I love this car, 25k miles on it so far and its a dream. My only complaint is the stereo. I have replaced the anemic stock stereo with a decent 50 watt pioneer. The bass output is pathetic, so a small woofer (probably 8") is my next step. Thats the easy part. The tough part is the imaging/staging of the front. It is GOD AWFUL. It is so left biased that I shouldn't even call it a stereo, its the car mono in my GSR.

What can I do to remedy this? I'm thinking of replacing the lower door speakers with either a high end coax or mounting the tweeter over the woofer using backstrapping. I would completely disable the tweeters in the doors. Has anyone done this?

Has anyone installed a set of compression drivers? Does it really cause havoc for foot clerance?

Can someone point me to G2 stereo installs web pages for examples?

(And for the record, I will amplify all speakers as soon as they are replaced)

 

just turn the bass down thats what i did in my 01 gsr after i replaced that ghetto *** stock head unit.

The stock speakers cant handle the wattage, i got 50x4 as well.
The best thing to do is to go ahead and replace your speakers.

lol i cant even turn the volume up half way with out the speakers screatching and snaping like the are about burst right out and rip in half.

 

I've replaced all 4 speakers (JBL coaxials) and the headunit (overrated Sony pissacrap 4x45w that doesn't play CD's burned at 2x) and the sound was much nicer. I did need to adjust the fade more towards the front. Didn't notice the stereo being more left biased.

I've realized that unless some time and money is put into insulating the interior, I'm not going to get Nakamichi/Lexus sound. The car just let's up too much road noise.

 

nope, i wont settle, i need help!

 

 

get a 250watt amp and a 10" sub.

 

So, what is your exact question(s)?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Will Albers &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I love this car, 25k miles on it so far and its a dream. My only complaint is the stereo. I have replaced the anemic stock stereo with a decent 50 watt pioneer. The bass output is pathetic, so a small woofer (probably 8") is my next step. Thats the easy part. The tough part is the imaging/staging of the front. It is GOD AWFUL. It is so left biased that I shouldn't even call it a stereo, its the car mono in my GSR. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I have yet to find a car that stages well from the stock locations...to be honest you will have to do something with the midrange locations to have any hopes here...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What can I do to remedy this? I'm thinking of replacing the lower door speakers with either a high end coax or mounting the tweeter over the woofer using backstrapping. I would completely disable the tweeters in the doors. Has anyone done this?</TD></TR></TABLE>

This is fine but it probably won't image that well...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Has anyone installed a set of compression drivers? Does it really cause havoc for foot clerance?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Nice to have someone around here who's asking about horns!!

I have a pair of Image Dynamics CD1pro's in my 00 Civic Si. I have them to the point where it's not too bad. It takes some getting used to, but I can get my feet on the pedals without any interruptions...for reference I'm 5'9" and have a size 10.5....

The biggest problem with a two way front stage and horns is that you must make a huge sacrifice. Either it's going to image ok, and sound great from a tonal perspective, or you can image great and have poor midbass.

With my car, I have planned a 3-way stage, but right now, I just have 6.5" mids in the doors. For it to center well, I need to throw the passenger side mid out of phase...this kills the midbass in the system. This is why a three way is nice. You can take the pass. kick, throw it out of phase, then run the door mounted midbasses in phase....now you get the best of both worlds.

Now, a caveat to that is Jason Ewing's VW GTI. He runs a simple two way stage and it works. According to Matt at ID, it works "better then it should" so as usual in car audio, YMMV!!!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Can someone point me to G2 stereo installs web pages for examples?

(And for the record, I will amplify all speakers as soon as they are replaced)</TD></TR></TABLE>

sounddomain.com has some good ones, but they are tough to find...most of it is garbage IMO.

If you have any more questions about horns, let me know....I think you will need more then just one 8 to mate with them though for sub bass....horns get WAY loud on about 10W of power....

 

one other thing...you can always time align the **** out of the car to get it to work...it won't sound good from both seats, but you can get it to sound good.

IMO any good system images from both seats :D

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">one other thing...you can always time align the **** out of the car to get it to work...it won't sound good from both seats, but you can get it to sound good.

IMO any good system images from both seats :D</TD></TR></TABLE>

Come one alpine buddy, just push him to the 9813, then he can do time correction and have 60watts per channel, and scrape signal from the rear channels to power his sub. In my civic ex coupe, i am running mbquartz components up front, pioneer coaxials in the back, alpine cda 9813 hu, the lower end of the line 4x40 watts rms amp, the mono amp running at 2 ohms, and a dvc JL w3 in a sealed box, soon to be a ported box. I have no complaints, just with that it had not taken so long to install my self. Also, running wires into the door panels was a bitch, because of the honda like plug connectors used at the doors. I had to drill through that. Also, working with the stock acoustic research tweeter pods was interesting for my first real install, but i got the new tweeters to look nice.
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Nice to have someone around here who's asking about horns!!

I have a pair of Image Dynamics CD1pro's in my 00 Civic Si. I have them to the point where it's not too bad. It takes some getting used to, but I can get my feet on the pedals without any interruptions...for reference I'm 5'9" and have a size 10.5....</TD></TR></TABLE>

I have seen compression drivers in an old installers book i have. Where are yours placed that they are interfering with foot clearance. I have seen the before placed in custom door panels, but never on the ground, because i thought the horn part of it had to be very long and open.

Could kick panels be a solution for good imaging?

My buddy is running his explorer off of a single four channel alpine amp, bridged to run two front components and a single rear 10 JL W0 sub in a ported box, and he has a great sounding system for the money. I was amazed when i heard it the other day. A single 10" in a ported box should be loud enough to fight the horns, if you go that way.

 

If he wants something that images, he certainly doesn't want rear co-ax's and a headunit amplifier isn't going to fly either. The only way that head unit puts out a real 240W is if it got hit by lightning!

Again, if you TA...it will sound like crap in the passenger seat.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have no complaints, just with that it had not taken so long to install my self. Also, running wires into the door panels was a bitch, because of the honda like plug connectors used at the doors. I had to drill through that. Also, working with the stock acoustic research tweeter pods was interesting for my first real install, but i got the new tweeters to look nice. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Rewiring the doors is an adventure, but isn't too bad - well worth it in a high powered application.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have seen compression drivers in an old installers book i have. Where are yours placed that they are interfering with foot clearance. I have seen the before placed in custom door panels, but never on the ground, because i thought the horn part of it had to be very long and open. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Generally speaking - the only place compression horns should be is under the dash!! They have a very controlled dispersion pattern, where the mouth of the horn is used to couple with the dash. This is why honda's are VERY good horn cars. Typically the dash is smooth, symmetrical, and the center console is pretty small. The horn should be mounted with the motors as far toward the firewall as possible and as far to the outside of the car as you can. They should be level with the floorboard and they shouldn't be toe-ed in at all.

They would sound bad in doors or on the floor.

As far as them interfering - you want the horns to be as symmetrical as possible on both sides of the car. In a civic (and probably an integra) on the passenger side, the heater and blower motor are very low - this creates a problem with foot room. On the driver's side, the horn, when pushed all the way back, can interfere with the clutch. It can be difficult to drive the car with only your toes, and it gets annoying and really, unsafe. There are some cars that horns just won't work in. If you have an automatic, it's very easy to get them in, but things are a bit more difficult with a stick

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Could kick panels be a solution for good imaging?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Staging and imaging from midrange frequencies are very dependent upon having a small path length difference. Without doing major modifications to your car, the kickpanel area offers the smallest PLD in most every car out there. So yes, kicks can be a good solution to get them to image, but it's only part of the equation.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My buddy is running his explorer off of a single four channel alpine amp, bridged to run two front components and a single rear 10 JL W0 sub in a ported box, and he has a great sounding system for the money. I was amazed when i heard it the other day.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I've always recommended similar systems to those who want a simple setup - a 4 channel is very capable of driving a pair of components and a single sub to acceptable levels. If you want to go horns, you must go active....true you can go passive, but I would consider that too much of a compromise....

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> A single 10" in a ported box should be loud enough to fight the horns, if you go that way. </TD></TR></TABLE>

It's more of a power matching thing then it is anything else...keep in mind, a CD1pro's efficiency is around 106, a CD2 - 109!!!! Your typical midbass is what high 80's to low 90's?!?! At minimum, you should send 3x the power to your mids as you do your horns, and 5 times the power to your subs.

In my case -

12.5W per horn
100w per midrange
150W per midbass
300W per sub

This way you don't have to gain everything down....horns are ear bleeding loud with just that little power on them!!

 

thanks for all the info. If possible, could you send me some picks of your car, i am interested in your set up

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

If he wants something that images, he certainly doesn't want rear co-ax's and a headunit amplifier isn't going to fly either. The only way that head unit puts out a real 240W is if it got hit by lightning!


!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Alpine's newer headunits that have time correction will take care of the left bias
the 9813 and 9815 ae great examples... I agree that he will not have 240 watts but if he does add the 8" sub, and runs the front speaker with the high-pass on it will sound damn good, and the time corrections will totally elimnate the left-bias

I am using my own car as a reference (as far as the time correction) I have a dynaudio 3-way setup in my sol, 7" mid's in the door, tweets in place of dash vents, and the 4" mid mounted in the door, almost as high as the tweets in the dash, they are being powered by a kicker zr360 when I first installed them I was listening through a eclipse 5443, nice sound quality but not enough adjustment abilities to make it sound right, I put an alpine 9815 in, adjusted the time correction and BAM it sounded unreal, it sounds like the sound is coming from the middle of the dash......

 

that is true, you can TA speakers to make up for poor positioning, but it will sound like crap from the other seat. I can individually time align all 8 channels with my H700. My point is that all the processing in the world won't make up for poor speaker location.

Anthing that doesn't at least attempt to minimize the path length differences in your midranges is IMO, a poor speaker location. Some people have done very well by going against this theory, but if you ask people in the industry, they will agree.

Generally, you don't get questions from people who want the car to stage and image well....so until he posts back up here, I don't know if TA would give him the desired effect...

BTW, I think the best built in processing in a headunit is coming from Eclipse...the 8443 and 8053 are great units. I would have bought the latter, but it only had a three way x-over, and I needed a 4. And the 2003 8053 appears to be significantly better then a 2004, but I have not checked personally...that's just what I've heard...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by snoochtodanooch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thanks for all the info. If possible, could you send me some picks of your car, i am interested in your set up</TD></TR></TABLE>

The system is still being worked on, but I have a ton of photos, perhaps I'll update my sounddomain page....

 

true speaker placement is important, but for someone who sounded like he is doing a minimalist hi-fi then just correcting TA will help clear up his left-bias wihtout dropping big dollars...the 9813, nad 9815 aren't his only choice they started using TA a few years ago and can probably pick up a decent 7893,7894 (if I remember right) for a decent price

...I think Eclipse has great gear, and in the last year or two they have more than caught up from when they made the 5443, unfortunately I don;t work at a store selling eclipse so the Alpine was a better deal (at cost) for me, in fact I still use my eclipse in my winter car.....

 

Incredible responses and I thank you. I kept my question relatively simple thinking that I would receive a wider response. I'm glad to see I can get a bit more in depth.

I am an ex- audio installer/sales. I have approx. 6 years of professional employment and experience. Back when this was important to my life, I was a certified IASCA judge all though I never really got to use it much. Western New York isnt exactly the largest car audio community. Anyways...

My needs are simplicity and imaging first, sound quality second. I know it sounds backwards but hear me out. First, i do not want to modify the car. I do not want to cut open the door panels, install kick pods or a huge system. I want the system to be as small and simple as possible. I was contemplating a passive 2 channel amplifier system with a tri-mode bridged mono sub in the back. 8" or 10" MAX. Size and sound quality are important here with the sub. Volume is not. I have a set of 6.5 Oz components i was going to toss up front. These are the old version with the purple painted baskets. I have a spare Phoenix Gold MS275 laying around for amplification. The tri-way crossover is an old Wired (by Orion) unit from the mid 90's. These units were really quite nice back in the day. (As you can notice, I'm an old schooler. I like my older equipent that was tried and true). There will be no rear speakers.

The head unit is a different story. Not quite sure what I will do here.

Even in the lower door locations, the Oz should decrease my left bias considerably since im doing away with the high tweeters. It should increase my sound quality substantially as well as the range that the system is capable of playing. This all sounded fine and dandy in theory, but it still lacks serious imaging which is very important for me.

This is where the idea of the compression drivers comes in. Still allows for simplicity while im gaining my stage and increased tonal range.

Questions:
How are the ID horn/mid bass combos? The component sets with an included passive crossover network? How much a difference is there between the mini and standard horns in sound quality? Are the minis no better than mounting the tweeter near the lower corner of the dash? All of my experience with horns were in high end systems which utilized 1/3rd octave EQs/Heavy preamplification. This is not an option for this vehicle

Im sorry, but I can't consider TA . I cannot handle having a narrow listening position since I want my passenger to enjoy the experience as much as i do.

ohhh, and I also want a million dollars and a new job, and twin playboy pets and....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Will Albers &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">How are the ID horn/mid bass combos? The component sets with an included passive crossover network? </TD></TR></TABLE>

They are not that great. The driver in the CD1e set is a piezo driver, not a true compression driver. The diaphrams for the CD1's are titanium and for the CD2's they are either titanium or the more rare mylar.

The passives are there for power matching duties and a bit of EQ only. The compression drivers have built in high pass at around 1.2kHz.

Personally, I wouldn't run them, and if you want to run horns, you sorta have to do them justice with an all active setup...more on that later...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">How much a difference is there between the mini and standard horns in sound quality? </TD></TR></TABLE>

The mini's tend to stage better then the full sized ones...they also sound a bit better from a tonal perspective. You would be hard pressed to find the full sized horns, as they have been discontinued. The only advantage to the full sized is that they can play a bit lower then the mini's.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Are the minis no better than mounting the tweeter near the lower corner of the dash? </TD></TR></TABLE>

The mini's are the prefered set IMO. My CD1's still stage ok where they are at. With tweeters, you won't have the dispersion characteristics that you get with horns...nor do you have the efficiency and impact that you get with the horns....

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">All of my experience with horns were in high end systems which utilized 1/3rd octave EQs/Heavy preamplification. This is not an option for this vehicle</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's not needed....that's one of those myths that has followed horns around...they got a bad name, but with the newer horn designs, they can sound good flat. A simple 5 band parametric or so should be able to clean them up...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Im sorry, but I can't consider TA . I cannot handle having a narrow listening position since I want my passenger to enjoy the experience as much as i do.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I figured as much....

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ohhh, and I also want a million dollars and a new job, and twin playboy pets and.... </TD></TR></TABLE>

Don't we all....

If it was me, I'd get an Eclipse 8053 and use that for all processing duties. Then I would think about a 5/6 channel amp...use that to run the system active. You still have one amp, but then you can have the control you need. I'd get some ID CX mids in the 2 ohm variety to help with the power matching so you don't have to gain the horns down too far...

That's just one suggestion....

You could run a system with tweets up high in the a-pillars, rather then the sail panels....if you run them active and highpass the tweeter way up (around 5kHz) you can achieve good results, but you are still going to run into the problem of the midranges giving you the left side bias...

Hope that helps...

 

its nice to see an educated sound discussion on here for once, as opposed to, "How do i wire up my 7 18" Solo X subs, and what amp should i power them with" you guys rock

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by snoochtodanooch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">its nice to see an educated sound discussion on here for once, as opposed to, "How do i wire up my 7 18" Solo X subs, and what amp should i power them with" you guys rock</TD></TR></TABLE>

Just what I was thinking. I actually read a post for the first time in memory.

Even though I think rcurley was just tooting his horn

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">


Again, if you TA...it will sound like crap in the passenger seat.


</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not to beat a dead horse, I actually waited untill I had chance to sit in my car to reply to this.... But one of the things that I like about my 9815 (and I don't know if Eclipse does this or not with their TA) is that you have 6 user defined pre-set for TA, meaning you can have one for driver, one for passenger, and one for both.
I have my TA set to hit dead center between both seats, took care of bias (for both driver and pasenger) and sounds great from both seats....
not tyring to make arguements but wanted to say that TA can make a car sound better from both seats

 

What rcurley was getting at is the fact that if you TA enough to make it sound good from the drivers seat with the poor stock locations, it will sound like crap from the passenger's seat.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Even though I think rcurley was just tooting his horn </TD></TR></TABLE>

What are you trying to say - I gotta take my chances when someone starts to talk about horns....no one cares about staging and imaging any more

And the TA thing...the horse has been beaten into paste!!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rcurley55 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

What are you trying to say - I gotta take my chances when someone starts to talk about horns....no one cares about staging and imaging any more

And the TA thing...the horse has been beaten into paste!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

its a shame when all that everyone cares about is being loud.