Need Some Advice ...

[ThePrettyPhysicist]

So is it just me, or do the stock speakers sound terrible?? What sizes are the speakers and what speakers do you recommend? My old car had pioneers in the interior and a kenwood 12" in the trunk, so needless to say, these speakers are practically torturing me! I think that speakers need to be my first mod in the car, so I would appreciate ANY help!

[2fst4u]

fronts are 4 x 6
backs are 6 x 9
and the search feature is your friend.

[cherrington17]

personally, i have soundstream xts's in the back, and infinity references in the front.

sounds much better. and only runs about 100-200 (depending on where you buy)

others on site will tell you to ONLY do component, if your going to do it. good ones for those start around 250.

it all depends on how big your wallet(or purse) is.

soundstream is a good high end company
fosgate is good for power, but not clarity
infinity is good for clarity, but not a ton of power
pioneer is a good beginner speaker. (not great clarity, not great power, but well priced)

it all depends on your style of music, and what kind of system you want.

[ThePrettyPhysicist]

thanks. my old car had 6 x 9 in the rear, so at least I can still use them (just got them last month!)

[mikegett]

First, you need to define a price range. Speakers, amps, subs and other equipment vary greatly in price and performance. Try to give us a idea of what range you would like to be in. Just be sure to balance your budget and stick with it. There will be alot of indibiduals suggesting a higher budget. Secondly, let us know alitle about your taste in music. good luck, and we look forward to hearing from you. Mike Gettinger.

[mikegett]

Sorry, but I failed to mention the monsoon systems. Some aleros have a premium system that utilitzes a external amp (in the trunk behind the left side wall) and bi-amped speakers. In the event you have a monsoon system, you will require special speakers to get the full bandwidth or going to another external amp.

[ThePrettyPhysicist]

well, mainly, I listen to rap and hip hop - so i need bass (but i dont want to take up a lot of trunk space with subs). My price range is "nice for as little as possible" because I am a poor graduate student. Its hard for me to define an amount right now, i guess that once i see an amount i'll know if i can afford it ... sorry i cant be more specific

[violentrapture]

Type R+TCAB for the bass if you like the rap

[nickgonzo]

Originally posted by cherrington17@May 22 2006, 03:43 PM

others on site will tell you to ONLY do component, if your going to do it. good ones for those start around 250.

Quoted post

I designed a component system for my sister for far less then 250 including a 6channel amp. I will only bore you with the specifics if you wish.

After is all said and done, it may just be easier to go to a local car audio shop and listen to the speakers there. Tell the people what kind of car you have and ask to demo some speakers that will fit your car's openings. Then pick which ones you like best.


edit: and my component system I have here waiting to be installed in my alero cost me roughly 100 bucks including shipping and I'm pretty sure it will blow away comps that cost as much as 3 or 4x the price.

[cherrington17]

^depends on what your talking about.

there are one or two members who have ridiculous setups w/ all custom mounts. (more then just what fits in the car)

i think the highest i've seen so far is king asoka w/ ~ 7K in sound equip. if i remember correctly.

although.... violent seems to be gaining w/ every passing weekend/paycheck. :P

[ThePrettyPhysicist]

Originally posted by nickgonzo+Jun 8 2006, 04:43 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nickgonzo @ Jun 8 2006, 04:43 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-cherrington17@May 22 2006, 03:43 PM

others on site will tell you to ONLY do component, if your going to do it. good ones for those start around 250.

Quoted post

I designed a component system for my sister for far less then 250 including a 6channel amp. I will only bore you with the specifics if you wish.

After is all said and done, it may just be easier to go to a local car audio shop and listen to the speakers there. Tell the people what kind of car you have and ask to demo some speakers that will fit your car's openings. Then pick which ones you like best.


edit: and my component system I have here waiting to be installed in my alero cost me roughly 100 bucks including shipping and I'm pretty sure it will blow away comps that cost as much as 3 or 4x the price.

Quoted post

[/b][/quote]


i am interested - feel free to PM me with the specifics if you dont want to post it ...

[Redog]

My astock speakers started to sound like crap after 5 years of use, so I replaced them with direct fit Pioneers. Both sets are 3 ways.

They sound great, but I know it's probably not what your looking for. I race the car, at least I used to, and I didn't want to add the weight.

PS Gift cards from work, 4 speakers cost me $58, the other $150 or $200 (I forget how much they were) was work gift card money, since I'm such a good worker

[ptrudel]

i aint runnin nothin massive, but it was fairly cheap

clarion HU, clarion 4x6's, alpine type e 6x9's, clarion xw1000 pro audio sub, and its lots...nice clarity when turned right up, and the speakers only cost me 200cad

[sound_xtreme]

i ran amped stock speakers. sounded fine to me. well, of what i could hear of em.

[nickgonzo]

Originally posted by ThePrettyPhysicist+Jun 8 2006, 06:05 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ThePrettyPhysicist @ Jun 8 2006, 06:05 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>

I designed a component system for my sister for far less then 250 including a 6channel amp. I will only bore you with the specifics if you wish.

After is all said and done, it may just be easier to go to a local car audio shop and listen to the speakers there. Tell the people what kind of car you have and ask to demo some speakers that will fit your car's openings. Then pick which ones you like best.


edit: and my component system I have here waiting to be installed in my alero cost me roughly 100 bucks including shipping and I'm pretty sure it will blow away comps that cost as much as 3 or 4x the price.

Quoted post

i am interested - feel free to PM me with the specifics if you dont want to post it ...

Quoted post

[/b][/quote]

Grab some popcorn for this one.

First off, you have to ask what makes a component set better then the 4-way coax Rockfords you saw at Best Buy. The answer is simple, yet complex.

When you buy a 6.5" component set, you usually get 3 different items; a midwoofer, a tweeter, and a passive crossover. The most significant item is the passive crossover, I mean as far as making the set better than your average coax. (some coax speakers do come with a passive crossover, but its usually just a small capacitor for the tweeter)

If you already know what a crossover does, then you can skip ahead. Basically, a crossover will cut off part of the audio signal going to your speaker. For example, you have heard of a "bass blocker" right? Its just a simple passive crossover wired before your speaker and it magically cuts off bass, lol. Passive crossovers use capacitors and inductors to start cutting off part of the audio signal at a certain frequency in -dbs/octave. Simple bass blockers are usually -6db/octave. Most comp sets will use -12db/octave crossovers. The higher the number, the steeper the slope. 24 and 36db crossovers are pretty much brickwalls. Making a passive xover that uses 24db or 36db crossovers is impractical because they would use too many parts making them cost inefficient.

So lets say I own a speaker company, I decide I need to make a component set to compete with the other companies. I order a bunch of mids and tweeters, and have a bunch of textbook crossovers made.. put my logo on them and call it a day. This is how most comp systems are made. You will not get much attention to detail in component systems until you start buying companies flagship items.

We live in a modern world, and the modern world uses active crossovers. Active crossovers always come before amplification. Be it, in your head unit, in your amp or an external active crossover. The benefit of going active is huge, the flexibility of your system has increased tenfold. Now you can change crossover points on the fly, change the slopes with the push of a button, and find out whats best for YOUR car and YOUR musical tastes... not relying on some poorly designed crossovers.

Okay so where is he going with this. The thing that component sets taught us is that using a good crossover is a big reason why people like component sets better then coax speakers (the proper separation of sound frequencies played by a driver that is more suitable to play said frequencies). We also learned that there are different types of crossovers, and that active crossovers are superior (IMHO of course ). So now how can we use this to our advantage and not pay 300 bucks on a pair of speakers that werent properly designed?

We design our own component system! How, you ask? There are many sites that sell raw drivers (by raw I mean, just a woofer and just a tweeter). Putting home based drivers in you car isn't anything new, people have been doing it since car audio was invented. We just have a bigger audience now.

So whats a good site to buy our custom component system? Partsexpress is great for newbies. Go to the speaker page and look around.

Heres the 100 component set I am going to play around with.

mids = Dayton RS180-4 a gem in the DIY community, easily competes with woofers that cost 2 and 3x the price. And now in a 4ohm unshielded version must low pass at 2khz tho

tweeters = Peerless 811435 a great compact tweeter, that can be crossed low enough to match with Dayton mid.

we need something to power these, find a good 4channel amp that allows you to highpass/lowpass the channels variably from 50-5khz (pretty standard range on these types of amps.)

or you can get this Aura amp since its too good of a deal to pass up, and get a HU that will do the crossover for you. (I'm getting the Pioneer DEH-P880PRS which will do 3way active and it has a sweet EQ and TA. They are going for about 300 on ebay ATM, its a sweet sweet deck for the price)

Congrats on your new custom (DIY) component set

(More to come, I need a break.)

[nickgonzo]

Heres a great site to learn about anything and everything DIY http://diymobileaudio.com

The most popular 2way setup on DIYMA is the Seas C18RNX mid and the LPG 25NFA tweeter. This combo comes out to around 200 before shipping. The Seas is able to play higher then the Dayton, and matched well with this VERY popular LPG tweeter. If you dont know about Seas, they are pretty much the cream of the crop. LPG is owned by the same company that owns Eton, if that rings any bells.

Another great tweet that will only cost you 30 bucks a pop is this Seas . As you can see you can cross it at 2.5khz, which woule be a good match with the Dayton mid in the previous post.


If I'm going the opposite direction then I can do cheaper. Check out these Goldwood mids. I wrote a whole review of thes on DIYMA, and you can read it if you CLICK HERE. The midbass on these is way better then I expected, and poly cones are well known to be very plug and play, little or no tuning needed for these.

[nickgonzo]

Yikes I think I scared everyone away.

Like I said in my original post, it may be easier to go to a local shop and listen to the speakers there and find out what you like.

DIY comp sets arent for everyone.