I recently answered a post and my point started to run away from me. Basically, Im still running, but perhaps some poor broke chap can benefit from this advice.

It is insane how much some people (including me!) spend on an SQ system in a CAR. Of course, the first step is to "protect" your investment with some sound deadening. Thus, you dynomat the sh*t out of it and add like 40 pounds. But, you STILL dont have a silent environment. Oh wait, ITS A CAR. This is fine if you have the dough to blow. But, my days of $5k installs are over.

I once bought a pair of polk audio coaxs for $100 (my old 2003 350z). Surprise, they didnt make a big difference from the stock system, so I upgraded to Jl audio XR comps. They didnt make a difference, so I added an amplifier. That didnt make much of a difference, so I swapped the head unit. Hey that made a difference. At this point, I had spent about $1300. This was about right for me, but thats still alot of money. and if I hadnt done the install myself? Then my friend Nizl (CLICK ME) wasnt satisfied with my solution... so he outdid my install with tons of $$$. The end result... we were both pissed that when the car started rolling, all kinds of phase anomalies occurred with these perfect audio sound setups.

This time, I started with the same $100 polk audio coaxials again, added a used downgraded jl audio amp (e4300) and when Im driving (with the road noise, and since Im watching the road!), the sound is fine. I spent the money I saved on some kick *** home speakers. Now that sounds good!

Before dropping the major $$$ on a setup, consider the following:

-cars make noise and vibrate. "audiophile" grade equipment provides clarity and a flat frequency response which is destroyed by the noise and vibration (yes, even with dynomat).

-tweeters dont belong in the sail panels so far from the mids. This does not project a correct sound stage and causes phase issues. Again... sound stage is part of what you are paying the big $$$ for. Unless you cut a new hole for tweets, stick with coaxial speakers


does this mean Im getting flamed now?

 

it is very expensive point taken

you basically pieced together a system in the past

results yeilded piece by piece do not give great gains


however installing an entire system yeilds big differances

 

i agree with most of the points you make, but on one major part, i disagree.

To me, the point of having a good car audio system is NOT the same as having a good home audio system. Unless you are into serious SQ competition where majority of the system listening is done at competitions with the car off and in a quiet environment.

this is the reason why i am so passionate about mobile audio.

In todays world, more and more of us spend a lot of time driving, whether it be commuting to work, driving to go somewhere ont he weekends, or heck, when you are bored, depressed, agitated, a long drive along some sceni roads will really help set you right again.

It is in my strongest opinion that the point of a good sound system, is to help elevate your experience while in the car. Here is my ideal end result for myself, and most of my customers:

you are cruising down the highway or a back road, the system is good enough so that you can turn the volume up high enough to drown out almost all the noise related to driving, i.e. wind noise, road noise, car noise. But at the samet ime, at this volume, the sound remains fantastically smooth, warm, not a hint of listening fatigue. With the small environment of the car, its easy to envelope yourself with music. So waht happens is, at least when i am out ruising and have the system turned up, is that i feel like i am floating down a stream of music, nothing else can bother me or touch me (until the wife calls on the cell phone )...it just puts me into such a nice and relaxed state that hugely improves the driving experience...heck it even makes sitting in traffic more fun.

If any of my customers can atest, taking a drive, espeically at night, with your favorite tune cranked up, is just nice.

very few stock systems, espeically the ones int he Z or G, can come close to achieving this. The stok systems in the Z or G you hear, not feel, and just donest have the realism achieved by a good aftermarket system. and when you try to turn it up to a certain level, it really looses control and start sounding distorted.

Again, i want to emphasize that i am not about poiunding bass that can be heard a mile a way, when i say feel the music, i mean feel every sound spectrum, when a snare drum hits, you wanna feel it slap against oyur chest, when delicate guitar pics come on, you wanna feel every scratch...

and believe it or not, you can achieve and FEEL these things even at high way speeds in a car, i know becuas ei do it on a daily basis...

So i am not sure why you dont believe doing a nie system is worth it...perhaps you havent had the chance to sample a really well built SQ system? If i am down in LA sometimes, i'd love to take you for a ride in my car, we can cruise down the high way, and you tell me if you can hear a major difference between this and a stock system

and heck, i only have two speakres, one amp and one 10 in my car

anyway, not looking to start anyhting here, but i just want to share my point of view on car audio

judging from the gear you lsited and how you arrived at your conclusion, i am not surpirsed, i ask all my customers to save up the money to do it all at once for hte most part. and i think if someone gave me a 1500 dollar budget, i can really piece togehter a sytem that would sound great, even going down the road in a Z

 

I agree with you 100%. I have spent tons of money on car audio equipment and I think every time after I do it I always say "All that money and this is all I got?". I just don't think that it is worth spending so much money on car stereo components when you are going to be driving the car around. Part of the fun of driving this car is the sports car environment and the engine noise.

 

I agree with 16psibrick, in that you can make a great improvement over the stock system, but I think the point roberto350z was getting at was that some guys/girls spend $3k or more on a system and expect miracles BECAUSE of what they spent, when in reality you can probably get a similar (maybe even nicer) sounding system for less money at 60mph.

In other words, instead of dropping $700 on a set of components and installing them in the stock location, spend $100 on some NICE coaxes and drop them into pods that will make for a cleaner, more well balanced sound. You would be suprised at how little a difference you will hear in equipment at 60mph with all the ambient noise in the Z. It is almost a waste to spend $700 on components when $200 components will sound just as nice when installed properly.

Don't expect miracles from nice equipment. 75% of a nice system is in the install.

 

no one should even consider components with out an amp

 

i think one reason why a lot of people develope a stigma of nicer speakers mean nothing is due to the fact that a LOT of how a sytem sounds comes down to the installation and tuning of the speaker.

I dont want to offend anyone here, but i would say over the years, i have sampled hmm over 300 installs by other shops at various venues, be it at show, customers who bring an install to me with something alreayd installed etc...

i would venture to say that a full 80-90 percent of them are not installed and or tuned to a manner that would justify the component used, the money spent, or both.

at the end of the day, its rather simple, there are a LOT of installers out there, most them can competitently hook up an amp, wire up speakers, but acutally not that many know how to install and tune to get the best sound quality out of it.

the goal for a lot of installers, perhaps due to lack of time, or lack of experinece, is to "FIT THE EQUIPMENT IN THE CAR SOMEHOW"...

well this approach have several pitfals...

lets take a recent example from my own experinece. Someone brought a older model honda civic to me. HE had paid over 3500 bucks for an install by a shop here in san jose, and he said he really did not liket he way it sounded.

i took it apart a bit and exampled it...here is what was used:

two pairs of MBQ reerense series 6.5" components. the front midbass is just screw into the door with a small spacer, no dampening on the door, and run through factory wires, the front of the speaker acutally is making a bit of contact with the factory door panel. the tweeter was GLUED to the sail panel. on the rear deck, since its a 6x9 spot, the midbass was srewd into the SHEETMETAL rear deck from the trunk side, and the tweet again glued under neath the stock grille.

Two JL amps power the system, a 300/4 and a 500/1 both are just on a board in the trunk, when i look at the settings i noticed:

high pass for the front speakrse set at 150hz, rears also at 150, gains cranked way up, on the subamp, bass boost cranked, gain cranked, low pass at 150hzish. hmmm

the sub was the only part that was fine, but then again, it was just a single jl 10w3 in a prefab box in the trunk.

when turned on, the speakres in the front have NO impact, are extremely harsh, and by the time the headunit volume rached 25 on a scale of 60 something, it was distorting horrible, the same thing with the sub, just making the hollow sound a distorted and cliped subamp makes when it powers a sub.

it sounded absolutely HORRIBLE.

All i did was adjust the gains, the bassboost, and the high/low pass, it sounded MUCH better. but then i couldnt get rid of the door panel buzzing from the speaker htiting it, and the crappy rear deck install that sounded horrible (when the sub hits, it audibly distorts the rear speakres by pushing air on the cone)...

so i simply showed him my wifes civic, same model year, it has:

150 dollar DLS coaxials in the kicks, a single DLS 10" sub in the back, and a old old old autotek 4 channel powering it, 75 watts to the fronts, and 250 to the sub, total cost even if i did it including labor would have been around 1500 bucks, he got pretty amazed cause in his own words "holy crap this sounds much better than my car"...

and to be honst, my wifes car is not all THAT great sounding IMO...

so again...it come down to the install and tuning...certain cars work better wtih stock locations than others...for example, in the Z, putting anyhign in the stock door location, even wtih dampening, IMO is a big waste, putting the same speaker in kick panel or door pods would DRAMATICALLY increase SQ...etc etc

i would say, if you ask majority of my customers, most fo them are on a budget of 2-3k total including eqipmenht and labor, what they think of it interms of sound, and whether or not its worth it...perhaps you will get a different opinion.

and to be honest, when it comes down to it, i am not even that good of an installer/tuner

b

 

This is why I paid this guy all my hard earned money... he gets it.

If you like stock systems, that's cool. If you like coaxial speakers, that's cool too. If you like to spend $20k on a sound system for you car- good for you. It all comes down to what moves you.

 

Now you tell me.....

 

shhhh.... dammit forgot to edit it before you read it mike lol

 

+1 on tuning/setting the audio system, after i install my system it takes about 2-3 days of driving around and tweaking the settings of the eq, crossover, and gain on the amp until i am happy with the sound, i also have to readjust it when i switch between CD/DVD and the radio hence i don't listen to the radio much

 

...well put.

16psibrick: You sound like an awesome installer. Now go install and stop typing JUST KIDDING, DONT FLAME

I can believe that a bad install can ruin good equipment. Which is why I can get sooo much out of "just" a pair of good coaxs, a 300/4 and a single 12". I hear audio unlike MOST people do, and I know what Im doing.

But Nizl had some KILLER equipment from Street Noyz. If you are calling street noyz a hack job, then I dont trust ANYone. They *should* know how to tune a system. But you could disagree, and this would make you all the more professional.

Did you click the link?
https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....+audio+install

Holy cow, a zapco 1000W, mcintosh cd changer, ID max, and dynaudio 3 ways... with some badass custom look. Nizl and I both agreed... wheres the $5-7k killer sound at 60mph?!?!!? Now, if you can tell me what was done wrong on his install, then

One thing I can agree with for sure is that the STOCK SYSTEM SUCKS. I NEVER said keep any part of that abomination. Ive heard better beach boom boxes.

And yes, as with diamonds, there is much to be said about paying top dollar for something you can show off.

My thread was more for the people with an original $1k total budget who get talked into exceeding that budget and spending their sons lunch money because someone said "you HAVE to buy component speakers." Oh, and those speakers NEED 300watts. Oh wait, what happened to the speaker pods you cheap skate? And, oh my god dont forget the head unit and subwoofer!

I only want people to understand that its OK to follow a budget and tune it right so that its *close enough* to being good.

Of course, some other douche bag on another forum is probably calling ME a moron because I would spend $2300 on a pair of home speakers!


One thing to help me with... Nizls kick panels sucked. A tweeter on the floor? WTF? Can you help me with why a door pod would help my speakers sound better. I have been eying the zenclosure's... but WHY?

 

nothing wrong with a good home system, i've been eyeing some B&Ws... but gotta get a house with a nice media room first

as for the door pod question, theres not enough room in the stock setup, the plastic and the stock grill sucks ***

 

Simple deading won't result in much noise reduction in the overall noise floor from all external sources at 60 mph. I initially deadened the entire car, and found that it didn't do much to reduce noise. I recently went back and put in 3/8's inch open cell foam, closed cell foam, rattle pad, and more deadener and the results were unbelievable. Is there still road noise, yes. If I compare it to my GF's new Honda Accord, it's very close to the same. It's almost as good as my old man's Lexus.

I also have the same 3-way Dyn's that Nizl has, and based on that thread I fabed up very similar kicks. They work very well, I don't have an issue with a lower stage or reduced sound ( I did add alot of closed cell behind the kicks).

I agree in principal that you will never reduce road noise completely, however the difference in my Z is astounding.

 

once again, it comes down to personal preference, when you say 5-7k of sound, of coures that is defined differently for different people right? so for you and him, it may not be 5-7k worth, but for someone else, it may be.

as far as car toys goes, i know and very much respect the shop...and without acutally hearing the car, i have no idea if it was tuned correctly or not keep this in mind, there are fabricators, and then there are SQ people. many shops hire fabricators taht can do AWESOME work, i mean work that i simply stare at in wonder, but dont do a lot of tuning either due to lack of installer knowledge or lack of time. I have heard cars from some very famous shops who does awesome work, but the tuning still leaves a little to be desired, as well as some aspects of the installation...for example, they do a VERY solid and attractive door panel, but the speakres they use may or may not fair well in IB set ups...a baffle behind the speaker would help immensely, or go AP vent... i am not saying by any means i know it all or get it perfect, but i do have experience with many of these kinds of installs.

for my customers, i usually see a limit, unless someone is going for ALL out SQ, i usually guide them to a system that works well without going near hte 5-7k range in total cost. this sytem would satisfy 99 percent of the listeners out there, and i would tell them, more money spent than this would increasingly become diminished returns...

For example, someone with a Z came to me, and said, i want a REALLY nice sounding system, a simple and clean install. I am willing to spend the cash but upto a certain point.

here is what i would quote them:

headunit: something decent with a nice strong output and decent onboard eq: a higher end pioneer around $400 bucks would work fine
amp: DLS ultiamte A7 5 channel, to go active on the front components and power hte sub with some decent power: $900
front speakrse: DLS ultiamte iridium 6.2" 6.5" componenents in kick panels: $1000 for both kick panel and speaker
subwoofer: Image Dynamics IDQ10 x 2 10" subwoofer: $300 for both
wiring misc: 150
total parts cost: $2750
then i would do a nice lean stealth trunk install for them with dampening etc for around 7-800 bucks in cost.

total result: 3500 bucks or so. this would result in a Z that acutally sounds better than my own car to a certain extent...and from my past expereince, would absolutely satisfy 99 percent of the customers out there looking for a nice clean, balanced system that they can really crank on the hgih way

if i am down in socal sometime, i really woudl love to meet up with you and check otu yourf reinds system and you can take a listen to my extremely simple set up and see what you think

 

You have to be crazy to spend $3,500 on a car stereo!

 

i must have a lot of crazy people around here then

no i think yuo gotta be crazy to spend 35000 bucks on a stereo...but there are shops here who do a few of those every month

 

why did the kick panels suck? like how did it affect hte sound? kick panel is a good location for tweeters and midrange, and with my experience and DLS ultaimte line of speakres, kick mounted midbass and tweet provide a very nice and high sound stage (above dash level) with pretty spot on imaging... what is the main issue with his setup?

as for why the stock location sucks:

1. no clearance front and rear,
2. grille only half open
3. no room behind the door to build any kind of semi-sealed enclosure to provide midbass reinforcement, and the big door is leaky as hell, so you really gotta do some MAJOR sound dmapening to get it to sound right
4. door buzz and rattles of the plsatic door panel

a door pod and/or kick panel solve all of these problems...at the cost of increased cost and room taken up of course

To be honest, I think you are one of those really knowledgable home audio guys...i acutally know a TON of them...but in a car, many many different principles apply you arent sitting in a wide open square room, but a totally iregular, assymetrial environment that is very small with lots of reflection surfaces, some, like glass, cause phase reversal when refected, some, like cloth seats, absorbs more...etc etc... so how to set up a car for best soun quality is usually a LOT more complicated than setting up a home

 

I can see that you agree with me then. A car IS filled with problems, and this has been exactly my point. Spend more money/time on install...this has been my solution.

The kick panels down below are undesirable to ME because of the attenuation of the higher frequencies due to.... legs. Yes, better theoretical phase/path lengths etc etc, but thats out the door when my 6' wife and her legs get next to them.

ps. Ive been into home audio 15 years and car audio 17 years. So... car wins

 

hehe...on the high freq attenuation, richard clark would disagree wtih you a little...

oh yeah, i have no doubt you need to spend more cash on car to get similar results...but ont he flip side, once tyou get to a certain level of home audio, things gets REALLY expesnive in a hurry, and some has to do with the FINISH and design of the cabinetry it gets so expesnie so fast that it easily outpaces car audio...dont you agree?

focal grand utopias for example, are what not? 7 to 15k for a pair of bookshelfs or towers? yikes hehe or a set of b&w nautilaus...how much are those again?