Anyone Know Anything About Car Audio???

Hello, i need to buy a new head unit and splits, and i have about 750 US dollars to spend.

I am thinking about the Alpine 7892, or 7893 or 7894. Does anyone know the difference between these head units, or does anyone have any other brand suggestions?

Also, does anyone know any good splits for around 250-300 dollars?

Thanks, your time is much appreciated

PS: sorry for posting a sort of unrelated topic, but i figure most computer lovers know a thing or two about car audio.

 

Guess its better in here ?

I dont know much about car audio, more home to be fair. But i have a blaupunkt head unit which suits me fine. Their new DAB in car head unit has won loads of awards over here in the uk.

 

Alpine make some of the best Headunits, but Speakers wise, try and look for Phonex Gold and MB Quart. Seriously good quality, oh and try Bose as well

 

thanks for the advice, does anyone know if these splits r good? Boston Acoustics and Hertz?

By the way, nice system Ant, all u need now is a sick video card...

 

My personal preference is for Clarion over Alpine. I just prefer the layout, look, and feel of Clarion more than Alpine. And to me sound quality was about the same.

As for speakers. I've listend to MB Quartz, Diamond Audio, Phoenix Gold and other supposed "ultra-high end" speakers. And honestly I'm not that impressed with them.
Reguardless of money, I like the sound of Infinity Kappa's ( and the new reference series) and MTX much much better. Plus the fact they are substancially cheaper is very nice!

What ever you do, dont skimp on the amp!!! That was my biggest mistake. I have a sub and components I absolutely love.... but I went with a Fosgate amp because the price was right and have regretted it ever since. I should have gotten the next larger amp ( 90w per channel vs 75w I bought) and I should have spent a litlte more coin to get an MTX amp.

 

Bose all the way baby

 

Please get off of Bose. You can't go into a store and buy Bose. Bose only sells it to dealers. Plus Bose is straight crap. No Highs, No Lows, got to be Bose. Better sound through advertising. I used to design and sell custom systems for car and home. The ones you see in MTV Cribs. If you want real audio, please broaden your mind and get away from Bose.
With the budget you have set, stick with the Alpine head unit. In regards to the separates, are you going to use the head unit to power them or buy an amp? If you are using the head unit get Boston Acoustic Rallys or an equivalent. Another good choice may be Alpine separates, but your problem may be depth issues with the midrange. The are known to be a little too deep and wide, and that means you'll have to make a build out in order to make them fit. Don't know your car. That of course will add to your install. Invest in doing Dynamat to keep the clarity.
If budget becomes no option, get some DynAudio separates. At that point you'll need an Amp to drive them.
Hope that helps. Good luck, make sure you see some prior work if you are having separates installed into a car that didn't have separates orignally. If you can tell me the car, I can give you a little more information.

 

JL Audio YO!!!

 

It has to be JBL for car audio. Bose is over priced and is all bass with nothing else. In terms of an amp it doesn't need to be massivley powerful (My 20wpc amp for my room is fine). Still, it's a matter of prefernce. My friend is putting a generator in his car to run an 1100W Samson 4 channel amp, but for most people who can't be bothered/don't see the point (like me) i think that some of those nice jbls and a 60wpc amp would work rather nicely. The good thing about JBL is that it is sensitive, ie you don't need a gigawatt of power behind it to make it hurt your ears

 

JBL isnt bad. It's alot better than Pioneer or Kenwood. But to *MY* ear it doesnt touch Infinity Kappa's or MTX. It is a very good midrange brand though.

I wholeheartedly have to DISAGREE with you about amp power though! You can almost never have too much power available. And I'm not speaking for volume! The less you have to stress your components ( ie crank it up to hear it!) the cleaner the sound will be. ie pulling 20 wats out of a 100watt amp is going to sound a WHOLE lot better than pulling 20watts from a 20watt amp.

Car sterio is hardly comparable to PC audio as well, by any stretch! The simple fact is a bigger speaker NEEDS more power! I reccomend looking at the max RMS a speaker can handle, then matching an amp that puts out a little more RMS than the speaker can handle RMS. Note, I am NOT talkign about peak power... RMS is different!

My Mustang for instance, I bought a 75w x 4 and I really wish I would have gone for 90w or 100w x 4. The 75w powers my Kappa's fairly well. However the rear channels linked give 300w to my 10' Infinity Kappa Perfect is not nearly enough for that sub. I could easily double the power to that sub and not be pushing too much power through it! While is a very tight sounding accurate sub, that aluminum cone just takes alot of umph to put in motion.

In my Jetta on the other hand, I have a cheap 10" Kicker Comp and 120w amp and it is matched very well. While the sound quality is not as good, I dont have to spend forever twidling with the balance to even out the mids&highs with the sub.

 

Fair Do's.

I've never heard Infinity or MTX, so i'll take your word for it. The thing that i like about JBL though is the clarity and crispness of the treble, and the speed of the bass

In terms of amp power, i am sort of with you, but also sort of not. You can run your speakers harder if you have a big amp (ie without clipping), but i have sensitive speakers which have small drivers (5"). For these i use the 20Watt amp. The speakers are 90dB sensitivity, so i get a hell of a lot of sound from not much turning up of the volume. If you have some speakers that are Rated at 60W or something though and you run them at full whack on a 180 WPC amp, then i doubt it does them any good. If you are stuffing 3 times the recommended power through the voice coils and crossover, then things WILL get over stressed, and you will break stuff.

I personally have never seen the need for a sub, because i have found that anything short of somthing that costs a sick ammount of money will mean that the bass isn't as clear. It's all very well if you have an unlimited ammount of money, but i don't. That's why i used a good (if old - 35 yrs) amp, and nice, fast little speakers. It still blows almost anything out of the water, despite the amps age and modest power rating

 

Hey Thanks, damn, i didnt expect so many answers, i bought my system couple of weeks ago, and i got an Alpine 9815 head unit, herts hks165 splits, Alpine type R subby, running off a 4x100wRMS Jaycar Amp, and i got the splits running off a 2 channel audison amp. And some cheap 2 way pioneers at the back.
It cranks nice.

Anyway, thanks for all your input.

 

Hope you like it! I'd try ditching the rear-speakers entirely and see how you like it. If you prefer them, simply reconnect!

Just curious, but from your user name is this install in a old falcon?

 

naa, Im an Australian, and Ford Australia make a falcon still. It is a pretty good car, a big sedan. I think it does sound better without the crappy pioneers, so i will disconect them. Do u reckon they would sound better from my Alpine head unit or my Jaycar amp? the speakers are 30 watts RMS.

Definately check out these sites:

http://www.fpv.com.au/index.asp?link_id=29.108

www.hsv.com.au

 

I'm actually somewhat familiar with the Aussie falcon's! I gotta admit, I'm jealous of some of the ford stuff over there! They still make my beloved inline 6! Last I heard an all aluminum DOHC inline six was supposed to be coming out sometime in falcon's as well as a few others.

I would deffinetly put the speakers off the amp. I'm not sure the details of how you have everyhting connected, but my experiance is sound is better off a dedicated amp than the little headunit amp.

 

Yeah, the Aus Falcons are nuts, they bought out the XR6Turbo, with a 240kw (i dont know how much that translates to in HP) 4.0litre double overhead cam 24v 6 cylinder. They do 0-100 in 5.9secs. Thats pretty good for an 1800kg car with a 6! They also bought out the Falcon GT, with a quad cam, 32v 290kw V8. Holden have been exporting the Monaro to the USA as a Pontiac GTO. They gave it a facelift, but the Aus version looks much better. Id love to put a mad Falcon against some crazy Mustang Cobra or something

Anyway, im dissapointed with the sound in the Pioneers running from the amp, cos their is HEAPS of noise. I might try running them off the head unit, cos its got a bit of power , as well as a noise supressor. Anyway thanks for the help man, Go Ford!!!

 

Scrap the pioneers and bridge the seperates on the amp. if you leave the pioneers connected i guarentee you will not hear them with the seperates bridged.

Car Audio is still stereo (for the most part unless you Watch movies WITH A dvd DECODER) and right now all the rear speakers do is provide fill which you will not need, try it and see if you like it.

 

IMO...

I'd think you could do well to get a pair of Focal polyglass or polykevlars.. they are very good speakers. i've had some of those, rainbows, MB, JL, and a few others and overal Focal is the best for the money in my opinion.

For a deck, you can't go wrong with the decks you listen, or i'd check out the Eclipse 8443 or 8053 as well... AWESOME decks nearly as many features as the Alpines, but more quality. Consider Nakamichi as well for high end stuff.

For amps, the very high end can include Zapco, Brax, and to a lesser extent PPI, Pheonix Gold, etc. For a sub amp, i HIGHLY recomend the JBL 1200.1 It is an AMAZING sub amp for the money. For highs/mids... i think if you look for a good deal on PPI, they have pretty good cost-performance ratios.

Just my $.02, i've been big into car audio for a little over 5 years now and thats a little summary of wat i've seen. Hope it helps a little.