Easy to fit...

TheDean

TheDean

TheDean

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...a new head unit & speakers in a '98 Corsa 1.4?

All my hopes and dreams of getting a lovely Focus have been dashed on the rocks. The money I have saved has been put towards a house deposit. Probably a lot more sensible financially, but I am a bit disappointed.

Decided the only way to cheer myself up is to buy a new head unit for it with some decent speakers. The key here is value for money. I don't mind spending a bit more on quality, but I actually only paid £250 for the car! Autotrader does say it's worth about £1.2k though, so may have got a reasonable deal I suppose.

I was also thinking it would be handy to stream music to the head unit using Bluetooth as I am contemplating a iPhone 3GS.

Budget is about £350 / £400.

Cheers
 
No way in hell is a 1998 1.4 corsa worth £1.2k.

If you are contemplating an iPhone, then get either a pioneer or alpine with iPod connection. I'd say go with pioneer personally.

You can get a compatible HU for £120-150, leaving you enough cash left over for some decent component speakers/tweeters.
 
Agreed, BT sound quality is going to be pretty poor.

Agreed again about Pioneer or Alpine, personally I'd go with Alpine though - one of the X series (then I'm biased)
 
Matt82 said:
forget the £300 stereo, save a little more and pop a 2.0 into your vauxhall death box
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Yes...and watch the insurance go through the roof, and me probably through the windscreen!!! :)

We'll start with the stereo first I think. But, how much would the 2L cost [just out of interest ;) ]
 
Any model recomendations specifically for head units and speakers? WIll I need an extra amp? I don't want stupid bass or anything like that, just a well rounded sound which can handle all different genres of music
 
Amoeba said:
Whilst I do recommend this (I have it!), perhaps with your budget I would get something cheaper and spend the rest on speakers?
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Proably a good idea! Not sure I like the look of that either...something more understated would be better I think.

Any thoughts on speakers as well? How much would it cost to get someone else to fit the lot?
 
iaind said:
Agreed, BT sound quality is going to be pretty poor.
Click to expand...

Sound through the iPhone through A2DP really isnt that bad at all, I'm more than happy with it going to my Sony BT head unit, I suggest the chap go to a car audio place and ask them to test between a hard ipod connection and a2dp.
 
I love my Alpine, it's a shame the single line segment display makes browsing my iPod a bit of a pain. As for sound quality, it's fantastic.
 
A friend has an older version of the one I posted above - the 2 line matrix display makes browsing really straight forward.

Of course the colour TFT on the X series makes it about as simple as the ipod itself!
 
TheDean said:
Proably a good idea! Not sure I like the look of that either...something more understated would be better I think.

Any thoughts on speakers as well? How much would it cost to get someone else to fit the lot?
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Re speakers I would be looking at JL, Raindow and DLS:

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/audio-evolution-vr650csi-p-7297.html
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/dls-c6a-p-5803.html
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/rainbow-slx265-deluxe-p-3852.html

I would recommend the JLs (having a set of the Evolution C5-650s) but really any of those would be good.

As far as fitting goes, if you feel happy with taking your door cards off and working out a way of getting speaker cables into your doors then I think you will be fine. This can be tricky though! (had to take the doors off on my car!!). You might also want to fabricate a mounting ring out of MDF, so the drivers aren't mounted directly onto the metal.
 
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TheDean said:
The green looks a bit odd, I think I'd prefer something more like this http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/pioneer-deh6100bt-p-7392.html?cadid=bk5tcqdpqk1c0c170fc9erp691. Are Alpine all that good?
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If that head unit is like my one the lil green lights can be changed to red, blue and orange.

I put a new alpine head unit into my Rover 200 and it improved the sound quite a bit. Then i changed the speakers to some blaupunkt coaxials which further improved it - but then after researching i found that components are much better so I fitted those.

Taking door cards off and creating MDF baffles can be time consuming. Maybe when the door cards are off you should consider putting some sound deadening onto the door?
 
Ok,

Narrowed it down to these head units:
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-cde9882ri-p-6423.html?cadid=bk5tcqdpqk1c0c170fc9erp691
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-cde9880r-p-6422.html?cadid=bk5tcqdpqk1c0c170fc9erp691
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-cde103bt-p-7167.html

and

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/pioneer-dehp5100ub-p-7307.html

This last one looks to be the best bet as I'd probably find the USB imput really useful for chucking tunes onto my pendrive and using that. Unless it is significantly worse than the ones above, thinking that may well be the one.

As for speakers, I still have no idea. As I said, I just want a balanced sound and not horrendous amounts of bass or anything like that.

Any more thoughts on speaker sets? Do the tweeters go in the front and the mid range ones in the back? I have no idea...although I have found a mate of a mate to fit it all for me :)
 
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