Audio Upgrade Time

[Agent 86]

Hi all, now that the Vette is in bed for the winter, it's time to upgrade the winter ride's audio.
Haven't decided on which "made for Ipod" head unit yet, but here is what I have so far.
2 12" Pioneer DVC subs
TMA 2 X 200 @ 2 ohms
JL 6.5" components
Infinity 6.5" components
JL slash 4 X 75 @ 4 ohms
80G Ipod Classic

Couple of questions, rear speakers; doors or rear roof ?
Are all 99 Hoes already wired to the rear roof locations ? Haven't looked under the clothe cover yet.
Also, for those that have an Ipod ready head unit, are you happy with your choice and what was your choice.

Cheers
Dan

 

[blueflamed03]

IMHO, doors, yes, rears on roof, leave out....you'll have subs back there, keep vocals up front.

 

[Brandon X]

IMHO, doors, yes, rears on roof, leave out....you'll have subs back there, keep vocals up front.

I don't agree with this. If you live the rears out it won't sound as full and complete. Just upgrade doors and roof.

For the head unit, check out the Kenwood eXcelon line, it's one of there best. I have an iPod Touch and it's perfect. I always listen to my iPod so I needed a head unit with easy navigating and this was it. It also has the rear USB input which keeps all the wires hidden and on Friday im gonna wire it so my iPod goes to my glovebox.

 

[Agent 86]

For the head unit, check out the Kenwood eXcelon line, it's one of there best. I have an iPod Touch and it's perfect. I always listen to my iPod so I needed a head unit with easy navigating and this was it. It also has the rear USB input which keeps all the wires hidden and on Friday im gonna wire it so my iPod goes to my glovebox.

Kenwood is high on my list, we'll see what happends on Boxing Day.
This is the Kenwood I'm looking at, if anyone has it, I'm all ears.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_22924_Kenwood+KIV-BT900.html

Not sure which rear speaker location would be best, so if someone has tried both, I'm all ears again.

 

[blueflamed03]

I don't agree with this. If you live the rears out it won't sound as full and complete. Just upgrade doors and roof.

if it's a 4 door, and does all 4 doors and powers with his 4 channel amp, adding two big subs in the back, he wont hear the roof speakers, but hey, do what ya want

 

[Jaycenk]

I see all of these head units and a simple SD card slot is always missing. Why take a 300 dollar Ipod with you in your car when you can take a 30 dollar 32GB sd card and not care if it is stolen. They have spent a year or more making different Ipods compatible but Epically fail to put a small slot in for sd cards lol.

 

[Sir-Lancelot]

I don't agree with this. If you live the rears out it won't sound as full and complete. Just upgrade doors and roof.

For the head unit, check out the Kenwood eXcelon line, it's one of there best. I have an iPod Touch and it's perfect. I always listen to my iPod so I needed a head unit with easy navigating and this was it. It also has the rear USB input which keeps all the wires hidden and on Friday im gonna wire it so my iPod goes to my glovebox.

Not true. Why don't they put speakers behind you at a concert? I would spend all the cash you have on one NICE set of comps for the front. Bridge or bi-amp your 4ch to them and drive happy.

There is no wall that stops the rear passengers from hearing what you have up front.

 

[Agent 86]

I see all of these head units and a simple SD card slot is always missing. Why take a 300 dollar Ipod with you in your car when you can take a 30 dollar 32GB sd card and not care if it is stolen. They have spent a year or more making different Ipods compatible but Epically fail to put a small slot in for sd cards lol.

Actually, a lot of the head units I have been looking at have a slot for a memory card. My current head unit is Ipod ready, but only has sub out and no Bluetooth. I use my 8g Nano or my 16G thumb drive, but I prefer the Ipod's menu, genre, playlists, etc. I just picked up an 80G Ipod on Ebay for $69, that will handle all my needs.

 

[AtomicHoe094]

for each his own. 4x10s suck anyways.. IMO lol

 

[Brandon X]

Not true. Why don't they put speakers behind you at a concert? I would spend all the cash you have on one NICE set of comps for the front. Bridge or bi-amp your 4ch to them and drive happy.

There is no wall that stops the rear passengers from hearing what you have up front.

Um you can't really compare a concert to an audio system inside a Tahoe lol.

Like blueflamed said do what you want but I personally think if you can add 2 extra speakers, go for it. I upgraded all my door speakers, even the rear roof, with Kickers and I couldn't be happier.

 

[blueflamed03]

but you want that concernt sound in any vehicle. Thats the imaging people want and desire.

If you have vocals way back in the rear, it adds 'sound', but looses imaging.

 

[Agent 86]

After very little thought, I have decided on the rear doors. I have some high end Focals in the Vette doors and two 8" JL subs in the rear factory locations and love the sound. This setup should sound similar, but with a lot more base.

 

[MOBmentality]

Not true. Why don't they put speakers behind you at a concert?

You mean way back behind you where the drummer sits? Next to the Bassist?

Since subs are picking up about 80% of the drum kit and 90% of the BASS guitar...and they are way the hell in the back... and all sounds the in a concert are coming from in FRONT of you.. you cant really use this as an example at all.

I would spend all the cash you have on one NICE set of comps for the front. Bridge or bi-amp your 4ch to them and drive happy.

There is no wall that stops the rear passengers from hearing what you have up front.

(im not gonna get into components vs coaxial with you because a set of Focal/Morel/Rainbow ENTRY LEVEL coaxials.. will SMOKE those JL or those Infinity Components)


While i agree if you can only afford 1 nice set of speakers they SHOULD be in the front door.. but thats NOT the only set you should worry about by any means.. a concert hall is designed to bend and alter sound in a way that surrounds you in noise and provides an immersed feeling..

So in a car.. with 2 members of the band sitting in your trunk.. to provide ideal sound you have to sprinkle the rest of the band all over the place..


So yea.. front loading is cool.. and is the easiest way to gain imaging..
8 inch paper cone loudspeakers, kevlar 6s titanium 3s and silk tweeters in each front side of the truck.. would be heaven..

But since you DONT have that.. you have to drag your sound floor and create a collision point where sound meets ideally.. and since sound waves all move at different speeds and lengths.. the easiest way for a layman to create the biggest sweetspot possible.. is to give yourself room for error.. and the easiest way to do this.. is more quality sound spots.



Having an amazing front stage then a massive gap behind you till you hit the ENTIRE REST OF THE MUSIC SPECTRUM is NOT imaging..

I dont buy rear speakers for my rear passengers.. i buy them to create a bigger , cleaner, more quality sound floor for myself.


There is a reason highend cars with stock option audio upgrades have 11/13 hell 15 speaker systems..


Off topic....

I have some high end Focals in the Vette doors and two 8" JL subs in the rear factory locations and love the sound. This setup should sound similar, but with a lot more base.

High end Focals.. or .. Focals (being a high end brand)

And no.. comparatively.. a setup with a mix max of JL highs (uhgg) and Infintiys in a big ass yukon is NOT going to sound ANYTHING like a Focal setup in the tiny interior of your corvette.









Although i agree... the rear doors are for more important than the D pillars.

 

[Sir-Lancelot]

You mean way back behind you where the drummer sits? Next to the Bassist?


Since subs are picking up about 80% of the drum kit and 90% of the BASS guitar...and they are way the hell in the back... and all sounds the in a concert are coming from in FRONT of you.. you cant really use this as an example at all.

I actually think you are trying to agree with me, but from your first comment I dont even know anymore. If you are saying there are no speakers behind you in the audience, then I agree and that is what I said.


(im not gonna get into components vs coaxial with you because a set of Focal/Morel/Rainbow ENTRY LEVEL coaxials.. will SMOKE those JL or those Infinity Components)


While i agree if you can only afford 1 nice set of speakers they SHOULD be in the front door.. but thats NOT the only set you should worry about by any means.. a concert hall is designed to bend and alter sound in a way that surrounds you in noise and provides an immersed feeling..

So in a car.. with 2 members of the band sitting in your trunk.. to provide ideal sound you have to sprinkle the rest of the band all over the place..


So yea.. front loading is cool.. and is the easiest way to gain imaging..
8 inch paper cone loudspeakers, kevlar 6s titanium 3s and silk tweeters in each front side of the truck.. would be heaven..

But since you DONT have that.. you have to drag your sound floor and create a collision point where sound meets ideally.. and since sound waves all move at different speeds and lengths.. the easiest way for a layman to create the biggest sweetspot possible.. is to give yourself room for error.. and the easiest way to do this.. is more quality sound spots.



Having an amazing front stage then a massive gap behind you till you hit the ENTIRE REST OF THE MUSIC SPECTRUM is NOT imaging..

I dont buy rear speakers for my rear passengers.. i buy them to create a bigger , cleaner, more quality sound floor for myself.


There is a reason highend cars with stock option audio upgrades have 11/13 hell 15 speaker systems..


Off topic....



High end Focals.. or .. Focals (being a high end brand)

And no.. comparatively.. a setup with a mix max of JL highs (uhgg) and Infintiys in a big ass yukon is NOT going to sound ANYTHING like a Focal setup in the tiny interior of your corvette.









Although i agree... the rear doors are for more important than the D pillars.

Um.... No and LMAO to pretty much EVERYTHING you typed except the part where you agreed they do not put speakers behind you at a concert. Apparently you sit between the drummer and bassist.
I was speaking about the audience that the band is performing for. Should have clarified that I guess.

 

[MOBmentality]

The point was.. they DONT put speakers behind you in a concert.. but your bass comes from behind you in the car.. since 99% of people only provide sub bass/bass notes from the rear area.. so you saying "they dont put speakers behind you in a concert is true.. but.. all those notes in your car.. ARE coming from behind you.. so.. yes.. when you sit in a normal car with only rear bass and sub bass.. you are sitting somewhere in between the drummer bassist.. and rest of the band.


And since your "laughing your ass off at pretty much everything else i said" ill just walk away from this conversation since arguing with a wall is pointless.


Pretty picture though.. im sure you thought it proved a point.. since its all tonal ranges.. and has NOTHING to do with the fact that since in a concert all those noises are aimed at you and in a car they are coming from all around and most people cut off tone ranges and expect one speaker to play half of a tone and another speaker to play another..

sorry.. but when i listen to johnny cash i would like for his voice to carry as it would in a hall.. Not start at my dash.. then magically skip through the rest of my vehicle and pop up in the trunk somewhere. Not to mention notes carrying notes vs conversive note distortion..

Regardless.. im out.. have fun explaining how he can build a proper sound quality vehicle by putting "all his money into components for the front doors" and all his bass in the back.. in a 16 foot long vehicle... hell someone send GM a message and ask why they even put those damn speakers in the rear doors and d pillars to begin with since "there is no wall stopping your passengers from hearing the front speakers" and tell BMW there Logic7 system does NOT need the 13 speakers they put in it.. since IYO all they need is one set of nice componenents and some bass in the trunk anyway..

 

[Sir-Lancelot]

Actually the chart was to clarify this comment "Since subs are picking up about 80% of the drum kit and 90% of the BASS guitar" is incorrect.


Sub Bass is 60hz and down, is non directional and their wavelengths are long - 20 feet at 55 Hz, for example.

Ideally, You want your front playing 60hz and up as your subs should only be playing a very small part of the frequencies. (Depending on how large a woofer you can get up front you may have to back down to 80hz.)
The frequencies above 60hz start to be directional and that is why you think all this sound is coming form the back. In fact, if you set it up correctly the first time it will all come from the front. Sub bass is not midbass. If you look at the chart, most of the fundamental drum kit and bass guitar frequencies are in the midbass region. Hell, there are more frequencies in the midrange region for those instruments than there is in the subbass region.

When I was running a 3 way set up in the front, the backseat passengers would ask what speakers were in the rear and couldn't believe there were none.

I am not trying to bust your balls bro, and I am not looking for a pissing contest any more than you are. Just trying to help the OP out.
Peace!

 

[blueflamed03]

In a real SQ car, rarely do you ever see rear/rear speakers.
If the front stage has a great wide presence, low sub is minimal anyway.
I think for an SUV, optimal is spend more on front door speakers , componets with a seperate tweeter higher in the pillar, and a good set of coax, or even another set of components in the rear door.
Subs in the far back. No rea/rear speakers.

 

[MOBmentality]

Well the one thing we do obviously agree on is the fact that front staging is paramount to imaging. And YES im glad the op decided on rear doors vs d pillars. And i think we both agree.. he would do better throwing the 2 sets of components he has on craigslist and running a set of Focals or something similar in the front and putting whatever he happened to have access to in the rear doors

But also on a side note....

Something else to consider is we arent talking about true sound (like a horn or a drum) its not analog its digital and with digital comes digital distortion.. something that helps combat this in a car audio setup..is basically.. lower volume.. so the speakers are less stressed and less distorted, so the sound is higher quality.. especially since no one here is running $6000 front door speakers and Macintosh amps.

So if volume was represented on a scale from 1-100, and someone was looking for a listening level of "60". Well without doing a crazy amount of math lets just say distortion was (X%) well adding more speakers increases "sound" and allows you to decrease the volume on amps and headunits, to get to "60" while decreasing distortion percentage exponentially.


Again i AGREE that front staging is paramount. The irony is we are even having an SQ conversation that involves JL highs since they are about the worst sounding highs for the dollar i have heard im my life.

---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:27 PM ----------

In a real SQ car, rarely do you ever see rear/rear speakers.
If the front stage has a great wide presence, low sub is minimal anyway.
I think for an SUV, optimal is spend more on front door speakers , componets with a seperate tweeter higher in the pillar, and a good set of coax, or even another set of components in the rear door.
Subs in the far back. No rea/rear speakers.

I def wasnt arguing FOR putting in rear/rears over rear doors.. i just know we ALL like to crank the volume and having extra "sound" in the car.. means NOT having to crank an ass ton of "noise" into it..

I run almost exclusively Focal and i try to build SQ as a primary goal in everything i do... and in the Jag we had a total of 18 highs/tweets (2 were paper cone 7s) and 3 12s sealed. and honestly.. pure clean heaven in that car.. was listening to it at about 12 of 40 (vol) and it sounding like there were NO speakers.. like the sound was almost coming from inside your head..

Dont get me wrong.. it would play at 40.. and you could dance to it from 300 yards away.. lol.. but i built it to play at 12.. and you to not be able to tell where a single note was coming from or have a single pan or scan , drop off or spike in tone range.


And trace youre right.. the rear sixs were in the arm rest but they were aimed at the windsheild.. and the rear deck were paper 7s faced up against the rear glass and focused to the back of the drive and passenger seats.

 

[blueflamed03]

here's a great way to get that stage up

 

[BigDaddy13440]

As a former installer, I'd recommend a good set of components in the front doors, with good midbass (down to 80hz or so) to present an accurate soundstage as your primary goal. If you want a sound that "surrounds" you a bit, I'd put a component set in the rear doors, but attenuate them about 3db. For the rear passengers, the difference in pathlength from the front doors to the rear doors would get them to about the same volume amd still present a decent soundstage, while providing an adequate rear fill for the front seats.

For subs, I'd cross them over at no higher than 60hz, as they can start to be directional at higher frequencies. Me, I've got a pair of 10's in the bottom of my center console between the front seats, I really don't even need the 15's I have in the rear to get a good sounding system. The 10's are in a 2 cu ft box, ported to 38 hz, crossed over at 120hz to localize them up front, but have a subsonic filter in the amp at 40hz. I can boost the bass up to get them to boom, but that's not the intention - I want the front stage CLEAN.


You CAN spend $$$$$$$ on an extremely loud system, but how clean will it be? Remember, a good installer can tune and tweak a cheap system to sound great, but a hack can royally **** up some high-end gear and make it sound like shit - all about the install.