zland

I am getting my Enthusist model this week. I know the stereo from the factory sucks so I plan on gettting it upgraded within a week of Delivery. I am budgetting $1,000 - $1,200 for upgrading the system. What i need to know is what do some of you guys with Audio experience think i should do within that budget? I do not know if i should keep the head and put my money in speakers and a new amp? If you can give me some ideas to get the best sound for the budget, it would be helpful before i go shopping. I know your experience will benefit me more than some salesman BS'ing me. If you can make suggestions on speakers, amps, head units etc it would be great. Again, i know there is different ways of approaching this but my main goal is to get good sound within a limited price. I want to throw the remainder of my budget in Wheels, tires, and a turbo/SC when it becomes availible. Lets not get into arguements over different opionions, just tell me what results worked for you on your Z.

thanks...Jeff

onecoolee

See below....

onecoolee

As a first priority, you NEED to upgrade all 6 speakers, and pull out the crappy factory, paper coned jobs. If you have a Touring model, you will need to upgrade your sub too. As far as cost goes, I always do my own installs, so I never consider installation costs. But, here is a good starting point as to where to allocate your $1000 as far as equipment goes. Everything listed below is considering that you do your own work, and keep the factory Nissan or Bose (Clarion) Head unit.

Speakers:
Front seperates (Approx. $200)
- I recommend some good seperates, as these will dramatically improve your sound quality. Possibly MB Quarts, Boston Acoustics, JL Audio, Phoenix Gold, Infinty, or any other quality seperates. These are probably most important. These speakers sets should have a good crossover, and quality tweeter and solid midbass driver. Size= 6.5"

Rear coaxs (Approx. $100)
- There is a lot of discrepancy and disagreement here. They aren't really necessary in my opinion, since they are so close to your head in the Z, and essentially jsut mess up your soundstage, but they do provide a little fill. If you want, you can probably leave the factory speakers here, but be sure to fade a little to the front set of seperates, so that the soundstage is not distorted, and that the rears are only providing rear fill.

Subwoofer (Approx. $200)
- A good sub will set you back, plus the materials you need to install it properly in the Z will set you back further. You can save alot of cash if you know what you are doing here, and can build your own enclosure. I recommend JL Audio subs, and always have. I am a big fan of the W6 series, and love what I see in the W6v2. The v2's are a little pricier, but the W6's can be picked up for a greeat deal now. A 10" will fit in the stock location with some planning, sealing, and slight modification. I heard Infinite Baffle, or freeairs sound crappy in the Z, but have not experienced that first hand. In general, nothing is going to be a good substitute for a quality driver in a properly designed, and sealed box. I plan on using a 10W6 in my Z in the stock location, but in a sealed box.

AMP(s)
- 4 Channel (front/rear amp) $200-250. This is not totally necessary, as I feel that the amp included with the BOse is ok. If you don't have a touring you will at least need a 2 channel amp. The factory Bose amp is JUST OK, not great, but not bad--of course, there is always room for improvement here. I recommend replacing the Bose amp, jsut to get rid of all of the audio pilot issues that people are experiencing if you have a Touring. Since, your seperates would like some good quality, clean power, you will need at least 1 2 channel amp. So, u could get away with adding a decent 2 channel for the fronts only, and keep the stock HU, or Bose amp to power the rears.

- 2 Channel (bridgeable sub amp) $250-300. This is important, if you feel a sub is important. Keep in mind that your sub will only sound good with a good amp and a properly designed box. So, if you are not going to spend the time designing a good box, or using a good subwoofer, do not spend the cash on a nice amp. I recommend something with good clean power, and with a low pass level control to control the level of your sub and built-in 18db low pass crossover (Phoenix Gold, JL Audio, or Rockford).

-Power routing supplies, cables, miscellaneous ($100-150), this includes a decent install kit, power dist. block (fused), RCA cables, and some mdf to enclose the sub chamber.

Your system will only sound as good as your weakest link, so try to adjust your equipment purchase accordingly. Do not save on the speakers. You can save a little on amps, but watch what you buy. You can get some decent amps in the midgrade range, but don't fall victim to the cheapie amps.

I would esitmate install costs for all of this to be in the range of $300-500 depending on the shop andd the level of detail you request. If a shop does it, that would eliminate the miscellaneous expenses too. You will have to determine whether you are going to tackle the work yourself or pay someone else to do it. If you are doing the install on your own, buy the FSM, or factory service manual (or contact me for one), it will help ALOT!!

I hope this advice helps, and you can see my thread for what I will be installing very soon:
https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....&postid=157370

zland

Thanks for the info, this is just the kind of info i need. I am hopefully others will add their 2 cents. I am sure there will be some difference in opinions but I bet there will be more agreement than disagreement.

FYI, I have the enthusist model so I have the stock Clarion head, not the Boise system. Does that change any of the input you gave me?

onecoolee

The only difference will be the fact that the Bose system has an amplifier in the rear hatch area, and the amplifier for the stock system is built into the head unit. Providing you keep the stock HU, you will need to use a couple speaker level to line level convertors, or use amps withs hi level (speaker) inputs. Some PG and Rockford, and many other brands have these, but be sure to investigate first.
The stock sub location is still there, minus the sub cover. As far as I know, the rest of the speakers (all 6) are the same. You most likely will have t ofabricate a new cover anyways, so this is no big loss, but the for the most part, the enclosure behind the drivers seat is still present, minus the crummy Bose 10" speaker.

I would still approach the upgrade in the same manner I described, with similar equipment. Having a non-Bose system only changes the fact that you WILL need a seperate amp to power your seperates and rear fills, since the factory head unit will most likely not put out clean watts to sufficiently power the seperates I recommended.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and feel free to PM me if you need any other advice. Make sure you check out some of the other systems that people have installed here already like Nizl, Skidazzle, InternetAByss, and a few others. These are high-end systems, but you may see some informative pictures of the space you are considering working in, and you may be able to get some good ideas from other peoples installs.

MacGuru

Great write up, thanks of the info. I'm in the same boat, low budget but looking to get the best upgrade for the money. I have an idea based on what you had mentioned previously. What if I upgraded the front speakers to a very good set of components (MB Quarts or Boston Acoustics) and power them with a very good amp (Phoenix Gold, JL Audio, or Rockford). Leave the factory Bose sub and rears powered by factory amp. Buy a very good cross over* and adjust the sound stage. Not sure how this will affect auto volume in the Bose amp. Question is, can this work?

*here's a link to the crossover.
http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?stk_code=audaex350x

I must stress to you, that I'm no audiofile. I'm not sure if this is the proper set-up, but it seems like it could work. Please advise. Thanks in advance for your help.
Cheers.
-m

onecoolee

Your idea is good, to re-equalize what we currently have, and that would probably fix the problem...BUT ! (you knew that was coming, right ?)

Here is the big problem, that monster 30 band EQ would give you control over everything, you would think, but only if everything was line-level. The problem with most factory car stereos, is that no one uses low level outputs from the head unit to the amps inputs (no RCAs). Instead factory units mostly consist of twisted pair (14-18 gauge) speaker wires that run to high level input components. The Z is the same way...it uses all speaker level outputs from the head unit to main amp, then the xover in the main amp, passes the low level info to the sub amp. You can convert speaker level to line level via a convertor for each signal pair, but then there's no point and no easy way to convert it back. The more convertors you use, the more your signal gets distorted. Obviously, you don't want to put in a $400 eq and let a couple $5 convertors ruin your new investment. This would work to eq the sub portion, but not for the factory amp, and that is where the conversion problem lies.

To me, its obvious that the xover point for the sub in the main amp is bad, and I have contemplated, taking the high level output from the sub, and use a coil (large inductor) to eliminate some of the higher info that should not be passed to the sub(6 db single pole crossover). You can devise other passive 12 db crossovers from some schematics on the web, but active crossovers, like the one you are looking at, have a steeper slope (more poles to roll off unwanted frequencies quicker), and have much better sound quality. I think the current levels set by the factory, are way too high, maybe even higher than 250Hz. I am a strong believer in the fact that low level sub info should be from 25Hz to no higher than 200-250Hz. I think the Z is more like 500Hz as a xover point.

So, to answer your question...there is no way to use that monster EQ with the factory amps. This is simply because you will have no way of using the factory amp with it once you have converted the signals to low level inputs, since the factory amp will not accept a line level input.

I hope this info helps you out...

Subw00er

I've been doing (installing/buying/researching) car audio for 12 years and I have a different approach for you. Here is what I would do for $1000. Find someone who sells Dynaudio cheap online and buy a set of 160GT speakers (or the 7-inchers if you know an installer). This should run $500-600. Use the rest of the money to buy a decent amp and the wiring you will need. JL Audio amps have been getting good marks, and they support high level inputs, so you wont need a line-out converter ($40-100)...but there are many, many manufacturers. I wouldnt recommend going with Sony, Pioneer, Alpine or the other common manufacturers for amps or speakers - buy from someone who is doing car audio only.

Buy a decent 4-channel amp with at least 75 watts RMS per channel. Use the front two channels for your dynaudios and either power the shitty rear speakers with the other channels or dont use them at all. You will not need front speakers and because they are so badly positioned, they will kill any soundstage or imaging the Dyn's are providing.

So when you have more pennies, buy a sub and box and bridge the other two channels of your amp to a subwoofer. You could go with a JL10w0 for around $100 and a prefab box for $40. This is JL's low end subwoofer, but is really quite good for entry level. On the high end, look at Dynaudio's subwoofer, or morel etc..

Thats just my take on it.. What I'm basically promoting is that get the BEST components you can up front, because if you scrape by with $1000 of sony speakers and low end amps, you will have all the pieces, but it will sound like garbage and I gaurantee that you will be upgrading. It really is cheaper ot buy the best stuff up front.

Ps- if you are going to do a head unit, this is one pleace you dont need hte best - I'd strognly reccoment getting a $300 alpine or Kenwood - just make sure it has a subwoofer (or "Non-fading") output in addition to the F/R outputs..

Pps- stay away from Quart. Years ago they were one of the best, but after owning four VERY high end sets of theirs, I've decided they really are not a good speaker. When I got my Dynaudios in the car I realized I had found the speaker I had been looking for for 10 years. They absolutely crank and have such detail..! Lovely.

MacGuru

Thanks for the great info. This helps a lot. I just don't understand WHY car companies would not include a simple RCA out. Isn't this easy to do? It's an indispensable feature that should be cheap and easy to include in ALL NEW cars. But thats not the real world.

Looks more and more like I'm going to change out the whole system. I'll have to live with the Bose for a while and save up some coin. This isn't going to be cheap. -m