Upgraded Stock Speakers, Just put in Clarion Pro Audio Components Options

[emocean]

In the last trade with my installer, I had him install these Clarion Pro Audio 6 1/2" Components in the front. To mount it behind the stock tweeter grill, he had to rig up something special (otherwise it would have been super tacky!)

So when it was all said & done... here's the lowdown:

1) Stock deck needs to be turned up much loader to get the same amount of sound (likely the speakers need more power to run them).

2) Less bass from the drivers than my stock ones, but also much cleaner.

3) Highs are much more detailed, and the sound is very bright (too bright?)

4) With little control available from the stock clarion deck, tough to find a good balance between getting some decent bass, & not having my head ripped off by the tweeters.

So a new deck will be needed to remedy the situation, but unfortunatly it's not in the books these days!

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[southpawboston]

emocean, your observations are very common among people who upgrade to higher end speakers without upgrading the signal going to those speakers. most component speakers are less efficient than the cheaper speakers that cars come with stock. it's usually a necessary tradeoff for higher power handling capability and for sound quality. also, for our cars, having the tweeter mounted where it is, it's usually too "bright" relative to the woofers. does the crossover that came with the speakers have an attenuation switch for the tweeters? i find i have to keep my tweeters' attenuation switch set to -3 db to keep them balanced with the woofers.

in general, i found that hyundai matched their stock speakers pretty well to their deck. for a stock system, it really wasn't that bad. i remember the stock woofers putting out decent bass for such a cheap system. in fact, i would have kept it if it weren't for the fact that the stock system had no aux input options...

[emocean]

Ya pretty much sets in stone what I was thinking. We set up the tweets @ -3db, & even with that it's still tough to handle.

Oh well... I'll have to track down an inexpensive, plain-looking deck @ some point in time here.

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[roydjt]

Well, SPB's deck is fairly plain-looking, with some awesome features and unbeatable performance - but it's not exactly affordable

-Roy

[JPJR]

If you get a new deck, get one with a good EQ. One that only has a treble control will not cover a wide enough frequency range to calm the tweeter down completly. It will help, but some frequencies will still be to loud. The more bands the EQ has the better. Also, try reversing the phase of the tweeters. Because your tweeters are on axis to your ears and the woofers are off axis, this can cause problems with the mid/highs at the crossover frequency as most car audio crossovers were designed for both speakers to be facing the same direction.
Have you sealed your doors with sound deadening? This will improve the bass from your door speakers if you havent.
Nakamichi's do not have EQs but are great head units and do have low/MID/high controls. They do cost more then most and are well worth it.But thanks to Ebay, you can find them starting at around $280.

This post has been edited by JPJR: Feb 17 2005, 04:38 PM

[southpawboston]

yes to what JPJR said-- sound deadening in the doors will help out the low end.

also, just because you're hearing less bottom-end bass, doesn't mean your new speakers are not capable of reproducing it. they might just need a lot more power to realize it.

and thanks for the props on the nakamichi deck, guys. it is a nice unit, but it also only puts out about 20 clean watts/channel, with a maximium of something like 45. and i'm not sure if that would be enough of an upgrade to give your speakers what they really need. when i upgraded my front speakers to my current components, just for the hell of it i wanted to hear them with only the nakamichi deck driving them. they sounded like crap. no bottom end (much less than the stock speakers), and overall compressed sounding. then when i hooked up the amp (100W/channel clean), they SANG. OMG the difference. the bass is low low low, tight, and accurate, and higher frequencies are not at all compressed. the moral is, most higher end component speakers are going to need lots of power to sound good.

as much as i'd like to recommend the nak to anyone, if you are on a strict budget, you may want to consider buying a cheaper deck with built-in EQ for $200 or less, and pick up a used amp on ebay (i got my a/d/s pq10 for $55). then i am pretty confident your clarion pro's will sing!

[emocean]

Ya I'm sure the speakers will shine when there is better power feeding them.

My doors are fully deadened w/ Dynamat Extreme, in fact the *whole* car is done now. I'll put the pics that were up @ the old site back up here sometime in the future. Some of the new pics (of the floor) will blow you away.

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[JPJR]

Sorry , I forgot those pictures were yours. More power is your answer then.
Panasonic has 5-9 band EQs, and some of their headunits use a new "chip"amp that puts out a 60 watts rms. If you do not want to use a seperate amp, these headunits would be woth looking at.

This post has been edited by JPJR: Feb 17 2005, 04:46 PM

[emocean]

I used to sell car audio so I know all about the product (and the lies!)

My biggest concern in an aftermarket deck is the look, I want it to be very plain so theft is is not an issue.

And for the final dynamat pics (the floor)... they were erased unfortunatly. But the sound deadening on the floor was all dried & cracked, and most wasn't even stuck on anymore. <--- useless!!!

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[southpawboston]

My biggest concern in an aftermarket deck is the look, I want it to be very plain so theft is is not an issue.

And for the final dynamat pics (the floor)... they were erased unfortunatly.  But the sound deadening on the floor was all dried & cracked, and most wasn't even stuck on anymore.  <--- useless!!!

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maybe the nak is the answer after all. but to get the most out of it and your new speakers, i'd get an amp to go with it (i know, i know, budget, budget). but really, a $50-75 a/d/s amp on ebay is a bargain.

so the factory deadening is that bad, eh? i never looked under the carpeting. how much does the floor dynamattin help? does it really cut down on road noise? what about suspension noise? the passenger compartment floor and the roof are two areas i haven't done...

[emocean]

I should make another thread but...

The factory deadening on the roof was this really crappy insulation... it was pretty sad. The floor (passenger area)stuff looked like cheap dynamat... it was all dried up and cracked. We just picked pieces off, busting them off as we went.

We weren't able to test it before and after with an RTA, but I do notice it (the difference) when I'm in other cars though. I'll have to take another elantra for a ride one of these days to compare.

Car feels much more solid, no creaks (aside from the plastic over my gauges... gotta fix that! Lovin it!

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