speakers to where they sound like a sub. That alpine has built in crossover points for bass and treble, it also has a defeat feature, which eliminates the lower frequencies from your front speakers, allowing them to be used for mids and highs, they will be able to get loud without any worry of the bass making them distort.

And for the sound deadening, I have eDead in my car, its made by elemental designs, and it costs roughly $1 per Sq. ft at Amazon.com for the V1 stuff. It improves the overall sound in you car by keeping the sound inside your car in, and the outside noise out. It also helps with insulation.

 

[MD1032]

Yes, I see your point there. What other advantages does the Alpine CDA-9883 offer over the Pioneer DEH-P3900MP? Like I said, I'm totally open to suggestions and I can see why an investment would be worth my time. The 2-line display is perfectly worth an upgrade in my eyes, it's just that the Pioneer 2-liner would be cheaper and I'm wondering why the Alpines are more expensive or what makes them better.

 

[ozz]

another vote for alpine headend and speakers jl sub.

 

[kramer5150]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MD1032 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yes, I see your point there. What other advantages does the Alpine CDA-9883 offer over the Pioneer DEH-P3900MP? Like I said, I'm totally open to suggestions and I can see why an investment would be worth my time. The 2-line display is perfectly worth an upgrade in my eyes, it's just that the Pioneer 2-liner would be cheaper and I'm wondering why the Alpines are more expensive or what makes them better.

Personally I have always found pioneer heads very cumbersome to use. Button layout, cascaded menu options...etc... Thats relative to other brands. So there is some learning curve associated. I have used a DEH-P5400 for ~4 years in my old accord and it runs like a champ and sounds great too. I bought a pioneer aux input cable for $15 that plugs into the CD changer socket on the back. It provides an AUX line-input for my MP3 player. So I use the EQ and tone shaping preamp of the P5400 with MP3s as source.

Heres the best car audio resource I have found on the www.

http://www.the12volt.com/

just to spice this thread up a little... Heres some pics of my ES300 and my powerbase sub.

Hole in rear deck.

48 pounds of magnet, voice coil and cast aluminum.

heres a trick question for all you head-fi fans... Which of these was bought for $89 shipped? Which one is part of a $3000 Lexus/Nakamichi "audiophile" system?

 

[MD1032]

All right, given the support for Alpine, I'll take another trip to CC/BB tomorrow and check them both out, the entire lines. I'll take pictures and let you know my impressions!

edit: did some looking around on Crutchfield tonight. The Alpine units are really up-priced from the Pioneers and I really don't see why. The Alpine equivalent to the Pioneer DEH-3900MP is the CDE-9881 and it has a couple disadvantages compared to the Pioneer: $50 more, lack of front AUX input, and a 12 rather than 16-character display, although the display is dot matrix, which is nice, and the CD must be loaded after flipping down the display. A friend tells me the Alpines would have better sound quality, though, is this true? And the other advantage, of course, would be a nice, big volume control. Believe it or not, this is important. I have big hands.

Anticipating seeing what these things are really made of tomorrow through new eyes!