N1k0

LowFuel and I have suffered through our stock stereos for a while, and decided to replace the stock stereo and speakers. After reading many a good post here, and on epinions, I opted for a stereo slightly less elaborate than Nizl's.

Here's the equipment:

Alpine 7894 Head Unit
Infinity Kappa 63.5i speakers (4x)
Alpine 6 CD Changer (MP3 compat)
And of course the oft mentioned Metra Dash Kit.

We took our Daytona Blue Z's up the 5 to Newport, causing more than a few heads to turn, seeing not one but two of these vehicles in the fast lane. Even got a smile from the Border patrol, and toll booth attendants.

Aaron, our installer was running late, and while Newport Audio had plenty of techs drooling to get thier hands on our cars, we opted to wait for Aaron. Eventually, Aaron shows up and begins to hack apart my car, as LowFuel and I take off and kill time.

Here's a pick of our installer.

N1k0

A few minor setbacks kept this from going a smooth or as quickly as I had anticipated. First the Kappa's drivers are much deeper than the stock Clarion speakers. We had to buy 1 inch spacer rings to all the windo to roll down all the way. Also, the calrion speakers have a notched mounting bracket that is also needed. Best Buy car audio had all the needed parts in stock, and cheap. (~18.00) Here's a Pic of the stock speaker in the door.

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The speakers in the stock stereo are poor quality. Even if you dont want to replace the head unit, these speakers have to go. Here is a close up of the clarion door speaker with the slotted mounting bracket.

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Here's a pic of the Kappas installed into the passenger door. The door installs were easy to do, but the speakers behind the headrest took some effort. The entire back area had to be removed. After seeing the effort involved, I am glad I paid to have this done instead of attempting it myself, the install cost was worth it, considering the headache this would have given me. Besides, you cant drink Newcastle on draft and watch a football game on the same day your going to do this work, if you do it yourself.

N1k0

After the doors and headrests went in, we discussed locations for the changer. I opted to keep as much storage room as possible in the cabin. We looked at a few options, and in the end decided to mount the changer in the back of the car, up against the right side. Here's a pic of the changer install location.

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Here are a few pics of the finished install.

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here's a pic of the door install.

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And one last pick of the Head Unit. The guys at Newport Audio did an awesome jobn on the install, and were able to knock out both cars in about 10 hours. The end result is a stereo system that sounds really good, and will serve as a good foundation for the forthcomming amp, and sub install.

As an aside, the tech got to drive our cars a total of a block. In that short time he noticed a difference in our two cars. As did I. LowFuel has an earthing kit and K&N filter. I have stock. I beleive I will be changing out the stock stuff in the next week or two. Pics will follow.

Stone Z

What was done to the stocks tweeters in the door posts?

Also, would this new setup be satisfactory if nothing else was ever added to the sysyem?

Thanks.

Selski12

iTrader: (11)

Nice setup! Got a question, could the grills on the door panel be popped out to remove the factory speakers? Or do you need to take out the whole door panel?

N1k0

First, the stock tweeters were unplugged. Now before I invite flames... The Kappas have two tweeters in them already. Wiring these tweeters in would have required a coupla of things. Cross-overs in the door, replacing the stock, (and terrible) tweeters that werre there already. Highs are better in the Kappas and the new HU then they were with the stock system, although, at a later time (when I install the sub) I will revist them and see. Tweeters are pretty cheap.


To answer your second question, is just the headunit adequate? It depends on your definition of adequate. There is a pronounced lack of bottom end presence. aka "No Funk in the Trunk". If your music doest have a big presence in the sub 100hz-180hz range, then you can probally get by with the setup I currently have. There is still more bass in this rig then there was with the stock system. I can't live without bass, and 6 1/2 inch speakers just cant move enough air to produce deep bass. Most of the music I listen to has a big bottom end presence, which is why I will be doing a sub and amplifiers next.

N1k0

Good question, I just went and looked. I would venture to say that the panels have to be removed. I'm no instalation expert, maybe they can get into that space and work miracles. I dont see a way I could without removing the whole door panel.

Mikey Likes It

How did you get the Navi audio hooked up? I'm trying to see if there's a different way to do it...

Mike

N1k0

Ahh the Nav system. Essentially I didnt do anything with it. I didnt like the way it cut into music, so I didnt even try to wire it in. Going forward, I am looking at wiring the outputs to a seperate channel and placing a speaker for it elsewhere in the cabin. This way it wont lower the volume of the existing music. I have seen posts about people putting extra an extra speaker in the sunglasses compartment. I dont think I'll go this route, I want to use that compartment for the radar display. So for now, my nav is voiceless.

aggie300zx

Nice clean install!

Let me know how you like the Alpine MP3 CD changer. Thats one of my next mods, probably after the first of the year. Does that model have the Aux input (w/AiNet converter)? Did you run the CD changer through that?

Nice install, my problem is that I have too much tweeter in my Bostons, now if I could just figure out the right EQ settings on my deck I'd be ok.

LowFuel

Since I got the same setup I'll answer.
My opinion is that for an average listener, you probably wouldnt need anything else, in fact you could probably go with lower end speakers. These kappas we got might be overkill.
Personally, I consider myself an average listener, so I probably wont be adding anything to it for a while.
A car-audiophile would definitely want to add a subwoofer and amp to this setup, which Niko and I both plan to do, it's just a question of when. This setup is acceptable to my ear for the moment, and I think I'd rather make some performance mods and finish my custom interior work off before I invest more in the stereo.

LowFuel

Yes, the changer we got is Ainet compatible. It seems to work fine after some initial settings changes on the deck (change from CDDA to CDDA/MP3, otherwise it wont auto-recognize an MP3 disc in the changer.)

My only problem with the changer so far is that it doesnt seem to allow for all the file functions that the headunit has, like browsing through folders and such. I need to read the manual more on this and see if I'm missing something.

But, the goal of having a large amount of MP3 music online and in a CD form factor has been achieved.

N1k0

Some clarifications and corrections before I continue:

A) The installer left the factory tweeters installed. This results in a harsh, unpleasant sound that annoys. If you amplify, and leave them installed the harshness is amplified, making music downright painfull.

B) I purchased an accessory input for this headunit from Alpine. It allows me to listen to the nav voice on the AUX input. I hated the way it would interrupt my music. So now I can choose to listen to the voice nav by switching at the head unit.

Now onto Part 2.

The head unit does a decent job of powering the door speakers. It's about 27 RMS WATTS, which doesnt translate to loud SPLs. Try to make it play loud and you will want to amplify. Amplifying just the Infinity speakers would have left me with a stereo that didnt have enough bottom end. After looking around here, I decided Nizl's installer "Street Noyz" in San Diego could help.

I asked that the install leave the car looking stock, with no noticable speakers, amps, and boxes. I also wanted to keep my spare tire for the time being. So I put a sub in the factory sub location.

This location is less than ideal. I listened to a free air sub installed there and decided immediately that enclosed or semi enclosed had to be the route. The installer said that the angle of the opening, aka pointing the sub at the back of your head, was also problematic. On his advice, I had an eclosure made that fires directly up. This is a departure from what I have seen others do.

I used an Image Dynamics 10 inch sub, and had them build a wood frame, fiberglass enclosure. We used the old sub plate mounting holes to secure the sub with an aluminum strap. A few squares of dynamat, and we were in buisness.

I refused to give up storage space. So the install couldnt take away the bin behind the passenger's seat. So we installed the amp under the bin.

The system sounds awesome, its plenty loud, and can produce alot of deep bass. I was suprised at the tightness of the bass in some of the sources. The speakers I installed in the headrests could have been left out. They dtract from the music, and muddy the image. I left them unamplified. We amped the front Infinity sepakers, and used the second pair of channels to bridge the amp.

Here are the pics:

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Here's another pic of the car in vivisection.

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Here's a pic of where I had the Zapco installed. It looks like it's skewed and just laying there, but it is fastened quite securely to the frame and doesnt move at all.