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I haven't personally heard their Prime line before - in the past I've been pleased with the Punch series though. Fosgate's own website claims the Prime lineup is intended to be a stock replacement instead of a meaningful upgrade, and several of the reviews seem to agree that they're not much better than stock. And the Prime speakers you linked have  shipping.  For the ~$50 price point, you can't go wrong with Pioneer or RF Punch. And remember you're getting a pair of speakers for that price, not a single speaker. e: if you're doing all 4 speakers, you can get away with putting cheap speakers in the rear (such as those Primes). The fronts are what you mainly hear.
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Dec 19, 2013 04:02
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some texas redneck posted:I haven't personally heard their Prime line before - in the past I've been pleased with the Punch series though. Fosgate's own website claims the Prime lineup is intended to be a stock replacement instead of a meaningful upgrade, and several of the reviews seem to agree that they're not much better than stock. And the Prime speakers you linked have Cool. Thanks for all the help guys. Any ideas for old stock looking headers?
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Dec 19, 2013 04:55
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I'm using Rockford Fosgate Punch speakers in my car, and I'm quite happy with them. They are about a billion times better sounding than the stock speakers were. I am using discrete tweeters though, since the location in the doors is extremely low, and the car was already set up in the doors for the tweeters. Also, I have subwoofers which make an enormous difference since I don't have to try to make a pair of 5-1/4" coaxials reproduce bass. They sound perfectly clear to my ears (i.e. no distortion, popping, etc.) right up to volume levels where my ears start telling me (via the sensory input known as pain) that I'm an idiot, and other drivers near me start rolling up their windows and/or flipping me off if my windows are down.
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Dec 19, 2013 07:37
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Wasabi the J posted:Cool. Thanks for all the help guys. Any ideas for old stock looking headers? Pretty much every aftermarket single DIN head unit is going to look like it's stuck in a rave from 1999. There are some very nice double DIN units out there, but they're a bit pricey.. and being a 93 Ford, you probably have a single DIN opening. I personally think Alpine has kept their stuff a little more low key, but they tend to be a little more costly than Pioneer or Kenwood (those are the 3 brands I trust when it comes to head units, though I've also used Clarion and JVC in the distant past). If it's a break-in you're worried about, make sure to always take the face plate with you (and don't get a stereo without a detachable face plate). If it's just the looks, look for something that allows you to set the color for the LCD and buttons - setting both to the same color helps reduce the distraction. FWIW, the lower end Pioneer stereos don't dim automatically with the head lights, which I found to be really annoying.
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Dec 20, 2013 07:39
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some texas redneck posted:FWIW, the lower end Pioneer stereos don't dim automatically with the head lights, which I found to be really annoying. I don't know what automatic lights are anymore. Is that when it gets dark and I pull the switch so I can see more  ?I just love the bone-stock look too much to really want to change it, but the tape deck sounds so bad to me. I kinda like this.
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Dec 20, 2013 10:35
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What I meant is a lot of low end Pioneer stereos lack the wire that ties them into the parking/dash lighting circuit - so when you flip on the lights, they don't dim on their own.
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Dec 20, 2013 10:54
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2006 infiniti g35 coupe. Are there any aftermarket double din radio install kits that look as close to OEM as possible? I know the whole hvac control panel has to be replaced, but the ones from metra look cheap and I like my turn knob for the temperature adjustment.
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Dec 20, 2013 23:34
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I have a 2010 Toyota Tacoma that I want to put a new headunit into. I really want something Android based, that will interface with the steering controls, which I can tether to my phone if I want data. I've seen a few things on Ebay which seem rather shady and Crutchfield is showing up blank in the Android department. Has anyone run one of the mystery Ebay units? Any recommendations?
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Dec 21, 2013 01:04
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Use Amazon.com. Just find the right size DIN that you need, any wiring adapters you may need, bezels, etc, from Crutchfield. Then find the same type head unit on Amazon only choose one that has Android compatibility. Alternately, just find a head unit with an Aux-input on it and use that, instead. My question: I just bought a line out converter to put into my 2006 Dodge Charger. I want to add more power to the 8" factory sub, and then when I hear that the sub sounds like poop I'll have no choice but to buy a better infinite baffle 8" sub. But, my question is: How can I remotely power the amplifier that I attach to this LOC? I assume I cannot? The battery is in the trunk of these cars. If I cannot remotely power the amp, do I have to worry about the amp draining my battery when I'm in bed at night? (I have a simple boat/marine on-off switch I could potentially wire into the amp's power, but I would really rather not) Also, if anyone else knows the answer to this second question, I'll love you forever: I've put some nice speakers to replace all of the factory poop that was in the car. The sound is dramatically improved. I still have the factory head unit, and I want to keep it, as it's a double-din with stupid button knobs built into the bezel. Assuming I have not yet added an amp to power the sub, here is what happens: The volume knob goes up to 36. I can crank it literally all the way, and if my source is a CD, or other loss-less audio, it's actually quite clear and sounds 'good'. The problem is, the stupid loving factory amp digitally controls the power signal it sends to the speakers. If I turn the volume up past 30-31, the rear speakers, including the sub, literally stop putting out music. I can correct for this if I fade the sound to the rear 4 or 5 units (out of a possible 10 units on the fader). Then, the sound almost never stops from the rear. Is there anyway I can stop this from happening? I assume it happens because the amp is putting out too much power and it's an overheating-protection feature, but gently caress that poo poo. It sucks and it pisses me off. I'll be in the middle of jamming out and the goddamn rear speakers + sub stop working. I work at a place that can literally take apart and calibrate electronics, so if anyone has a very technical answer on how I could do this internally to the amp itself, that's also possible.
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Dec 21, 2013 04:25
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My guess (and this is purely a guess) is that you are exceeding the stability of the rear amp, so it's protection circuits are kicking in and shutting it down to keep it from dying. Without knowing the amplifier specs, it's impossible to know for sure. Let's go into pretend-land for a minute, and discuss hypothetical's. In pretend land, you have an amplifier that is stable down to 4 ohms, but your speakers are a nominal 2 ohm load. At lower volumes, this isn't really a big deal, but as you start pushing the amplifier, it's little electronic brain says "hey, this hurts!" and a protection circuit kicks in and shuts down the power stage (or cuts the input, or something). The point where the protection kicks in is variable also, since the impedance of speakers isn't actually the value that's printed on the 'specs' for that speaker. In reality, the performance of a speaker looks something like this:  Note: You'll rarely ever find these charts unless you are buying fairly pricey speakers, which means the real chart for your $70 speakers is probably a LOT messier and less smooth than this one is. This particular chart is for a Rockford sub. Notice that as the speakers reproduce different frequencies, the actual impedance varies. It varies a lot. This is why the protection on an amplifier may kick in on one song at '30' on the volume, and on a different song be fine up to '34' or something. In reality, we don't know what impedance your amplifier is rated to be stable down to, so we really have no clue if this is the problem, but based on the minimal description you've given, my bet is that you are exceeding the limits of the amplifiers stability rating. One way to test this would be to throw in some 8 ohm or 4 ohm speakers (or for testing, add an extra pair of the same speakers wired to give you a 4 ohm load) and see if the same thing happened, at the same volume levels, or if it stops happening at all. Edit: re-looked at the speakers you got. The 3-1/2" speakers are 4 ohm, and the 6 x 9 speakers are 2 ohm. If you have a single integrated amplifier running everything, you could be running into a load imbalance problem also, depending on how good the amplifier separates out the discrete channels (lots of cheaper amplifiers share a lot of stuff between channels). The Locator fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Dec 21, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2013 04:55
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The Locator posted:My guess (and this is purely a guess) is that you are exceeding the stability of the rear amp, so it's protection circuits are kicking in and shutting it down to keep it from dying. Okay, could one possible solution be to rewire the 6x9's to 4 ohm or the 3.5's to 4 ohms? Otherwise your response is pretty helpful. I know I need a better amp, but the solutions are not good without spending a lot of money to get rid of the stupid factory amp. edit: Also what is that graph called, so that I know what to look for when buying speakers in the future? johnny sack fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Dec 21, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2013 05:41
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johnny sack posted:Okay, could one possible solution be to rewire the 6x9's to 4 ohm or the 3.5's to 4 ohms? Otherwise your response is pretty helpful. I know I need a better amp, but the solutions are not good without spending a lot of money to get rid of the stupid factory amp. Unless the speaker is a multiple voice coil speaker, which is something you only find on subwoofers, the impedance is set. The only way to change the impedance is by wiring multiple speakers on the same channel in series or parallel, depending on which way you want the impedance to change - two 4 ohm speakers can give either an 8 ohm (series) or 2 ohm (parallel) load on a single channel. Depending on where you bought the speakers, maybe see if you can exchange them for a similar model with different impedance? The graph is just something that some manufacturers put on their Thiele-Small Specification sheet. Again, this is probably not something you will be able to find for your typical speakers, so I wouldn't really worry about it. All you really need to know is the nominal impedance, power handling, and frequency response. Thiele-Small specifications look like this: Fs (Hz): 22.0 Re (Ohms): 3.30 Le (mH): 3.6 Qts: 0.58 Qes: 0.63 Qms: 7.00 Cms (m/N): 0.16 Vas (L): 141.0 Mms (g): 337.0 Mmd (g): 324.2 Rms (kg/s): 6.5 Airload (g): 12.8 No (%): 0.25 SPL (dB - 1W/1M): 86.0 BL (T*M): 15.9 *Xmax 10 (mm): 16.2 Sd (cm2): 790 EBP: 35 Krm (mOhms): 2.52 Erm: 1.07 Kxm (mH): 113.5 Exm: 0.61 Rem (Ohms): 29.20 These are cool acronyms and numbers that are probably very useful to audio engineers for something. 
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Dec 21, 2013 08:34
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DocCynical posted:I have a 2010 Toyota Tacoma that I want to put a new headunit into. I really want something Android based, that will interface with the steering controls, which I can tether to my phone if I want data. I've seen a few things on Ebay which seem rather shady and Crutchfield is showing up blank in the Android department. All the Android-based units I've researched have been reviewed as garbage. I have no first hand experience, though.
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Dec 21, 2013 09:14
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The Locator posted:Thiele-Small specifications look like this: I only know a couple of these, but the whole deal is actually really nice to know if you're building a subwoofer or something. You can get software that takes all of these parameters and tells you exactly how big your box needs to be and what kind of frequency response you can expect, depending on whether you're making a sealed, ported or bandpass enclosure.
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Dec 21, 2013 10:01
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johnny sack posted:How can I remotely power the amplifier that I attach to this LOC? I assume I cannot? The battery is in the trunk of these cars. If I cannot remotely power the amp, do I have to worry about the amp draining my battery when I'm in bed at night? (I have a simple boat/marine on-off switch I could potentially wire into the amp's power, but I would really rather not) Aftermarket amps have 3 battery-related connections. One is +12V from the battery - this needs to be a fairly beefy cable, and should be fused as close to the battery as possible. One is -12V - you connect it to the nearest bolt/sheet metal/etc The last is "remote" - normally, this is connected to the head unit; the head unit will send +12V on that wire whenever it's on. The amp will only turn on when it has power on this wire. Factory head units often don't have a connection for this. I used a line out converter on my car, also with the battery in the trunk, also with the factory head unit. The battery wiring is what you'd expect (one wire to the battery, fused; one to the body for ground). For the remote, I tapped into the power feed for the rear lighter/power socket. On my car, the rear outlet only has power when the accessory circuit is powered (oddly, the front outlet is always hot), so the remote lead got spliced into the + wire for the socket. I pulled wire under the back seat and rear carpet, pulling it into the center console (which is where the rear power socket lives). It's not elegant, but it works, and the amp turns on/off with the car. The downside to this is you may hear a pop when turning the stereo on/off, since the amp will be on whenever the car is on. I didn't run into that on my current car, but I have run into it on others. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Dec 21, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2013 10:10
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some texas redneck posted:Aftermarket amps have 3 battery-related connections. Yea that sounds like a major pain in the rear end. Can you run the remote wire to the battery as well? Or will that then drain the battery?
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Dec 21, 2013 16:45
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johnny sack posted:Yea that sounds like a major pain in the rear end. Can you run the remote wire to the battery as well? Or will that then drain the battery? If you do that the amp will always be on. Always. So, yeah....it's gonna kill your battery.
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Dec 21, 2013 18:13
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You can either: -Get an LOC that provides a remote lead -Get an amp that that turns on when it senses speaker signal -Wire the remote lead to an accessory circuit -Wire the remote lead to 12v and a toggle switch
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Dec 21, 2013 20:10
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If it helps, those remote power leads tend to be super tiny—it's easy to do a half rear end a run through the car and still have it pretty much unnoticeable.
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Dec 21, 2013 20:51
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Okay my dad says he will buy me $200-$250 worth of car audio. I want bass, and good sound. Preferably more bass because I'm a senior in high school and it's cool. What do I get?
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Dec 22, 2013 20:23
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Jensen. Or Sony Xplod. Its always a
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Dec 23, 2013 06:00
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West SAAB Story posted:Jensen. Or Sony Xplod. Its always a You spelled Pyle weird.
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Dec 23, 2013 07:48
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Wasabi the J posted:You spelled Pyle weird. They make more than home audio equipment now!? 
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Dec 23, 2013 08:08
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rscott posted:I'm getting some static using the AUX in on the head unit I just installed when my phone is plugged in to the cigarette lighter charger. I guess I should start checking grounds? Go buy a ground loop isolator and install it. Cigarette lighters have the shittiest grounds imaginable, and that's feeding right in to your audio when you have it plugged in.
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Dec 25, 2013 00:14
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numbs posted:Okay my dad says he will buy me $200-$250 worth of car audio. I want bass, and good sound. Preferably more bass because I'm a senior in high school and it's cool. Do you already have a head unit? Or do you need one? Walmart used to have Sony Xplod sets that came with a head unit, small amp, and small 10inch sub for like $150,which would leave you room for a box and wiring kit. Keep in mind you aren't going to win any competitions, or really impress anyone, but it's a way to start. Or troll craigslist.
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Dec 25, 2013 16:59
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I bought a Pioneer DEH-X6600BT for my wife to replace her 10 year old DEH1500. We don't have the removal tools for the old one but for some reason the tools that came with the new one don't seem to go in far enough to trigger the mechanism. I tried sticking a couple thin allen wrenches in the groove but that didn't seem to help either. I found these on ebay and they look like they're longer than the ones I'm trying to use. Any other household items I can try to jam in there before I spend any more money?
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Dec 25, 2013 17:00
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two_beer_bishes posted:I bought a Pioneer DEH-X6600BT for my wife to replace her 10 year old DEH1500. We don't have the removal tools for the old one but for some reason the tools that came with the new one don't seem to go in far enough to trigger the mechanism. I tried sticking a couple thin allen wrenches in the groove but that didn't seem to help either. 1. Try a butter knife 2. If you have a car audio shop in town (not best buy), go there with the car and ask them if they can do it for you. Typically they will because it takes 2 minutes.
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Dec 25, 2013 17:03
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JackRabbitStorm posted:1. Try a butter knife Worth a shot, thanks!
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Dec 25, 2013 17:10
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 So my sister drives a 98 Lexus es300. As you can see, some of the lcd elements have leaked and blecked out the display. She's just been dealing with it for years, but I thought I'd try and install the head unit from my Blazer, a Kenwood kdc x496. Crutchfield, at least on mobile, only says "the car will need to be modified". How hard would it be to install a single din reciever in this car? It has a disc changer, so I'd like to keep that if possible; there's a round serial port on the Kenwood, so hopefully that's fairly straightforward. Crutchfield is closed today, or I'd just call them and ask , but I'd like some goon input as well.
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Dec 25, 2013 20:46
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Looking for a purchasing suggestion. I've done an hour or two of research on purchasing a new head-unit but they all seem to focus on features and number of shades of light they can display rather than the sound quality aspect I'm wondering about. I drive a Lotus Elise which when I purchased I switched out the stock tin can speakers for JL Audio C2 series 5.25" fronts and 6.5" backs. The sound quality increase was obviously great, but I always read that replacing the stock Blaupunkt unit would give perhaps even bigger gains. I installed the aux cable package and was happy using this until recently. After getting a Chromecast and streaming all my laptop video to my TV, it seems silly to be using a cord in a cramped little sports car to listen to music, so I want to go Bluetooth. The clear solution here is to axe my sometimes flaky aux cord and Blaupunkt head unit and get a bluetooth enabled one. Crutchfield brings up 40 solutions for me, most of which hover in the $200 range. I do absolutely love music, so I want to take this time to choose a unit that will also give me the best sounding audio if even for a price premium. (I am morally opposed to installing any extra weight or audio wizardry in this car because its just not its purpose) The headunits don't really seem to say much about sound quality. I'm assuming "it doesn't really matter" which unit I pick out of the link below, I just wanted to confirm with ya'll and see if you have any suggestions, insight or perhaps other solutions that Crutchfield doesn't list. Is the $350 Pioneer with "audiophile-grade components" actually any different, or would I be just as happy with the $230 Kenwood Excelon? Your replies are all much appreciated! Here's the Crutchfield link to my car. http://www.crutchfield.com/g_300/All-Car-Stereos.html?o=d&nvpair=FFBluetooth_Audio_Streaming%7cBuilt-in
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Dec 25, 2013 21:34
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Fucknag posted:
Enjoy http://m.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210521&styleid=13
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Dec 26, 2013 04:36
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Effulgence posted:Here's the Crutchfield link to my car. http://www.crutchfield.com/g_300/All-Car-Stereos.html?o=d&nvpair=FFBluetooth_Audio_Streaming%7cBuilt-in Not a link to your car, just a link to every head unit Crutchfield has with BT, sorted highest to lowest price.  To be honest, any of the big 3 (Alpine, Kenwood, or Pioneer) will work just fine, and likely sound a bit better. Clarion's also decent in my experience, though they seem to mostly focus on OEM stuff now. Avoid the super cheap (<$100) stuff, avoid Dual, avoid Jensen, avoid brands you haven't heard of. IMO Sony head units are pretty crappy too. Fucknag posted:
It's basically a top of the line V6 Camry from the same model year, with a Lexus badge, nicer paint, and a nicer dash. It's a straightforward swap, you'll need a harness and mounting kit as long as it doesn't have the premium stereo (it would either say Lexus Premium and/or Nakamichi on the stereo if it did - that looks like the mainstream Lexus/Pioneer stereo). The changer is a Pioneer unit, you won't get it working with a Kenwood. But who the gently caress uses a trunk CD changer today anyway?  Hand her a $2 aux cable when you're done, show her how to load music onto her phone, and call it a day.
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 08:45
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So I'm replacing the headunit in my GMC, and I want to redo the horrible mess of wiring that has patch jobs dating back to at least 1990, if not older. There's no such thing as a "factory wiring harness" for this thing since the factory setup had one dinky speaker in the center of the dash, while I'm using door-mounted speakers. Currently, I have the head unit's harness hardwired into the various appropriate wires on the truck, but I'd rather move it to some form of pluggable harness so that if I ever replace the head unit again, I don't have to rewire the thing yet again. Is there any sort of generic replacement for the car-side of the wiring harness, so I can just hardwire a female receptacle in there? And of course as soon as I finish this post I decide to pull up Metra's site. Is one of these harnesses basically what I'm looking for to provide the car-side connector? Just need to find the smallest / simplest looking one... IOwnCalculus fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 06:44
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Wouldn't you have to solder the new head unit's plug thing to a new vehicle harness if you switched out anyway? Otherwise I wouldn't think the harness would matter as long as it has everything you need since they're fairly straightforward. Have you considered just using a bunch of bullet connectors and labels?
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Dec 30, 2013 18:45
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There's approximately zero space to work in behind the dash on this truck, and it would make the difference between having to redo all of those crimps on ever-shorter wires in that limited space, or being able to do that work once and only have to re-crimp the adapter harness, which can be easily put together anywhere else and just plugged in. I'm half tempted to do a late-model Ford reverse harness just so I can swap head units easily between my Ranger and my GMC if I ever get the urge to. Ideally I'd also be able to easily buy some lengths of the aftermarket-color-coded wire to run new wires for the speakers, constant 12V, and keyed 12V since all of those have some questionable-at-best splicing going on. IOwnCalculus fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 20:39
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Edit: found the answers to my questions elsewhere!
Shoren fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jan 4, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 14:24
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I'm trying to update the Bluetooth module on my Alpine CDE-W235EBT head unit. I'm using a HP laptop running Windows 7. It has an inbuilt Bluetooth receiver in it. The laptop recognises the Alpine unit, but can't find any drivers on Windows Update. The head unit eventually disconnects after flashing "Connecting" for 30 seconds. I can't find anything on the net about Alpine Bluetooth drivers for Windows. Has anyone here tried to update their CDE series of head units with any success?
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Jan 10, 2014 11:39
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IOwnCalculus posted:So I'm replacing the headunit in my GMC, and I want to redo the horrible mess of wiring that has patch jobs dating back to at least 1990, if not older. There's no such thing as a "factory wiring harness" for this thing since the factory setup had one dinky speaker in the center of the dash, while I'm using door-mounted speakers. Yup. Just wire your speakers to the harness of your choice and then buy the adapter harness for your radio to the stock harness you installed. Just make sure the one you choose has the appropriate wires for however many speakers you have installed.
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Jan 10, 2014 19:50
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I am trying to replace the paper pushers my 1996 Honda Prelude came with. I picked up a pair of Polk DXI651's and they sound immediately better, but I'm having a fitment problem. My car's rear speaker mounts have the triangular 3 screw holes for the speakers to mount to, and the DXI651 has 4 screw holes, unless I use the spacer that they came with. Problem with that is the spacer looks like poo poo on top of the mount and I can't put a grill on. Should I just return the Polks and get something that has the right screw holes, or is there anything wrong with leaving the grill off (aside from looking extremely ghetto?) Or is there another reason I should return the Polks (if they're lovely speakers for example.)
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Jan 10, 2014 22:04
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Could you get a photo? Is it possible to just drill mounting holes where you need them?
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Jan 10, 2014 22:26
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