I'm going to be honest I don't know much about car audio.

I was looking around at brands I remember form a while ago like Audiobahn, Kicker, Rockford Fosgate, Kenwood, ect..

a short look on google and a lot of people say Audiobahn isn't good anymore, and one site said they went out of business....
so to say the least I'm confused as to what I should get.

If I read right I need 4" speakers for the front and 6" for the back towers.(is that right)

I was thinking to get 4" full range speakers for the front and maybe a 6" component system for the back(like this Kicker DS600.2

staticguitar313 said on another thread he put 8" subs in the towers.. what kind of modding do you guys think that would take?

I am on a budget so cheaper is nicer for me.

 

Ive done about 5 different audio configurations over the past 10 years in my personal FC's. A top facing sub in the hatch sounds great because of the acustics off the hatch glass. If you are not willing to give up that space then custom 8" in the rear shock towers are an option. The more popular option is to take out one of the storage boxes and build a sub in there. 4's in the doors/under dash and 6's in the towers is ideal.

As far as brands go.... just take a look at what is for sale at your local audio store (car toys for example) and compare how they all sound for yourself. Most stuff sold at places like that will be decent quality. You will find some cheap **** at auto zone and schucks.

 

well with out doing a bit of modding now that I looked again, my options are 4x 4" or put 8" sub's in the back towers.

I don't have storage boxes in the back, I have what Mazda calls back seats, lol.

I'm thinking about some kicker KS400's in the front, then either 2x kicker 07C84's (8" sub's, I would try to get an amp for them if I did this.) or 2 x kicker KS600's or KS650's (would take some modding), or if my budget gets hit again just 4x KS400's.

with a SONY CDX-GT920U head unit.

my budget is a bit limited so adding a sub/amp etc. would have to come later if I went the 6", 6.5", or 4x 4" speaker way.

any suggestions? I'm all ears, lol

 

start taking your car apart, its not hard. I ran my own wires and installed my own speakers in my car, not hard at all. you learn as you go.

 

i think for the best sound quality in car audio is pioneer,,,, I currently have a pioneer avic z3 which looks and sounds amazing,,,, i did think about the sub in the hatch but not as young as i use to and dont think ill be going to any car shows,,,LOL.
You just have to play around with what you want the audio to sound like?

 

+1. Running all new speaker wire makes a difference. And use qood quality wire with low guage.

 

HOLY SH!% IT'S IVAN OOZE, EVERYBODY RUN!!! lol

I plan to do it my self, I will start pulling it apart after I order the stuff.(still got to get the car smoged/registered)

I have looked into pioneer, but the ones that I would want to get are too pricey for my budget.

for right now I'm thinking...
2x Kicker KS400's for the front and 2x Kicker KS650's for the towers.
or
2x Rockford Fosgate Power T142C's for the front and 2x Rockford Fosgate Power T162C's for the back
or
2x Infinity Reference 4022i's for the front and 2x Infinity Kappa 652.9i for the back

IDK what to get, it turns out I'm pushing my budget with these set-ups.

+ is 12gauge wire good? I used 14gauge wire to set up a cupple of home theater systems for friends and it worked out great....but my logic is telling me to go for 12 gauge for that added strength...am I right?

 

well, the head unit and speakers are going to wait for a cupple of weeks because I went and bought a 2x 12" 1200w sub system....ya I know over kill but I got it for a good deal.

 

I use http://www.crutchfield.com/p_1366W3V...ures_and_specs

JL 6 1/2in. subs for the rear shock towers, which perform excellently hooked up to an amp at about 130-140w RMS @ 4ohm. I had to use a 3/4" spacer for them to fit, any audio shop should have them for a 6 1/2" for around $10.

and my 1990 GTU uses doors dash and tower speakers, but your dash would be 4" I believe, so I would go with http://www.crutchfield.com/p_1086032...2si.html?tp=95

You don't want to cheap out of 4" speakers, they suck enough as it is, and the $30-40 pairs sound terribad. So I would dish out the little extra and get something that can handle what you throw at it, as well as last awile.

As for speaker wire, the lowest I would go is 14ga, or you'll have too much wire to run too little power through, 12-14ga is big enough for most 15" subs, let alone small components. I use 16ga for my shock tower and door speakers, and it performs great.

One thing you might wanna do is find some capacitors or "bass blockers" for your 4" to lower the amount going to them, or else you'll end up overpowering your poor little speakers when trying to add more for the bigger ones.

 

thanks for the heads up on the wire.

any reason why I should get the shallow mount over the regular ones? (Infinity Reference 6032cf's)

ya I figure I had better not cheap out on the 4"-ers. would these bassblocker's be good enough? (frequency wise?)

 

Because my doors in my 1990 GTU have exactly 2 1/4" depth from edge to window, 2" with the bar, so they need to be smaller than that.

Yeah, the bass blockers are fine, thats about right, you want it around that.

 

just a tip, Crutchfield included free instructions for stereo install for the FC when i bought osme audio stuff from them, it was very informative, didn't need it but it was good.

 

cool, well I don't have door speakers, so I'm guessing that the non-shallow ones will be as good if not better...right? (that is if I decide to go with Infinity)

good to know, but I'm not new to hooking up speakers/ radios....just car stereos. which don't look hard at all.

 

Whel, full-sized retain all of their base, shallow speakers tend to 'get rid of' the bass in sacrifice for a smaller fitting.

As for hooking up speakers and stereos, its a little different but not much, I am in no way doubting your ability to hook them up, just be careful the difference between parallel and series when wiring an amp and speakers and what not, as well as RMS vs maxx wattage, makes big difference. I'll help you in the best way I can. Just shoot me PM's, I've worked at an audio shop for several years now and have seen/worked on almost any system you can imagine.

 

not to thread jack or anything, but im replacing the radio in my FC with a Pioneer DEH-P510UB. i got the wiring harness, power antenna relay, and the installation brackets all from crutchfield.
im just looking at how crutchfield is saying how to hook up the power antenna relay. red 12v power cable, orng illum, black ground and blue to amp turn on / power antenna. but i have one plug in the dash that isnt going to anything, i think its the turn on signal to the power antenna. its white with red stripes on it, connected to the radio, closes to the 2 outputs for the tape deck and EQ.
i could not find this wire in the FSM. this is confusing me because i don't see how the power antenna will get the signal to rise and lower when there's nothing going to it. all the wires are just going back in to the receiver. can someone shed some light on this please? thanks.

P.S. i just have the antenna relay cables together just for the pic sake.

 

first off... decide how much you want to spend including installation. also how much work are you willing to do. if your not to sure how to handle stereo stuff dont fake it and rush into it. ive seen soooooo many, "i did it myself" my god they end up ******* up there whole car.

we could go on and on about good stuff...