Need some advice on my new sound system...

[Brandon96]

First off, I just graduated yesturday, and turned 18 today . SO, as a gift my parents have agreed to chip in $500 towards a new sound system for my Explorer which I've been really wanting for a while now and I thought I'd first come here to see what you all would recommend. Keep in mind, that I can chip in another hundred or so to get what I need, aand that I have little audio system knowledge.

What I have: 1996 Explorer 4 door XLT, the whole sound system is stock with the stock head unit, and it works amazingly. I do have a Kenwood 10 disk CD changer that was installed a loong time ago, it is old and skips a ton and I'm debating on just replacing the head unit.

What I want: Lets set a goal for at or around $500. I listen to rock, alternative and hip-hop/rap. I really want a sound system that will be much crisper, one that will deliver the sound like a newer car does, slightly fancy, we'll say like a Chrysler's sound system (as my neighbor has a '08 300 and i'm jealous) He recommended me to search for something around 600-800 watts. I do want the system to be able to hit hard at times. Meaning i'd like some bass, BUT I do not know if $500 will be able to include subwoofers or not? I'd like to exclude them if I can, but if I do need them, they'll be fine.

Please let me know on your thoughts on Brand/Power and where I should go to get these. If the price for quality is right, I can probably sacrific getting it done by a professional and do it with some help of my neighbor.

Again, I just wanted to know what you guys have experience with and what you'd recommend. I'd like to do this this week, if at all possible.

-Thanks, Brandon

 

[jad2411]

Congrats and happy bday!
read a lot man, do not try to do it so fast, try to buy the best HU and front speakers that your budget allows, you can always continue adding after that, but then you won't have to spend twice on the same thing. I started with the front speakers a 4ch amp and HU, then continued to add the rear speakers, then an amp with sub and I was very happy with that setup (I'd still be if they hadn't stolen my sub & amp)

 

[Anime]

My suggestion, for a complete $500 system, would be:

Brand name (Pioneer/Kenwood/whatever) CD Receiver (w/aux input for MP3 players) - $100-150

Pioneer/Kenwood 6x8 2 or 3-way speakers - $50-60/pair ($100-120 total)

Pioneer/Kenwood/Cobalt/Kicker 100-200 Watt subwoofer amp - $100-150

Pioneer/Kenwood/Cobalt/Rockford/JBL Subwoofer - $50-120

Subwoofer enclosure - ~$50-100, either factory sub for an 8", aftermarket 10" or 12" wedge box

Accessories (speaker wire, rca cables, adapters, etc. - ~$20-30


That's under or slighty over $500 depending on what you get, for full range sound, quality gear, and the bump of a sub.

Power your four 6x8's with the head unit, pick what sub enclosure you want (you can stick an 8" or 10" in the factory spot on the right side of the rear cargo area, or get a seperate box for a 12" to stick in the back)

You might want to go through Crutchfield, since they have pretty good prices from time to time on certain gear, and they give you all the adapters and harnesses and stuff so you don't have to mess with cutting into the wiring.

If you want a setup with even more bass, you might consider waiting for a sale (sometimes places like Best Buy or even Crutchfield have a "buy one sub, get one free" deal, or even have a killer price on a 2 sub + dual sub box package. Amazingly, it can often be cheaper to buy 2 subs and a box than it is for just one.

With more bass, it would be better to run the speakers off an amp as well, but it's hard to come in under $500 with all new equipment (short of finding sale or clearance deals), and have a receiver, 4 speakers, subwoofers, enclosure, speaker amp, sub amp, and accessories.

You could always get a receiver and 4 speakers now (for well under $500, or get a more expensive $200-300 receiver), and then add a enclosure/sub/amps later when you have a better idea of what you want.

 

[Wagonized]

ur best bet is to get a good aftermarket head unit. I recommend pioneer because they never skip. Although alpine has great ipod integration but their quality is in the toilet the last couple years.

Ur stock speakers will be fine with the additional power on them from the aftermarket head unit...make sure to set the high pass filter on the deck to 100-125 hz to keep the bass out of your speakers. This isnt ideal but your stock speakers are likely very tired and the bass will kill them faster than anything.

For bass the most important part of the equation is your enclosure for your woofer. If you're serious about ur sound on a budget and want the best results possible. Build your own enclosure. You or a friend get together on a weekend. Materials will cost you probably $40 including carpet for your average sized box..plus maybe $25-40 to a professional for a good box design and ur one ur way. Prefabbed boxes are absolute crap! And a lot of "installers" out there when building a custom box will just copy what the owners manual says to build without any thought as to vehicle dynamics or the type of music you listen to etc.

Lastly for your sub and amp choice id look at companies which are less mainstream. They give you far better bang for your buck and more personalized experiece in general. Their products are also generally MUCH higher quality.

For woofers Id recommend in no order...T3, DC sound labs, incriminator audio, digital designs, cactus sounds

and for amps id buy something used off of a reputable website such as caraudio.com, soundpressure.com, stevemeadedesigns.com, usaci.org etc.

 

[Brandon96]

ok, I bought the Sony BT2600 Head Unit for 30 bucks, it was pulled out of a totalled car. I tested it and everything appears to work. Except, the connector with pig tails I got with the HU, do not fit the slot on the back of the HU. So i'm kinda stuck...

EDIT - also went to walmart and bought the proper wire/pigtail adapters... and none of those appear to fit the stock plugs in the truck at all.. WTH?

 

[Wagonized]

ur going to have skipping issues with that head unit if you ever run a setup with decent bass. And probably reliability issues with it to begin with. Sony car audio is crap. But I suppose for the price you cant go wrong, but be prepared to replace it.

What do you mean by proper pigtail adapters? do you mean the wiring harness?

 

[Brandon96]

ur going to have skipping issues with that head unit if you ever run a setup with decent bass. And probably reliability issues with it to begin with. Sony car audio is crap. But I suppose for the price you cant go wrong, but be prepared to replace it.

What do you mean by proper pigtail adapters? do you mean the wiring harness?

yes, I didn't know what to call it. The harness that I got with the head unit doesn't even plug into it. And the harness to adapt to the truck's harness doesn't even plug into that.. even though right on the box it says clearly it does... gahhh

 

[Brandon96]

Hooked the head unit up and it actually works great.

With the tires at 40psi i havn't had a skip yet :/


I'm thinking about trying to buy some subs and call it at that...

 

[Nutzon20s]

Are you serious? This is not a joke? If not... I'm sorry.

 

[Brandon96]

Are you serious? This is not a joke? If not... I'm sorry.

Wasn't a joke.

But please use consructive criticism and explain to me why.

 

[Nixthebomb]

I'm thinking He thought it was a joke, because of your budget, most sound sstems are pretty expensive.

 

[Wagonized]

Hooked the head unit up and it actually works great.

With the tires at 40psi i havn't had a skip yet :/


I'm thinking about trying to buy some subs and call it at that...

its not everyday driving that will make it skip. It'll be when bass hits from the woofers when you get them in.

 

[Brandon96]

its not everyday driving that will make it skip. It'll be when bass hits from the woofers when you get them in.

doh.
I knew that...

I'm still shopping around, will get back to you guys when I have some choices..

 

[Joe Dirt]

I had (2) 10's in my old Thunderbird SC, and never had a head unit (Pioneer/Eclipse) skip on bass drops. What wattage are you running and what subs to get a HU to skip?!? God I feel old now...

 

[BrianDye]

I agree with them, get something newer, and Sony subs suck. I personally LOVE their headunits, and speakers, never had an amp, but my buddy does and it sounds great.

I have always used sony headunits, and speakers, great results.
Is there anything better?
Yea, theres way better, but for the price, sony really packs a punch. They also have theyre garbage stuff, my headunit was on sale from like 219 down to 159$ on crutchfield, came with a free HD tuner too. I love the headunit.

My previous sony headunit, and also my first ever owned headunit, which was appx 4 years old when I got serious bass, (2 kicker 12" l7's running at about 1500w a piece) made it skip but now I got 2 15" l7s and a new sony HU running at close to 2000w a piece now and its never skipped, besides ONCE on some HORRID railroad tracks

 

[Brandon96]

Okay I've narrowed it down to a sealed box with 2 Kicker 10's that will fit under my rear seat. A custom thin sealed box with two (I beleive MTX) 12's that will bolt to my rear 60% seat.

And this.. The guy I talked to at Audio Express pointed me towards this.. and I'm interested.

http://www.supercrewsound.com/commerce/product.jsp?prodId=95&catId=

Does anyone have an opinion/input on this? I'm not sure it would hit hard enough.

Thoughts please!

 

[jeppe]

if it was me, i would spend most of my $$ on the head unit and the amps. also properly prepaired doors will make a world of difference i.e. deadener, baffles etc...

check out this thread. will make your components 100x better. i'd also get the adapters or make baffles to run 6.5's instead of 6x8's they stay linear and sound better in general.

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95925

 

[Wagonized]

I had (2) 10's in my old Thunderbird SC, and never had a head unit (Pioneer/Eclipse) skip on bass drops. What wattage are you running and what subs to get a HU to skip?!? God I feel old now...

Sony car audio is known thruought the whole car audio scene for being crap. Almost all mainstream brands have their own entry level gear...sony, pioneer, kenwood, alpine etc. Sony just has no place in car audio. Theyve been making horrid gear since the late 90s and have done nothing at all to change this problem.

Its very frequency dependant but typically most alpines will make it to about 145 db before they start skipping, eclipse from what ive seen take a little higher maybe 148s or so on average, sonys ive had skip in the 135 range which is horrible.

But to answer your question my last setup was just under 158db at the dash using a pioneer z2 dvd navi head unit without a changer. 6 10s and 20 000 watts rms burping at 49hz which is fairly low note for an SPL vehicle.

I also managed to get an alpine head unit to take a 152.0db burp. That was running 2 10s, and 8000 watts rms but burping at 60 hz.

My next setup is going to be a wall with approximately 35 000 watts rms and 12 18s in a diamond..however it wont be in an explorer. But should be substantially louder and enclosure design will allow it to hit much lower and I dont think itll need a changer either. However for SPL purposes I will be burping with a podium as to not damage the head unit itself.

My previous sony headunit, and also my first ever owned headunit, which was appx 4 years old when I got serious bass, (2 kicker 12" l7's running at about 1500w a piece) made it skip but now I got 2 15" l7s and a new sony HU running at close to 2000w a piece now and its never skipped, besides ONCE on some HORRID railroad tracks

max power ratings mean next nothing in car audio. RMS wattage is what you want to go for.

Okay I've narrowed it down to a sealed box with 2 Kicker 10's that will fit under my rear seat. A custom thin sealed box with two (I beleive MTX) 12's that will bolt to my rear 60% seat.

And this.. The guy I talked to at Audio Express pointed me towards this.. and I'm interested.

http://www.supercrewsound.com/commerce/product.jsp?prodId=95&catId=

Does anyone have an opinion/input on this? I'm not sure it would hit hard enough.

Thoughts please!

sealed enclosures are a complete waste of time. You will get mediocre results ad leave much to be desired.

what you want is a custom ported or bandpass box (probably ported because I dont trust many installers out there to design and build a proper bandpass enclosure for an explorer). Id stick with one sub setup....less is more. Get a single sub of higher quality then in the future you can always add a 2nd matching woofer and have a pair of decent subs. Car audio is very addicting, you may be sticking with a $500 budget now but that really wont last long. As time goes on you'll hear setups with crisper mids and want those, or more groundpounding lows and want to upgrade there aswell. It never ends. Id buy used gear from a good car audio website. $500 can get you a decent setup if you and a friend can build a box yourselves

You dont want the box under the rear seats that will give you crappy results....you dont want that formed enclosure in the link as you really wont get much output out of that either

 

[derek54401]

well, I have a clarion headunit, clarion amplifier, and a JL audio powerwedge box with 2 10w1 subs. I disagree with the comment about sealed boxes being garbage, my sealed box sounds great, and produces very loud and deep bass.

Unfortunately, my speakers are running off the stock amplifier. just a note, the stock 2-way's do sound respectable when hooked up to an aftermarket headunit. (I dont know if the base sound system came with 2 ways, but the 6cd system did) they are the 2 ways with 2 drivers side by side on a 6x9? plate.

I just thought i would mention JL Audio, as there quality is superb, and i didn't see that anyone else had mentioned them.

also, the clarion deck was reasonably priced, i mean, 3 sets of preamp out and usb and ipod integration for $80 is a deal from onlinecarstereo.com

as far as jl audio, check out the w0 series if you are on a budget. they have great sound quality, and are cheap. they produce a lot of sound on 150-200 watts per sub. (they are rated for 300 rms each)