LouZ

The orig. equip. sound system in my Performance edition is really poor. What can I do to make a real improvement without spending the $800 my audio dealer has quoted for a 400Watt amp that would fit under the passenger seat, 2 new tweaters and replacement of the rear speakers (which are really bad) with a new pair of twin cone type speakers..Try not to be too technical with your response...Does it sound like the dealer is pretty right on with his suggestions?

ezee

I replaced the four 6.5 inch woofers with Inifinity Kappa 62.5i 2-way speakers, removed the 2 stock tweeters, kept the stock head unit, and listen with fade + 1 to the front. The sound is fantastic, lots of base, mid range, and brilliant highs!

Bought speakers from etronics.com, $80/pair. Also installed Fatmat in rear of car (another $80) to reduce ambient road noise. System sounds great, couldn't ask for more for less than $300.

LaoSiFu

iTrader: (97)

The Z system does really suck. I was considering getting MB Quarts. What do you think?

Dissident

iTrader: (1)

I just posted this on another thread, but start with the head unit. Upgrading the speakers might give you better sound, but probably not. Msot distortion is from the head unit, and upgrading to speakers that require even more power (which most aftermarket ones do) will make your head unit have to work harder to get the same sound, and sound even worse.

Some speakers do have a higher sensitivity than the factory ones, but you are still better off starting with the deck. A $200 deck should give yo a noticeable improvement, and stepping up to the $250-$350 range will give you even better sound. Above that, and you are wasting money unless you intend to spend the extra grand or so beyond that and get real good speakers, amps, etc.

Dissident

iTrader: (1)

And, BTW, stear way clear of dealers as far as sound goes... When I was selling car audio, we did all the work for the dealers, chagred them less than consumers, and they'd charge the customer twice what we would have to done the work directly (know how many people I saw pay $600 for a dealer isntalled CD changer, that was jsut a $200 changer and a $40 adapter?)

LaoSiFu

iTrader: (97)

Thanks a lot Dissident. I was considering a lcd screen or an in-dash one. Could you recommend anything? I use to have the Pioneer P7000CD with the P9000R brain on my last car.

Dissident

iTrader: (1)

I haven't really been current with what's out there in the last 2 years or so, but ask me again when I get me Z.. As soon as the 04s start showing up in SoCal....

Encore

Dissident you are 110% correct. Replacing the head unit will make your factory speakers come to life. The crappy sound you hear when you crank the factory deck is disstortion from lack of power. I installed a sony deck, rockford amp, and rockford 10' in a customers 350z, and it sounds great with the factory speakers. Yes you can get better speakers, but if your not wanting to go all out on a custom system then replacing the head unit will make the most noticble improvment.

Taya

I read the above and one thing come to mind... has anyone used hi to low level in order to hook ext amp to the head unit? will that improve the sound on an aftermarket speakers as indicated above? I would really like to keep my stock HU...

Encore

Yes, adding a amp will make the factory speakers sound alot better. Alot of people are scared to stick a amp on factory speakers because they think it will blow them. Wrong. You are more likely to blow a speaker w/ too little power than too much. Distortion is the enemy, and when a source unit, amp, eq, etc. clip thats when you can kiss them good bye. I love the smell of burnt speakers in the morning.

johnsZ

If you want decent sound, move to an aftermarket head with decent power (say 40W or more per channel at LOW distortion)- be careful- many lower priced systems are rated at 10% distortion or higher, or have the old "MUSIC POWER RATING" or some equivalent balderdash- that is creating a zillion watts of output power from a few milliwatts of input power....
The addition of a big power amp is optional- depends on how much energy and money you want to put into it... the hiss will go up a bit.
The speakers- most of the original equipment speakers cost a few cents to perhaps 50-75 cents to the manufacturer. For reference, see Parts Express website- they usually have a few OEM car speakers for about $20 per case lot. The aftermarket speakers cost a bit more (not a huge amount more), but get a high dollar in the stores. The sound is usually a big improvement over the OEM stuff. The sound is highly personal, so check the displays in the stores. VERY IMPORTANT- the speakers, when mounted in the car, will not sound like they do in the stores- so you might want to check some of your friends installations.

majones

I too was wanting to get better sound from my Performance model without spending a lot of cash. I had the four stock Clarion speakers replaced with Infinity Reference 6002i speakers. I spent $140 for the speakers and $100 for the installation.

Despite what others have said about the need to replace the head unit first, I now have great sound, with good base, clarity and presence. I left the stock tweeters in place.

The stock Clarions are really crap, so just replacing them with quality speakers made a world of difference. This really is the way to go if you don't want to spend a lot of money.