Help me out with car audio?

global33

global33

global33

Associate
Joined
17 Dec 2010
Posts
10
I've recently got a Mk3 Mondeo and want to improve things sound wise. I've looked on dedicated forums and the impression is you have to spend stupid amounts of money. I'm sure there must be a middle ground so hoping I may be able to find some more help here.

On my last motor my experiments were not a success. I thought a new pair of speakers would be better then what I had and the only way I could use the bluetooth on the new head unit was to have the mic hanging of my collar.

Budget this time is a bit higher. I'm thinking £250 to £300 for a headunit, 2 channel amp and set of speakers (plus wiring adapters and facia etc). I can live without a sub. Luckily I can get installed by the place.

For starters what kind of sound would this be like?

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-spg-17c2

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/amplifiers/two-channel-amps/bbx-t600-2-channel-amplifier
 
buy a better car tbh. a lot of better cars have amazing OEM sound systems.

spending £500-£1000 on a car to upgrade it's sound is IMO a waste of money.

i did a reverse cable mod on our car and fitted a parrot kit. it improved the sound considerably. it cost about £300 all in but thats because i bought the top of the range parrot kit and got it installed remotely (at my work whilst I was in the office). i had to do it for bluetooth so i thought why not spend a few quid more for the mod (which is specific to the type of car i have so nobody else can do it unless they own the same model).

how much time do you spend in your car? i spend maybe 30-40 mins a day.

i'd rather spend £1000 on a home speaker setup where i can enjoy music for you know several hours.
 
I've just bought this motor :D

I've also got a home system I like consisting of an ancient sony amp and some floor standers which still seems better then many modern setups mates have. Thing is I actually listen to music in the car as opposed to just having it on in the back ground like I often do at home. I'm not in the car every day, but regularly do two to three hour journeys.

I also didn't say i was spending that much, but about £300 to replace a 10 year old ford audio system. Still I'm interested in the parrot you have as I've read very mixed reviews about many of them, but the starting point for all this is bluetooth. Also what the hell is a reverse cable mod?
 
global33 said:
I've just bought this motor :D

I've also got a home system I like consisting of an ancient sony amp and some floor standers which still seems better then many modern setups mates have. Thing is I actually listen to music in the car as opposed to just having it on in the back ground like I often do at home. I'm not in the car every day, but regularly do two to three hour journeys.

I also didn't say i was spending that much, but about £300 to replace a 10 year old ford audio system. Still I'm interested in the parrot you have as I've read very mixed reviews about many of them, but the starting point for all this is bluetooth. Also what the hell is a reverse cable mod?
Click to expand...

basically my car has 6x9's in the back and components in the front.

the 6x9's handle bass better than the components can as they are bigger.

so reversed the audio which went to the front to the back and the back to the front. as standard the car had full audio range to the front and just treble to the back. by reversing them the bass was a lot better and basically the audio system went from sounding terrible to brilliant as a result as the speakers were now playing sounds that suited what they were built for. it's amazing the company didn't do this as standard (complete oversight by the manufacturer or maybe they do this on purpose to push their harmon kardon add on system?).


this is the cars OEM stock setup. all i had to do was order a harness adapter with the cable mod built in which the parrot kit installer used to hook the system up.

you could do the mod yourself though by removing panels from the doors and switching the wires on my specific model of car too if you didn't want to buy a modded harness.

basically the mod could be done on my car if your handy with wiring for free. i was honestly looking at spending hundreds on upgrading the speakers they were that bad. the mod completely changed my mind on that.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
buy a better car tbh. a lot of better cars have amazing OEM sound systems.
Click to expand...

You might as well not bother spending any money on any car ever. Need new brake discs and pads... buy a new car.

spending £500-£1000 on a car to upgrade it's sound is IMO a waste of money.
Click to expand...

True... if audio isn't a priority... but then you don't need to spend a load for a decent sounding car system. My home hi-fi consists of Yamaha/NAD amplification and B&W speakers and even I wouldn't spend £1000 on car audio.

My install consists of a £150 Pioneer bluetooth headunit (X9600-BT), £120 JBL GTO-3EZ 3 channel amplifier and some Vibe component speakers (not my choice, they were already installed). I have a 12" Directed subwoofer in the boot in a ported enclosure tuned to 40Hz, although an 8 or 10" subwoofer in a smaller enclosure would do just as well.

Don't forget, the subwoofer is just there for filling in... you don't need anything really powerful just to help out where the speakers can't reach.

I don't have the rear speakers connected AT ALL, just a complete front soundstage that is powerful and weighty. It goes loud and sounds pretty good. My planned upgrades are to add sound deadening to the front doors and replace with some better components, but these cheap Vibe speakers do a very good job.

You really do not need to spend a lot of money... it's all about how well you set it up. Get rid of the rear speakers, add a small sub (I have been known to use rear 6x9s as subwoofers until I blew them to bits with a JBL 601.1) for a nice complete sound.

My bluetooth microphone is sat just in front of the instrument cluster and picks up my voice perfectly. The installation is tidy and functional.
 
Thanks for suggestions and ideas...but its generating more questions I'm afraid!

How vital do you think a sub is? You mention it's just for filling in...It would be a fair saving to get just a two channel amp and speakers and maybe with some of the saving buy slightly better speakers. At home I don't have a separate sub, but then my Sony floor standers are a lot bigger then car speakers!

Any sub would have to go under a seat, so maybe an active sub could be added at another point if things are lacking.

Pioneer seem to make some nice stereos. I popped into Halfords today, not to buy, but have a look and was surprised I could a touch screen double din unit for not much. It looked lower res then more expensive units, but still could look good in the Mondeo.

155246
 
I've ran with and without a subwoofer and always end up going back to the sub (I am a bit of a bass head though). As you mentioned, your home speakers are in much bigger cabinets, not to mention being made of pretty decent quality wood. Remove the woofer from the cabinet and you'll have next to no bass output as there will be no seperation between the front and rear of the speaker.

Now, fix the speakers into a car door and you'll find yourself fixing a moving object that exerts a lot of energy (the speaker) onto a thin piece of metal with lots of access holes. These access holes won't allow the speaker to build any air pressure between the front and back of the speaker. The result is a sound lacking in any decent bass output.

By all means, install a better headunit and give it a try (I've seen big improvements from just a headunit change in my girlfriend's Mini). Adding a seperate amplifier will improve this even further, as will good quality speakers. Finally, sound deadening will allow you to get the best out of your equipment. You basically want to block up any large access holes in the door to improve the seperation between the front and rear of the speaker. Budget permitting, I'd say that adding a new headunit (£150), amplifier (£100), new speakers (£100) and sound deadening (£50) would be a very worthwhile upgrade... and you can take it all with you (bar the deadening) when you change cars.

What works for one person won't nessescarily work for another however, it depends what you want and how much you want to spend.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom