Sound Systems...

[Jason84NA2T]

Steve88t wrote: /me thinks you'll be less impressed with polk than you think if you compare

I spent nearly an hour comparing the speakers in stock at best buy and circuit city to decide. I really like the sound quality produced by the Polk db 650's, I think they are a fairly high quality speaker. Now, the price IS a tad on the high side.

The MOMO version offers some "advantages" for an even bigger pricetag:

• carbon fiber cone (whoop)
• swiveling 1" silk tweeter (advantage for position-limited cars like the Z31)
• cast aluminum basket (whoop)
• more power handling (whoop)
• outboard crossover (nice to have, I suppose)

I'm with Steve on this. Go and listen to what sounds best to you. I already had a Pioneer 7200 head unit used from a friend, so I tested all the speakers behind a newer 7400 (which uses about the same amp) at the time I went in to pick out speakers.

[MachZ]

Speakers and amps:

Elemental Designs

They make some incredible speakers and amps. The sound quality of them are top notch, they can play as loud as you want them to, the prices are very hard to beat, etc. etc. I'm using two of their 7 inch "subwoofers" and these things will play deeper bass than my 18 inch subwoofer.

Their customer service is top notch as well. They'll help you out right away if something goes wrong... and speaking of something going wrong... all of their speakers and amps are covered under a 3 year warranty directly from them.

I could go on about them but you'll just have to check them out. I know from now on I'll only be putting their stuff in my cars.


As for a head unit... I have an Alpine and I hate it. For the price paid (around $400 at the time) its an absolute piece of junk. Sounds decent and everything, but has no control. I can change the bass and highs and that's it. Its like Alpine tries to force you into buying an external equalizer when with current technology most headunits can have them built right in. On top of that, the lights they use for their buttons are way too bright and don't dim at all making night driving with it on annoying at best.

Needless to say, I'll likely never buy an Alpine again and will probably switch to Pioneer. I've always liked Pioneer and they have some pretty awesome stuff out right now at the right price.

[Steve88t]

MachZ wrote:

Its like Alpine tries to force you into buying an external equalizer when with current technology most headunits can have them built right in.

You know most people need an equalizer to compensate for poor component selection or installation? The most musical sounding car stereos I've ever heard had little or NO equalization. Seriously......

EQ is fine and great and shit, but most head units that include an internal eq have a shitty implementation and thus phase issues, unmanagable slopes and/or peaks, and other more nasty problems.

Again what do you want, music or noise?

[MachZ]

I want my mids back.

The reason I need an equalizer is because of some poor choices done by whomever mixed the cd's in the first place... say for instance who ever does Staind's cd's. There's way too much mid and high and not enough low. I like having an equilizer to fix all of that.

The equalizers in the head units that I'm speaking of have full control, not those crappy pre-set eq's... those are worthless most of the time.

Anyways... in the end its moreso just to the ear of the person listening. I prefer to have some adjustment so that I can fine tune everything to what sounds good to me. If flat sounds good to you... then flat sounds good to you. Nothing wrong with that at all, its all personal preference.

What I hate about my Alpine is that I can adjust bass and treble... but I have no control over the mids whatsoever, which is where a lot of the meat of the music is in my opinion. Not having control over that gets me bent out of shape quickly. :lol:

[G-E]

I agree about the cd mixing.... metallica cds are awful too, they drone and resonate but at the same time have too much shrill stuff that you can't just turn down the bass or up the treble

every cd I burn I re-equalize everything, and that's after careful selection of songs in the first place, have to change volume too, different frequencies feel louder than others, so when one song has a lot of bass and the next doesn't you might hear one well and the other will disappear in the background

I have to redo my smashing pumpykins greatest hits cd, 2 songs have developed a pop and there's two songs that have too much mid-bass for some speakers.... like my cousin's audi, you can hear the speakers flapping heh

[Steve88t]

I hate flat sound. I hate most digital sound processors. I hate most modern songs recordings and mixings.

I LOVE MUSIC! PERIOD!

My statements do not imply I like "flat music". It implies I like it when a stereo is properly designed and installed so you dont have to eq the shit out of it to overcome its shortcomings. Flat is the best way if done so.

And regardless of your eq capabilities, most are still poorly implemented. Adjustable everything doesn't make it any better.

And I dont mean to sound "critical" of anything said here or anyones opinions. I mean to say that a stereo is best selected to the users ears and lots of processing is bad. Otherwise I love being able to help people find the sounds that make them enjoy themselves.

[WhiteZ31]

i think that is what i will do go to a local best buy or whatever but like i was saying i just wanted to do a whole momo interior

[Rob-84AE]

My review of stuff that I own.


In my Z:

Fronts:

Head Unit - Factory HU with a Sony 10 disk changers added. I've had this thing in for at least 15 years and have never had a problem. I would have recommended it to anyone. Too bad Sony is now garbage.

Speakers - MB Q Q-series components 6.5. Sounds good (Highs are a bit bright) but for the money (I think they were ~1,000.00 for the set) I'm not that impressed. Plus I've heard that they have been sold and their new stuff is inferior.
Amp - RF Anniv. Punch 150. @ close to 300 WRMS X 2 this amp is real over kill for the components but does a terrific job (Clean sound, no distortion).

Rear:

Speakers - MQ Quarts Premium component 6.5. Had to cut the factory surrounds to get them to fit and not sure how they sound since I have them turned down so low (rear fill only). If were to redo the stereo, I would leave the rear speakers out. They really do nothing for SQ and ruin staging.
Amp - Old school RF Punch 150. This is one bad ass little (late 80s, early 90s model) amp. If you were looking to buy a used amp on eBay, this would be a great choice. I had these driving subs in my other car (see below) for a long time and they were fantastic. Now they are ony being used for rear fill so they are kind of superfluous.


Subs:

Single 10" DVC 2 ohm Image Dynamic IDQ. Fantastic sub if you are looking for something in the 350 W range. I'm putting closer to 600 WRMS to it and they pound.
Amp - RF Anniv. Punch 75. Does a great job of driving the above-mentioned sub. Puts out over 600 WRMS X 1.


Other car:

Head Unit - Alpine (don't know the model number and am not at home to look) H/U is about 10 years old but I started having problems with it after 2 years. It has a hard time reading CDs. It is in a car that is driven less than 1000/year so I thing this is unacceptable.

Fronts - MQ Quarts Q-Series. Same MQ Quarts that are in the Z but they sound like shit in this car. Highs are so bright that they will make your ears bleed. And they were expensive, so stay away from MB Qs (IMO).

Amps - I'm going to combine all the amps here because I think the same of all of they. All three are Alpine with ~ 150 WRMS X 2 to the front, 100 WRMS X2 for rear fill, and 500 W RMS X1 @ 2 ohms for the sub. I'm incredibly disappointed with all of these amps. They seems like they are putting out half of their stated power. I had the old school RF Punch 150 (now in the Z) in this car and removed it to put in the Alpine MRD-M500 and SQ and output both went down even though the Alpine should have been putting out at least 100 WRMS more. Not sure why so many people have a hard on for Alpine. I am not impressed.

Subs - 2 JL Audio 8W6 DVC 6 ohm in a custom box. Average subs at best. Very forgettable. I disagree with the above comment that a single 8" can sound a good as a 10" or 12" sub. All things being equal, each increase in size will result in more air being moved (more bass). Plus, a 10 in a correctly designed sealed box will be tight and accurate. I hate these "8 subs and will probable get rid of them and get a single 10 someday.

Daily Driver:

All factory but with a JL Audio 10W6V2 being driven by a JL Audio 500/1. Sounds OK but I can't help but be disappointed after all the hype about JL Audio. If I could go back in time, for the money, I would look elsewhere.



I have not heard any of the Polk/Mono stuff so I can't comment on their quality. From past experiences though, I think I would do more research before spending $2000.00 on it. In 20 years that stuff will not look classic but will look like outdated bling.

From what I have read, Image Dynamics and Elemental Designs are both unbeatable when it comes to price and quality. If you do a search on http://bimmerforums.com for Elemental Designs, you can use the forums discount to get an additional 15% off direct from ED.

[280Z Turbo]

I have an Aiwa head unit in my Z, which is basically a stripped down high quality Sony head unit. It doesn't play MP3, WAV, AAC, ATRAC3plus or FJHLJHSDHSLTBBQ, but it does have a volume knob (as opposed to buttons) and a front mounted auxilary input.

If you look in the Crutchfield catalog, you can see that as far as power and sound quality goes, it's a very good value! I got mine for just $80!

For some reason, Crutchfield stopped selling it a few months ago. It's a shame, because it is an awesome radio for the price.

Here it is in my old daily driver Ford Ranger:

[green300zx]

Honestly if you just want a clean very nice surprisingly loud bass for good price go with 2 10inch jbl 500s in a lightly ported box put all the way at the back of your hatch by the bake lights with the subs facing the brake lights sounds beautifull

[Mitchd03]

green300zx wrote: Honestly if you just want a clean very nice surprisingly loud bass for good price go with 2 10inch jbl 500s in a lightly ported box put all the way at the back of your hatch by the bake lights with the subs facing the brake lights sounds beautifull

How do you "lightly" port a box? Also this thread was 6 years old :nanan?re

[green300zx]

[quote]Mitchd03 wrote:

Honestly if you just want a clean very nice surprisingly loud bass for good price go with 2 10inch jbl 500s in a lightly ported box put all the way at the back of your hatch by the bake lights with the subs facing the brake lights sounds beautifull
How do you "lightly" port a box? Also this thread was 6 years old :nanan?re

i dont care that its 6 yrs old. doesnt mean you cant continue with it if you have good info on it

and you know how boxes have the long square port holes thats alot of port hole but the boxes but the ones with the single small circle port hole is what i mean by a lightly ported box

[85300zxnissian]

I have rockford 6.5s and a rockford p3 12in. sub. I prefer Rockford Fosgate and Sony as a step down. Would got a T2 but its expensive.

[green300zx]

85300zxnissian wrote: I have rockford 6.5s and a rockford p3 12in. sub. I prefer Rockford Fosgate and Sony as a step down. Would got a T2 but its expensive.

dam sounds like a nice setup i use to have rockford 12s but that was a long time ago i loved those things

[G-E]

I find that having a neutral sounding headunit makes a bigger difference than the speakers... it will help point out deficiencies like flat spots in the speaker's range, but the effect will be less annoying than overpowering them

Older pioneer and jvc believe it or not had fairly neutral output, not over amped and bass boosted like the cheese that came later from consumer grade kenwood and sony, and I agree about alpine being overpriced garbage

THEN you can hook up any reference speakers from any brand to get a good baseline to tune from