 | Home > In Car Electronics > Disapointing Audio Upgrade :-( |
 
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| Barney12 Member Since: 09 Jun 2015 Location: South West Posts: 744   
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Thanks Steve, will do some reading.
More expense  |
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18th Jun 2015 7:17am |
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| custom90 Member Since: 21 Jan 2010 Location: South West, England. Posts: 19579
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18th Jun 2015 10:40am |
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| Daisy90 Member Since: 01 Feb 2015 Location: Hampshire Posts: 843 
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A good way to spend more money is buy a set of front and rear door cards from la salle, they have speaker housings moulded into them, I ran two sets of 5" Rockford fosgate component speakers, with a 10" sub in a one off box, alpine head unit and two small but mighty powerful Rockford amps, with proper cabling and connectors and cable routing it sound amazing , I really can't fault it for any type of tunes I have put through it,
It was a big bill for parts but I installed it all myself over a few weeks, Also used dynamat every where I could put it |
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18th Jun 2015 11:45pm |
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| Barney12 Member Since: 09 Jun 2015 Location: South West Posts: 744
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Just to update this thread. I had a frivilous momment and picked up a 178BT online for not too much money. Straight swap fitment in 10 minutes and its definitely a big improvement on the original HU. Still not great but for now I am going to live with it as I dont want to start hacking door cards etc. TTFN |
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29th Jun 2015 2:04pm |
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| scotiach Member Since: 19 Nov 2014 Location: 5603 Posts: 36  
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1) With that HU you can use the time alignment or DTC as Alpine call it to center the 'stage' where you want it: center of dash or over steering wheel, etc. This makes a huge difference. Don't bother time aligning the sub. RTFM
2) Then use the EQ to tune the sound to your ears, music and vehicle. You only have 9 bands but that corresponds to octaves in the range. RTFM 3) You can also set crossovers with that HU, taking out sub-100hz frequencies from your 4 inchers - this will clean up their reproduction as they will not produce these frequencies very well (frequency response), freeing them to concentrate on the frequencies they can handle. I don't remember if you said thy were coaxial or not though (tweeter built in). use a steep crossover slope. RTFM 4) Low pass the sub at max 100hz on steep slope, don't worry if you low pass the sub at say 63 and the 4 inchers are high passed at 100 or 120. It's less than an octave and both sets will reproduce a little bit of this range anyway (high pass/low pass just attenuates, it doesn't cut completely.) 5) Listen to your full range of favourite music while tweaking points 2 -4. At first, all will sound crap, then some will sound ok, some crap, then everything will sound ok, then most will sound good and so on. It can take many hours of driving and listening and tweaking. 6) Upgrade options after doing all this are: a) amp your 4 inchers with enough rms watts to push them a little. you can set gains so that they are only getting the right amount. Modern digital 4 channel amps can be fitted without too much bother in the fuse box area under the seat. b) Hoik the rears out, and replace them with some 6.5 inchers, amped as above. This will fill the thin area a lttle between the sub low pass and the main speakers. Even using the same high pass as your 4" inchers (say 100-125 ish. As the 6.5ers have a better frequency response at these frequencies (ie they play louder with the same input watts). You need to cut the speaker surrounds but it's easy and they're cheap to replace. When doing 2-5 don't be shy about switching off via the HU the rears, fronts, sub as you tune. I rode around for a day (2 hours commute) with just the sub playing, trying different crossovers and EQ settings. I mainly listen to country music and 80s, not hardcore trance. Same for just my front 4 inchers. In fact for a while (2 weeks) I only had these fitted at all. It was an audio upgrade on an iPhone in my top pocket, but not by much. Also, downloading an RTA app to measure the frequency levels allows you to apply some objectivity to your adjustments. You can get 'pink noise' tracks on the web to tune your EQ using the RTA. It sounds like a faff but with a really simple set-up and some tuning elbow grease, you can get great results without spending a load of money. |
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1st Jul 2015 8:37am |
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| Barney12 Member Since: 09 Jun 2015 Location: South West Posts: 744
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Some great advise there, thank you.
Looks like I'll be needing to buy more tea bags! 
Barney |
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1st Jul 2015 10:56am |
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| Yannis Member Since: 02 Feb 2015 Location: Oxfordshire / Milan Posts: 402 
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I did nearly the same upgrade as this but I also added the behind dash Alpine amp.  Click image to enlarge It made a huge difference and I'm really pleased with the results. The amp provides the 45RMS the speakers need to really get going. |
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8th Jul 2015 2:45pm |
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| Barney12 Member Since: 09 Jun 2015 Location: South West Posts: 744
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Hi, interesting info. I see you went for a more powerful 4" speaker than me.
Did they fit without too much issue? They look quite deep? |
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8th Jul 2015 4:13pm |
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| K9F Member Since: 12 Nov 2009 Location: Bournemouth Posts: 9610 
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Yannis...Your picture rang bells with me. I fitted what must have been the predecessor, the KTP 445 slimline amplifier from Kenwood four years ago. Compact and very effective. I had to reconfigure the connector as it was being fitted to a non-Kenwood H/U.
If you go through life with your head in the sand....all people will see is an ar5e!! Treat every day as if it is your last....one day you will be right!! |
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8th Jul 2015 4:29pm |
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| Yannis Member Since: 02 Feb 2015 Location: Oxfordshire / Milan Posts: 402
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This amp being Alpine just plugged straight in, there is enough wire with it to mount it about anywhere within a 20m radius....
The speakers I went for were the SPG-10C2. In the Puma there is loads of room behind the speakers, I could have gone even deeper if needed. They didn't come with speaker grills but I pulled the original ones off the speakers and they fitted just fine. Click image to enlarge |
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8th Jul 2015 5:26pm |
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| rodspink Member Since: 12 Apr 2015 Location: Aberdeenshire Posts: 187 
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Click image to enlarge This is my home made 6x9 setup. With clever use of brackets I didnt drill a single hole in bodywork. Also bought a cheap pu skirt from primark and used this to cover it by gluing and staples .looks ace. Rod |
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17th Jul 2015 1:36pm |
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| rodspink Member Since: 12 Apr 2015 Location: Aberdeenshire Posts: 187
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This is my home made 6x9 setup.
With clever use of brackets I didnt drill a single hole in bodywork. Also bought a cheap pu skirt from primark and used this to cover it by gluing and staples .looks ace. Rod |
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17th Jul 2015 1:42pm |
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