I have replaced all factory "speakers" with Eclipses and added a Kenwood powered sub, but am still not completely happy with the sound. To me it sounds like I am missing something, not sure what. While the bass from the Kenwood sub is tight, it just does not sound like it fits in with the music coming from the speakers. I have tweaked and tweaked but still am only satisfied with certain music.

Here is my question. Is the factory HU the culprit here? The only other thing I have not tried is moving the position of the subwoofer. Would getting a new HU help with the sound? Here are some pics of my sub placement.

 

And another

 

Last one

 

the headunits in all the z's suck ...i expected that and it is why i had a full blown system bought before the car

 

I'd buy a HU before the speakers~ the sourse is very important

 

I added an amp and subwoofer and replaced all my speakers before changing the headunit. With the above stuff and stock headunit, I had very poor bass response, and my amp overheated.

Put a new headunit on, and it sounds great now and doesn't overheat anymore.

 

We basically have the same setup except I have an old JBL tube sub. Mine sounds fine (IMO) I have the Eclipse running off stock HU and the amp for the sub off speaker level input only pushing about half power of my 120W Sony amp. Oh yeah I have the factory tweets still going. I took them out and had a peak . . .they are not bad tweets, just underpowered. I added a bass cap to get the freq response what I wanted and kept them in the system.

The sub is lacking for sure, but it sounds ok. The eclipse speakers work well off stock power but will sound awesome with about 50-75W apiece from an amp.

I am able to take the volume up to around 25, at which point the sound goes down hill from there. I have two reservations about aftermarket HU's. The first is the look. I don’t like how it messes up the factory look. A normal size DIN radio looks out of place. A fold our screen looks goofy. A double DIN looks too busy. I like two units the popular JDM Sony unit and the eclipse Double DIN Screen unit. Both are $$$$. My second problem is FM reception always sucks on aftermarket units. The only units that I have ever seen that has respectable FM reception was the old Sony Mobile ES series. We have a amplified antenna system that is made for the stock HU and throws off the antenna impedance. I have heard several other HU in the Z and they all perform poorly.

My next step is a real sub and a 5 channel amp (probably Alpine)

 

One more thing . . .I have the fader to +4 to the front with the sub off rear speaker level. It sounds great for the $150 I spent on the 4 eclipse speakers and the left over stereo equipment from 2 vehicles ago.

 

VandyZ, what is a base cap and what does it do for the factory tweets? I have mine disconnected because of the ear piercing shrill.

 

It is just a normal electronic capacitor that acts as a filter to keep unwanted bass frequencies out of the signal. You can buy the actual "bass blockers" and pay around $10 or figure out what size non-polarized electrolytic capacitor and pay about $2. I don’t remember what capacitance I used because like I said it was from a few years ago.

It will keep the tweets from getting muddy with wrong frequency. It should make them *sparkle* a bit more. Yes they are not the greatest tweets but they are not bad. I keep my Treble at +1 and bass at +1 and my tweets definitely don’t sound piercing . . .they are quite tame and I think need a bit more power.

I wish I could hear what yours sounds like. I have received several compliments on my so-called system. But I have spent more time tweaking the levels than the installation took.