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I was thinking 17W was the peak, sorry. That had me thinking of some 80s no-name stuff. You're fine with those - pretty much any name brand head unit you can buy today (that's not leftover stock from the 80s-90s) puts out similar power. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 11:57 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 11:54
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Would adding an amp like this do anything to improve the depth of sound in my 97 Miata? http://www.crutchfield.com/p_500MRXF35/Alpine-MRX-F35.html?tp=115 I don't have head rest speakers, just door speakers that are really flat and tinny. Have this head unit: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-byPgr5SyF6m/p_130X6600BT/Pioneer-DEH-X6600BT.html
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Jun 1, 2014 06:34
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Replace the speakers first. That head unit has more than enough power to push your door speakers.
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Jun 1, 2014 14:11
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some texas redneck posted:I wouldn't count on it actually doing 1200-1600 (or even 900) - Hifonics was a good brand a long time ago, but all of Maxxsonics brands are made in China these days. I wound up buying the Brutus. It pushes the L7 pretty well, but it's now very obvious that all of the bass is coming from the trunk of the car. The sub pushes a lot of air, but the sound response isn't as tight as I'd like and it's woomphy instead of punchy. I know a lot of this is due to the box; it's a folded horn, not sealed. The roominess of the 7-series cabin doesn't help things either; the Logic7 systems that came with the upgraded stereo factory option had subwoofers actually mounted under the front seats. The one gripe I have now is that it's nearly impossible to get an AUX-in on this car, or an iPod, or anything other than CD or FM. I've looked up all the installs for 2002 BMW 745is and they involved a whole hell of a lot of work, most of which include soldering connections right on to logic boards inside the dash. BMW doesn't even have an iPod retrofit option for the <04s. I guess I'm stuck burning CDs 
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Jun 1, 2014 23:57
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I want to add bluetooth to my patrol car, a 2011 impala so that I can stream music from my phone. I have a galaxy s4 and my 3.5mm jack is on top of my phone and my usb is on the bottom so if I want to charge my phone and listen to music it doesn't fit in my cup holder very well and I have wires going across my console where I have important stuff I need to access. I've done a little research and the best thing I've found is an adapter that plugs into the 3.5mm jack and has a power source that runs to the cigarette lighter with a usb port on it so that I could charge my phone with it. Does anyone have any experience with these? This is the one that I'm looking at right now but I don't know if it's worth a drat. http://tinyurl.com/KinivoBTC450 Is this my best option or is there something else out there I should look at. Whale Cancer fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jun 3, 2014 |
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Jun 3, 2014 08:56
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Hey guys, I put up some vintage car audio stuff for sale in SA mart here. I have two Alpine 3525 amplifiers and a Nakamichi EC-200 crossover. Would rather sell to a member before I put them up on eBay. 
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Jun 3, 2014 19:13
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Mr. Beefhead posted:Are there any head units out there that can handle a large-ish hard drive well? I have a Pioneer DEH-X9500BHS that irritates the hell out of me - I can plug a portable hard drive into the USB port and it "works", but not in a way that I'd call acceptable. When the hard drive has 100+GB of mp3s on it, you have two options: you can just access the drive in a basic file mode, which works somewhat well, but you can't search by album or anything like that, you just have the option to scroll through the folder list. You also can't even jump by letter in this mode, so if I want to listen to an artist around the middle of the alphabet like, say, Modest Mouse, I have to twist the knob about a hundred times to get there. There are little tricks you can do to make it work a bit better such as sorting into lettered folders, but it still doesn't work that great. The other option is to turn on file indexing mode, which almost works great, but has two huge problems; it re-indexes the entire hard drive every time you turn the car on, which takes several minutes every time, and for some idiotic reason it will only sort album tracks by alphabetical order, there's no way in this mode to sort the tracks in an album into the order they should be on the album. The Alpine turned out to be just as big of a mess as the Pioneer. I also checked out whatever model the current top of the line single-din Kenwood is, and it sucked too. It's a sad goddamn state of affairs when my 5 year old $30 Sansa Clip+ is more capable than a brand new $300 head unit.
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Jun 3, 2014 19:41
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Hey guys I found a couple jbl subs cleaning out a garage. They both have little tears in them. Is it possible/worth it to fix? http://imgur.com/a/rppm7
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Jun 14, 2014 17:05
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danfurer posted:Hey guys I found a couple jbl subs cleaning out a garage. They both have little tears in them. Is it possible/worth it to fix? http://imgur.com/a/rppm7 I've had good luck repairing vintage speakers with tissue paper and epoxy or clear nail polish. Better to try before trashing, anyway.
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Jun 14, 2014 17:46
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Armchair Calvinist posted:I've had good luck repairing vintage speakers with tissue paper and epoxy or clear nail polish. Better to try before trashing, anyway. Shoe glue. Seriously get some and try it. Its cheap and works wonders.
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Jun 14, 2014 17:58
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First post in AI. Hello. I have a 2007 Mercedes C280 (with standard setup, not Harman-Kardon) and it's been a real bitch to try and figure out what I need for a head unit installation. There's nothing I can find through Googling about what parts I need, and taking it to a local, supposedly reputable installation place had them telling me I would need an aftermarket amplifier because the whole car was wired with fiber-optic speaker wire, with a total install charge of around $800. No thanks. So I called Crutchfield and they set me up with a list of the harness, dash kit, steering wheel adapter, and antenna adapter, totaling $120. Great! But I didn't buy it yet. That was two weeks ago, though, and going back to order them today I was greeted with the warning "This item is NOT recommended for your vehicle" on the Metra 70-9003 harness. I called, and was told that the product I was recommended two weeks ago required rewiring, having to do with the steering wheel adapter or something. The NEW product, which they had in stock but not on the website yet, apparently does not require rewiring and also costs $80 (the old recommended harness was $13). Am I being taken for a ride? I almost bought subwoofer equipment from them four years ago, but they were really trying to push a capacitor on me and I realized what bullshit that was, so I'm wondering if this is just another pure-profit move for them at my cost. Metra's site itself recommends this 71-1784 Audi harness, which looks completely different from the Crutchfield one. It actually resembles the harness for my old car, a '97 Mercedes C230. I am dying without my subs and an iPod hookup (or any aux input to speak of) and looking to upgrade as soon as possible, but utterly clueless on what I need. This is the steering wheel adapter I was recommended by them. Is it hard to wire it up, if I went ahead and got the $13 harness?
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Jun 28, 2014 22:25
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I've got a 2004 VW polo (with the 0_o o_0 lights) and pretty happy with the stereo. That said i'd really like the option of upgrading it so it can receive DAB radio and not have to use a lovely tape adaptor to play stuff from my phone. Every time i try and look for replacements i just find a ton of incredibly ugly poo poo with a million LED's that would stick out like a sore thumb. Does anyone know of a way to do it without making my car look like something from the fast and furious series?
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Jun 30, 2014 12:16
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Outside of 2DIN touchscreen stereos, yes, pretty much everything is made for 12-year-old boys from the 90s. If you can fit a 2DIN touchscreen—and it looks like VW may have offered a spectacularly button-laden 2DIN factory unit—there are a wide variety of options there. If not, you can usually find a few understated DIN units if you dig around. Availability varies so much by country that it's hard to make a recommendation. Alpine would probably be your best bet as they lean on the whole toward minimal and quiet.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:13
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Car: Sister's 1989 Volvo 240 wagon. Need: Head unit, not stupidly overpriced. Under $160 but any price under this is fine. Requirements: -Can power speakers -USB port. She has an android and would like to be able to charge and control the phone through the head unit -Preferably blue display -Possibly an aux port as well? Any recommendations?
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Jul 11, 2014 19:46
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I am too lazy to look, any chance its double din? I have this and love it: http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-FH-X700BT-In-Dash-Receiver-Bluetooth/dp/B0091UW7F6 You can never go wrong with Pioneer.
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Jul 11, 2014 19:47
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Crutchfield has a deal going on cheap kenwood HU's, just double check features
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Jul 11, 2014 22:07
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Thanks guys. It's single din, so I'm stuck with that. She also specified she wants to be able to control her android's music player(s) (iheartradio, pandora, other stuff) with the head unit instead of going into her phone. What terminology should I be looking out for to specify this feature? She didn't like my answer of "do it through your phone, what the hell is wrong with you". 
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Jul 11, 2014 22:58
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the Kenwood KDC-358U appears to do a lot of what she is looking for.
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Jul 11, 2014 23:32
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Armchair Calvinist posted:Thanks guys. It's single din, so I'm stuck with that. My stereo (link) doesn't specifically mention any sort of media controls, but it works with andriod just fine. I think bluetooth stereos use really generic back/forward/play/pause controls that work with any music app, almost like what you'd get on a headset with a mic. If you have chrome open on your phone and hit the button on the stereo for previous track, chrome goes back a page. But if I have something like a text or ebook open it still controls google play music running in the background.
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Jul 12, 2014 05:59
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That's pretty neat, actually. I'll tell her to look into that too. Thanks for the info guys. I'll relay what I can and hopefully she's satisfied, haha.
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Jul 12, 2014 08:31
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Mr. Beefhead posted:The Alpine turned out to be just as big of a mess as the Pioneer. I also checked out whatever model the current top of the line single-din Kenwood is, and it sucked too. It's a sad goddamn state of affairs when my 5 year old $30 Sansa Clip+ is more capable than a brand new $300 head unit. I agree with you, thanks for doing that research. I too want this functionality and I'm blown away that nobody has it figured out. I'm still running what is technically now a vintage unit, the Kenwood Music Keg, also known as the Phatnoise Phatbox. The interface is awesome and fast, I can find exactly what I want to listen to in seconds, and organize it right down to custom playlists of any kind in any order. I have my music library organized by artist alphabetically, and albums chronologically, with full album/track/song display. It is seriously a slick and elegant system, they sold it for about 5 years and then ditched it. Phatnoise wrote such a nice interface, then Kenwood killed the functionality on newer units, and effectively just told their entire customer base to go get an ipod. Really irritating. The problem is that it only works with Kenwood head units older than 2009 or so. I have two, and have replaced the hard drives multiple times. They require PATA laptop drives so those will be unavailable eventually, and when either of my head units dies (one is an 06 model and the other is an 07) I'm going to end up running a Sansa on aux in. For my vintage car I plan on just running the Sansa straight to the amps, with a line driver if needed, no head unit at all. Anybody in here regularly build fiberglass sub boxes? I wanna do one for my wagon, and was wondering if there's a "best" fiberglass kit.
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Jul 13, 2014 07:13
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Samsquamsch posted:First post in AI. Hello. I have a 2007 Mercedes C280 (with standard setup, not Harman-Kardon) and it's been a real bitch to try and figure out what I need for a head unit installation. There's nothing I can find through Googling about what parts I need, and taking it to a local, supposedly reputable installation place had them telling me I would need an aftermarket amplifier because the whole car was wired with fiber-optic speaker wire, with a total install charge of around $800. No thanks. So I called Crutchfield and they set me up with a list of the harness, dash kit, steering wheel adapter, and antenna adapter, totaling $120. Great! But I didn't buy it yet. That was two weeks ago, though, and going back to order them today I was greeted with the warning "This item is NOT recommended for your vehicle" on the Metra 70-9003 harness. You're talking about two different things here. The first thing you're talking about (the cheap thing), is a harness adapter; this is so you can hook up your aftermarket head unit to your factory wiring without having to hack up the wiring in your dash. You patch the wiring leads from your aftermarket radio to the adapter harness, then you plug the adapter harness directly in to the plug for the stock radio. The second thing you're talking about is an adapter for steering wheel controls (expensive). Yes, these cost money, because it's not just adapting wiring, it's also converting the signal from what your steering wheel controls do to something the aftermarket stereo can understand. Neither are REQUIRED, but the first means a lot of work and doing a lot of cutting and splicing in your dash (this is dumb, just get the adapter), and the second means your steering wheel controls will no longer do anything. As far as WHICH harness, going to Metra's website (https://www.metraonline.com), and looking up your car appears to return this harness: http://www.metraonline.com/part/70-1786 Without actually seeing your factory harness I can't really tell you if this is correct or not.
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Jul 14, 2014 20:51
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For car audio Ive only ever done a sub with a monoblock amp, a head unit, and some door speakers. I just bought an E46 M3 and its speakers / sound system suck. I plan on replacing its 6.5 in speakers and leaving the tweeters and the mid size tweeters for now. With the stock head unit it sounds like I should buy an amp for the 6.5s as well. The stock head unit has a weird ohm rating for the speakers iirc. Do I need a 2 ch or a 4 ch amp for that? What about an equalizer? I really dont even know where to start with this. EDIT: I should add I want to keep the stock head unit as I feel like anything aftermarket looks like trash in the BMW dash.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:55
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I'm selling a fancy pants Alpine head unit in the AI marketplace: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3515402&pagenumber=7#post432201006
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Jul 15, 2014 02:26
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I know nothing about this sort of thing. I have looked at the crutchfield site, but with all the speakers it says small modifications still need to be made for them to fit. I have an 07 Cadillac CTS non bose system. The right front speaker crackles pretty bad when the volume is up, but the others all sound find. Since I got the car used I just want to replace the entire speaker set. Really looking to spend ~100$ per pair. The sub still sounds good, but if it needs to be replaced I wouldn't be opposed. I do want a new head unit that is capable of using XM radio or plugging in my iphone for pandora. For the head units that have pandora does it need to have a phone in order to make it work, or does the unit allow it to play itself?
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Jul 15, 2014 02:33
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Looking at Crutchfield for an 07 Cadillac CTS non-bose, I don't see anything special about the front speakers, just that it uses 5.25" speakers. Metra's website (Metra specializes in mounting kits and wiring harnesses/adapters) says it'll take 6.5" speakers, up to 3.2" deep. I'm not quite sure which is correct, but every speaker Crutchfield lists for your front doors are 5.25". Metra doesn't sell direct to the public, but any mounting kit or harness you get included from Crutchfield will likely be Metra. 3.2" might limit you to some shallower speakers, but Crutchfield really does their homework (you can always get some rings that will push the speaker slightly out anyway, without interfering with the door panel). I would get this to make wiring the front speakers easier (it looks like Crutchfield includes an appropriate adapter for rear speakers) if you don't feel like crimping. If you don't, it's a simple matter of figuring out which wire is + and -, and crimping appropriate female spade connectors on. Most aftermarket speakers use 2 different sizes (smaller for negative IIRC), but it's pretty easy to just "adjust" the female part with some pliers. And yes, you need a phone or tablet for Pandora to work, with the Pandora app and a data plan - typically it works over Bluetooth, though if you have an iPhone/iPod/iPad, you can also plug it into the head unit. iOS functionality with head units designed for them is a bit better than for Android, but Android phones paired via BT still allow you to skip forward/back, play/pause/stop, make phone calls, scroll through your phone book, etc. My last head unit was a basic Pioneer single DIN with basic Bluetooth, and it handled all of that just fine with an Android 4.0 handset. It works exactly the same with Slacker, Google Play Music, and drat near every other music app on Android. The only real issue between Android and iOS on this is if the headunit has thumbs up/down buttons - they probably won't do anything on Android. Spend the most money on your front speakers - the rears only provide some rear fill and midrange when you're up front. You have a factory sub, but it's not a Bose system? The factory head unit probably has a dedicated output for the sub then, or an amp hidden somewhere. You'll probably have to replace the sub, or at least add a small amp. Also, one HUGE thing to keep in mind (and the one that really bugs me) - the "driver information display" on your CTS is controlled by your stereo. You'll lose all DIC functionality entirely if you replace the head unit. There's a couple of aftermarket replacements, but they're not... great (and so far I've only seen them for Cobalts). Personally, I'd prefer to keep the display, and just replace the speakers and find some way to add Bluetooth. If you can deal with not having Pandora functionality, I used this to add Bluetooth to my 2006 GM stereo (but obviously I have to use the phone itself to skip, etc). That thing sucks for phone calls, but works great for streaming music. I've had it a bit over a week, and I've only had to charge it once.... while spending a few hours a day in the car with it streaming. Some basic googling has turned up plenty of people who've managed to retain the factory DIC with an aftermarket stereo. Google is your friend on this, and it'll take a bit of work to get it working properly. I bet Viggen, Kastein, or Motronic could knock it out in 15 minutes though  If you have factory OnStar (you probably do), and don't use it, you can swap out the OnStar module for a Bluestar module. It's spendy, but you keep it looking stock, and still add Bluetooth to the factory stuff. If it's not Bose, the stereo will power any 4 ohm speaker fine (which is drat near every car audio speaker ever). Finally, adding XM will require adding some kind of antenna to the outside of the vehicle. If you rip out the OnStar stuff, a car audio shop can probably replace the original OnStar antenna with an XM antenna. There's also ways to get the OEM OnStar/XM combo antenna to keep it looking factory, but I have no idea what it takes to modify it to work with an aftermarket stereo. There's also ways to retain OnStar without a factory stereo, but I didn't see an OnStar adapter on Metra's site for your car (my car, 2006 Saturn, needs a $150 adapter to retain OnStar if I swap the stereo - or even to keep "retained accessory power"). I know this isn't exactly what you were looking for, but I figured it'd be best to provide as much info as possible. Best of luck! randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 08:42
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MikeyTsi posted:You're talking about two different things here. Thanks for the response. I know the two items linked are two different things, but my question was about the $12 harness adapter that said it wasn't compatible with my car. They told me an $80 product not yet listed on the website was the harness adapter I actually needed, so I was wondering if I went ahead and got the $12 harness if it would require any more rewiring than this new, much more expensive harness.
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Jul 17, 2014 09:58
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This thread should be renamed Acoustical Insanity.
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Jul 18, 2014 00:54
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blk posted:This thread should be renamed Acoustical Insanity.
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Jul 18, 2014 12:06
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Samsquamsch posted:Thanks for the response. I know the two items linked are two different things, but my question was about the $12 harness adapter that said it wasn't compatible with my car. They told me an $80 product not yet listed on the website was the harness adapter I actually needed, so I was wondering if I went ahead and got the $12 harness if it would require any more rewiring than this new, much more expensive harness. To make the radio work, you need the "cheaper" harness, which will adapt the aftermarket stereo harness to the factory wiring. To make your steering controls work, you need the "more expensive" harness, which takes the steering wheel control outputs and converts them in to signals your aftermarket stereo will be able to understand.
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Jul 23, 2014 00:42
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I've been driving my wife's '08 Ford Focus as a commuter recently. The stereo is terrible. Would upgrading the speakers make a difference, or am I damned by the lovely factory stereo?
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Jul 23, 2014 01:39
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angryhampster posted:I've been driving my wife's '08 Ford Focus as a commuter recently. The stereo is terrible. Would upgrading the speakers make a difference, or am I damned by the lovely factory stereo? Upgrading speakers pretty much always makes a positive difference.
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Jul 23, 2014 01:44
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I'm hoping we have some Pioneer experts handy. I just installed an AVH-x5600bhs in my 07 Tacoma. I'm a bit green at this so I may have missed something, but at the moment the unit boots and runs well. My issue is that 5 seconds after turning on the unit turns off the display, turns down the volume by 5 clicks, and changes my FM channel from 2 to 3. I have not seen anywhere in the manual describing such an issue yet. I can immediately turn the display back on, change the channel and volume up with no other glitches. Any ideas?
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Jul 23, 2014 15:43
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Trip report: Blaupunkt Hellsinki 220 BT works well in my '93 Explorer XLT; I feel like a caveman discovering fire every time my truck plays music from my pocket when I get in. Super easy to install, though I did need a set of RCA splitters that Crutchfield didn't warn me about.
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Jul 24, 2014 08:28
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Maksimus54 posted:I'm hoping we have some Pioneer experts handy. I just installed an AVH-x5600bhs in my 07 Tacoma. I'm a bit green at this so I may have missed something, but at the moment the unit boots and runs well. My issue is that 5 seconds after turning on the unit turns off the display, turns down the volume by 5 clicks, and changes my FM channel from 2 to 3. I have not seen anywhere in the manual describing such an issue yet. I can immediately turn the display back on, change the channel and volume up with no other glitches. Any ideas? Is there a factory demo mode or sometimes similar turned on? Do you have steering wheel controls?
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Jul 24, 2014 11:20
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MikeyTsi posted:Upgrading speakers pretty much always makes a positive difference. Any idea if the factory unit takes 2ohm or 4ohm speakers?
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Jul 24, 2014 13:54
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Mitchnasty posted:Is there a factory demo mode or sometimes similar turned on? Do you have steering wheel controls? There is a factory demo mode but I don't think it's on. I will investigate further. I have steering wheel controls but they are not working, so that will be something to check out as well. Thanks for the ideas!
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Jul 24, 2014 15:23
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I am about to buy an '02 RAV-4 with a stock stereo. I don't want to go back to tape adapters so I really want to upgrade the headunit. I also know nothing at all about car audio stuff and looking around Crutchfield's site has me more confused. I would love an recommendations. I am looking for the following poo poo:
This seems simple but there is an overwhelming amount of options out there. Something with a really good and user-friendly way to browse files. Also, it looks like a lot of my music is .m4p files and I would love a head unit that could play them without having to convert everything over. My budget is pretty flexible, I don't want to spend a ton but am willing to do so to get something that will work well for me. I plan to have someone install it.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:50
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I just bought a 2012 Chevy Silverado W/T. I replaced the AM/FM with a Kenwood DDX371. So far I'm loving the unit, expect for needing their brand USB->Lightning cable to get it to play nice with my phone plugged in. Does anyone have any recommendations on backup cameras that are not terrible? The Kenwood will take anything with standard RCA and I'd like to get one since I went from driving miatas and hatchbacks to a giant rear end truck.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:56
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I'm installing an Alpine UTE-52BT in my '06 RSX-S and I'm having a problem with the mic. It seems like the mic connector is too narrow and/or short for the jack so it doesn't engage with anything and won't stay in place. Any idea what's wrong here and how to fix it?
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Jul 26, 2014 01:34
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