Lets talk car audio

[The Tasmanian]

Gents - I have a reasonable Pioneer stereo in my van that I put in recently - but the speakers face the windscreen and give a absolute horror upper mid resonance that I may as well have left the stock radio in it. Its THAT bad that I will never listen to music.
So I want to purchase a pair of boxes for the rear of the car to house 2 x 6x9 speakers facing the front so I can at least enjoy listening to music...you know how it is....
Ive been trying to find info on good car speakers - and looking on the bay and am surprised that there are all these 5 way speakers - 5 WAY? - in one 6inch x 9 inch speaker? WTF?
Super tweeters and all that super high enhanced eq in the systems - so far removed from reality....
Does anyone know a good brand 2 way speaker that I can lean towards? I don't want hyped on steroids sounds - just flat and as real as can be.
...just a simple average good sounding set of speakers
Any suggestions welcome - I do want to check my mixes here and get to know the van as an "auditorium"
Maybe I should retire a set of nearfields and hang them from the roof?

[JamesM]

The focal stuff gets a good wrap

http://www.focal.com/en/car-audio-sound/

[Ben M]

Pimpin yer ride Chris? heyho

You could grab 2 brackets from the hardware and mount some old 2 way nearfields/small bookshelf/auratones?? Garage sale speakers??

I've heard some small bookshelf speakers in a van and they sounded quite good (better than the built in car stereo ones anyway). Needs a good bracket to suit and some metal tek screws.

Then it's only one step away from mags, built in 22" LCD monitor and 18" sub....

[jkhuri44]

car audio eh...

JBL and JVC make some good stuff.

I would stick an 18" kicker sub in that van of yours, would be wicked

you can actually go to JB hifi and get an amp, 4 speakers, a 12" sub, all that sounds pretty bumping for 1K. will give u a pretty good "hoon in a car" experience for not much coin. perfect for tassie to sydney trips!

will put some more info up later on as the brands come to me.

[Ben M]

The full catastrophe.

van.jpg

[jkhuri44]

thats is properly retarded...ffs *facepalm*

the big trucks at car audio shows are epic tho....never been kicked in the nuts like that.

[Ben M]

I don't buy into hifi at all, car or other. It's always hyped top and bottom.
You'll feel more comfy with something that's closer to flat. Just gotta match up the ohmage.

[The Tasmanian]

Yeah Bro - I'm PIMPIN!
I love my van -Turbo Diesel, incredibly economical, I go away in her, 100% tax deductable - I sleep in her and she's my whore!
I looked at the Focals and they are out of my budget
My Auraones wont cut it for pimpin
Looking into Nakamichi's

Ben - my van is a touch more understated than that particular bitch.....3inch speakers in the dash!
Yo Yo Yo Word!

[jkhuri44]

do naka still do speakers?

[The Tasmanian]

Yeah everything ive heard is hyped to the max - and that's why I want 2 way speakers - no supertweeter bling for my ears - although a sub may be an addition once I get my "nearfields" right.
But I do a shitload of driving from Syd to Tas, south coast NSW, Newcastle etc, and can only cope with AM ABC radio - at least it keeps me awake.
But I do have plans for the Kimberly's and NT next year - so a full ipod and some nice speakers will go down a treat as i throw in a line and catch a threadfin salmon - or a barra and put it straight on the barbie.
And Jamil - thanks for those cool tracks - I'm starting to get through them, and they will surely be on the ipod!

[The Tasmanian]

Yes - Naka do car speakers - hardly any though - which is promising

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Nakamichi-6x ... 4aab89f9f6

May have to snip the wire on the 2nd tweeter - or even solder in a tiny pad on it if its too bling

[rick]

go to the wes components site read up buy wholesale install your self
start in the scanspeak pages

[The Tasmanian]

Now were talking!
There is some good stuff in there.
Time to do a DIY danish speaker set I reckon - get out the tools!
Thanks Rick

[rick]

Off coarse i have done this as well
Chris you will figure it out no worries

When i sold the futura it had a diy
PMC stereo system in it
World first

I am going to replace the futura with a rolls royce
And i will be going to wes for the speakers
I wish !

[heathen]

The only thing I know about car audio is I'm not buying a car that has a big sub in the boot, the engine is almost guaranteed to be near death. Sure the audio would pump though. Hmm actuall if I had a new Falcon GT I'd rather listen to the engine, ohhhh yeah!!

[Chris H]

When I was moving I had a mate's van with the 3 inch speakers in the door for the week............... so to make the move less painful I strapped my pair of JBL Decade 26 speakers to the mesh behind the cab and ran the stereo through a clarion power amp to give it enough grunt. Also ran the iPhone straight into the RCA inputs of the amp. Did the job. Tony Joe White became the favorite for the move. The speakers cost me $50 and a further $80 each to replace the rubber speaker surround.

[The Tasmanian]

Hey Chris - I was thinking the same thing today - by the time I buy some good drivers etc - I could get some really nice old speakers and turn the van into a loungeroom!.
Found this site:
http://www.speakerbits.com/orphans-clea ... ducts.html
some nice old boxes here....

[Ben M]

yoyoyo, sup?!
In the meantime.... 4 layers of tissues (NS10 tweeter style) on the current speakers facing the window. You know...Just until you get the full pimpin lounge cinema installed.


C U L8er homies
Word

[The Tasmanian]

Hip Hopper's and rappers don't use tissues Ben
if I cut a bra in half - one cup on each speaker - might be the right move

[Mazystar]

6x9 are a bad idea, especially from behind. i have a mazda van and did a custom install with Dynaudio (Car version) splits, tweeter and driver seperate, mounted in the door panels, and a image dynamics sub (Check out the classifieds at the site below) not doof doof, more about sound quality. Stay clear of all in one speakers e.g. driver and tweets together, there crap! check out this website http://www.mobileelectronics.com.au/forums/

Thats unless you just want cheap and nasty?

Car audio crew are a whole notha breed, especially the sound quality freaks

[Mazystar]

Watch out for all the fake speakers on fleabay! I paid about $650 for my dyns new (legit), make sure you know the mounting depth in your doors (or dash) before you purchase speakers, to ensure you have enough clearence. I have to say my wife was mortified that i would spend $1000 on a car stereo....' and what the f..k do we need a sub for???? i hate subs!!!, she cant stand driving in the car without the sub now, it rocks!!
i had to do a whole lot of DIY fibreglassing mounts and so forth as the mazda was a pain in the ass with the amount of depth and i was to tight to spend the money on paying for the full install. but the effort was all worth it in the end. Mobile Electronics Australia will sort you out with all the information you need to know before you spend a sent and you can pick up some awesome deals in the classifieds for top shelf product!

[Paul Maybury]

Diffusers on the windscreen. Made of perspex, for safety.

[Drumstruck]

Ok - you got the spkrs, you got the amp, you got the sub.....

Now what mics are you going to put on the exhaust and turbo?

[Ben M]

How did this turn out Chris? What system did you put in the van?

Anything like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... eX6G2wkkAw

[The Tasmanian]

HA HA Ben!
Love the recording! Its certainly got the brown notes - and inspired me for a new hiphop low end flatulence bass line.
I do think that girl will need to change her panties after that!
I'm still looking for speakers - leaning towards finding some good old small stereo speakers somewhere...

[Ben M]

A set of bookshelf speakers from the local tip isn't a bad place to start. Probably not what you're ultimately after Chris but it could be a good way to test if you like the mounting positions, wiring and any troubleshooting before popping in something of worth.

Just thoughts...

[The Tasmanian]

Exactly what I'm thinking - my current budget will cope with the tip shop (I was even looking at my local one today)
I've now decided that I dont need to have the best speakers - just something ordinary so I can listen like a pleb.
Unless I get a 1/4 million album budget.... then I'll do something similar to that you-tube clip and drive with nappies.

[Trent Griggs]

What Mazystar said.

Get splits, not coaxials. 6x9's are usually wooly, and the tops are harsh and undefined. That won't do for someone with your discerning ear.

Having building skills, you could easily make new door panels from MDF and sound treat them accordingly, then upholster over the top once treated, all very cheaply, and make a large difference to the performance. Even 6x9's will work better in a treated door panel.
If they are still around, Stinger audio make a paint I guess you could call it, that once applied to the desired surface makes it dead.
This was shown to me in my local car audio shop I was offered a job at when I was 17 (gees,15 years ago already). They had 2 square pieces of tin. One untreated. The other had one side treated with the paint that sets thick and hard and kind of resinous. If you flicked the untreated one with your finger nail it pinged and resonated. If you did it to the treated one it was dead as. Nothing.

Treating the back side of a door panel with this stuff would be enough for sure, but if you did both sides it would be a drastic improvement.
Shit speakers in door panels treated like that would usually perform better than more expensive ones screwed straight into a factory panel.

If mounting depth is a problem you can make custom speaker pods also out of MDF. The builder who did the install on my beloved V.G Valiant which is no longer with us showed me how he did this. He just cut a few Rings of one inch thick MDF, glued them together to the appropriate height to take the magnet and mount the speaker flush. Shaped the pods with routing tools I presume, smoothed them over with Builders bog. Screwed them to the new door panels he made from MDF, and then upholstered them for me. They looked great, very modern. But more importantly it sounded SO much better.

The car audio place was always complimenting me on them when ever I was in there spending money. The custom panels and pods they made were BUDGET!!! They obviousley wouldn't have made any money spending that amount of time on their install jobs. They were expensive too. They had a good racket going on while it lasted. Not there anymore. The arse fell out of it when Ipod's came out.
I spent $4000 on that system, also a Pioneer head unit.

Me and my dad built a whole new boot out of MDF, again 1" from memory. I had a 15" JBL sub in a huge box firing straight into the back seat. This sat behind the front panel of the boot, on which my 2 amplifiers were mounted.

Man, I miss those days. I really miss that car

They don't make em like that anymore. Really fun stuff for a kid to do with his dad.

Speaking of amps, you'd do better to run a set of splits off say a good 2x50watt amp. The ones built in the head units aren't much chop. Maybe okay if you were running 4 and 1/4 " coaxials, but even then... If you want 6 " splits they will sound better being driven off an amp. You'll always be running them at maxed out headroom if they are being driven from the head unit.

If you want to run a sub later get a 4ch amp, and bridge 2 channels of 50watt into the sub, the other 2 ch driving the splits.

You'd have to do a lot of sound treatment to the back of that van for it to not sound like booming wool though.


It's been so long since I've thought about any of this stuff. It's all I used to be able to think about as a kid. I left it behind to pursue Guitar amplifiers, and Guitar Amplifiers led me to the Studio, and the Studio has led me here.

This Forum is so refreshing, they are usually so very boring, and also un helpful.

Good on ya's