Hey everyone,

I have a Honda Accord LX which I'm fairly happy with except that the sound system is lacking in more than a few ways. Over the next five months, I'd like to slowly upgrade various components of the sound system. I've even made this chart in my spare time detailing my ideas. The chart is for myself, but it does say things that I'm thinking. I'd like this thread to be very informative for everyone trying to do basic upgrades to the Honda Accord 8th Generation.

List of things to Do For My Car: 2008 Honda Accord LX

* Upgrade to Component Speakers
------ o I preferred Focal Access... 165-A1
------------ + http://www.woofersetc.com/index.cfm?...roduct_id=3372
------------ + Any ebay link
------ o What exactly are component speakers?
------ o What are they made of?
------ o What kind of speakers does my accord have?
------ o What are the components of component speakers?
------ o I am willing to rewire the car with high quality wiring if that is needed
------ o Price is a non-issue
* How important is it to install a new amp?
------ o Volume isn't important to me, clarity is
* Sound insulation
------ o Did anyone do it to their 8th generation accord?
------ o How much did it help?
------ o Price isn't an issue

In essence, I'm more of a quality-type sound guy over power-type sound guy. I prefer clarity in my speakers so I can hear every note. Price really isn't an issue, but I'd like to keep the costs below 1000 dollars if possible.

My car is a Honda Accord LX. I know it has six speakers but I'm completely foreign to the speaker scene. I drive about 15k miles a year and I listen to my Zune the entire time, but the sound system is getting to me. I've looked up some speakers and I liked the Focal Access because it seemed to have good reproduction of sounds, but at the same time, I'm not sure what I'm reading.

What exactly is the process for upgrading speakers? Where can I start to learn?

Many thanks in advance

The main focus is to upgrade the quality of ride without sacrificing how the car looks... I'm a hopeful person and think it can be done easily.

 

is the head unit easily changed in your car or is it pretty integrated into the dash? A good headunit and speakers are a great start. Ive heard good things about focal. I use alpine and the sound quality is really good. It sounds like we think alike when it comes to sound, with clarity over rediculous power. Ive had the Alpines (6.5 components up front, 6.5 coax in the rear deck) for almost 5 years now and still sound as good as they did out of the box. Even when they were not amplified, they sounded really good. For a sub, a solid 10 should get you the rear fill you seem to be after.

As far as sound dampening goes, i recently did my doors, rear deck, and trunk like with edead45 from Elemental Designs. When i first saw the stuff, i thought it was a a toy and would never work, but it really works wonders. Not a single rattle from the trunk with 2 10s. Its super cheap too...$1 a sq ft (compared to dynamat that will run you like $30 for a speaker kit that covers like 2 sq ft at best). Id plan on starting at maybe 40 sq ft. that should easily do the front doors, rear deck, and trunk lid, likely with some leftovers.

For wiring, wait to see what you are running first and buy what you need. No sense in using 1/0 wire to power a few hundred watts.

The "components" to a component speaker system is generally a midwoofer and a tweeter, being run off a crossover. Most components come with everything you need, but if not (if you buy used or something) a crossover can be built for well under $10 (capacitor should be no more than $1 and maybe 5 for the inductor)

Hope this helps! good luck!

 

In essence, a component system is a separated tweeter and midbass driver, and a crossover to control which speakers get which frequencies.

Those Focals are great, have you listened to them? If not, see if you can find a good audio dealer (not BB) that has some quality speakers.

If I'm not mistaken, The six speaker sound system in your car is made up of 2 tweeters, 2 two midbass drivers (these are up front) and two more speakers in the back deck or doors.

Honestly, unless you have a really high powered system, you shouldn't NEED to rewire the doors (which is a pain...). It will help, but you won't be able to hear the difference

An amplifier for your speakers is VERY important for getting the best sound out of your speakers Amps aren't just for volume.

Sound deadening is great! But I highly doubt you will need with a car as new as yours. It already has quite a bit.

And you HAVE to get a sub. Trust me, no car audio system will sound complete without one. But you shouldn't have to spend that much.

If you can find two Sundown e8 8" subwoofers, that would be perfect! I have two, and they are absolutely amazing.

I highly recommend you go over to http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/forums.html

 

e8's are hard to find.

 

Unfortunately you speak the truth But if you can find some, jump on them. Best sounding subs I've heard yet.

 

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the delay in the reply.

I'm not quite sure where to put a subwoofer because the car only has 6 speakers, 2 inside the door panels, 2 tweeters, and two in the rear deck. I'm not a huge bass guy, but I am willing to do whatever it takes to make it a high quality system.

I've never listened to the Focals, but I've only heard good things, and I generally like good things :D.

What's the point of the crossover for the Focals if it's passive? Where can I put it?

What amp do you guys recommend.

I also posted this in another message board, so I do hope I get the best of both worlds. Many, many things!

 

That crossover effectively "splits" the high frequencies from the lower ones and sends the high ones to the tweeter and the low ones to the midbass.
I would upgrade the hu FIRST.
You wouldn't believe the difference a quality hu makes in car audio. I would look at clarion or alpine or if you want to get really crazy, nakamichi or mcintosh.
I'm running stock speakers with a clarion hu and an old hifonics amp. I have yet to find speakers that sound better than the stock paper components. I've had my eye on Phass though.
edzy will say otherwise though...

 

I think the head unit can be easily removed, but I'm not positive because it's recessed deeply into the dashboard. I would be surprised if it wasn't easy to remove, given Honda's mod-friendly nature. But, to be honest, I'm incredibly happy with the current head unit. It's just so simple and natural with the rest of the car, I'd like to keep it if possible.

I'm glad you did damping. Did you use a guide to help you remove door panels?

 

I though the headunit only dealt with visual controls. How does a headunit change the quality?

(I'm also looking this up online at the moment, so, hopefully, you don't have to kill yourself explaining )


Edit 1: I'm weary of changing the head unit because the Accord steering wheel has buttons that control volume and mode of music (radio 1, radio 2, auxiliary, cd, etc). It seems like an upgrade would control more sound settings, but I would also lose the functionality of the buttons.

Edit 2: It seems like you can get aftermarket steering wheel controls like this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_127SWIJ...K.html?tp=3405
For new headunits. Once again, if it doesn't hurt the sound quality of the car, I'd rather avoid getting a new head unit.

Edit 3: I'm looking at this thread as well for ideas and clarification. I'm just saying this so you have an idea of where I'm getting some information from: http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/f...ld-t35175.html. I definitely don't want to go as far as this guy is going.

 

didnt use any guide. the door panels come off much easier than you think. look behind the door latch on the inside. theres a rectangle behind everything. pop that off with a small flathead to expose a pair of screws, which you will remove. then around the lock and window controls, you will see a piece below it that also pops off with a little elbow grease, and again there are a few screws under that. then just work your way around the perimeter of the door to pop off all the little poppy thingies (haha not sure what theyr called). then just slide the door panel upward and disconnect all the electronics. reverse order to get it back on. very simple. If you decide to do it and cant figure it out, pm me and i can walk you through it

The head unit is the "brain" for the system. yes, it is designed to be visually pleasing, but it also controls everything. Also, the stock one is only designed to run only about 15rms per channel, where aftermarket ones are generally more powerful, and have more customization. also with an aftermarket one, wiring in amps is as simple as plugging in the rca's.

 

So if I find and buy a 200-300 watt head unit (40-60 rms per speaker), I won't need a new amp?

This forum says that headunit power isn't useful because it's not very clean: http://www.caraudio.com/forum/head-u...t-wattage.html. Are aftermarket head units more useful?

 

There is no such thing as a "200-300" watt headunit

all headunits put out about 11-13 watts of clean power. THAT'S IT.

also, don't let anyone tell you that you don't need an amp with aftermarket speakers. you do.

even a shitty coaxial speaker will demand more power and drive the hu to clipping.

In a perfect world, headunits wouldn't even have internal amps..just look at the eclipse cd7200...no internal amp.

power is so cheap now a days anyway...there's no reason not to amp your speakers.

Focals are pretty nice speakers BUT they are very very power hungry..with most of the models you need to feed them more than double their rated rms to really get them moving.