Hey Everybody. I Just found this site, and Im glad I did. Anyway, Im looking to upgrade the Factory system in my 01 Sebring LXI coupe. I Absolutely want to keep the factory head unit in the car for two reasons... 1, It flows with the interior and 2, it has the built in changer. I have the Infinity 7 speaker system (a center channel dash, 2 tweeters, 2 63/4 in the doors and 6x9's in the deck) I Also have the Infinity mr472783 amp.
I blew out the infinity speaker in the dash so I modified the dash to accept a Memphis PR series 3 1/2 speaker. Im a mechanic so Dash work isn't a big deal for me.
My problem with the current system is that at higher volume levels it breaks up and distorts. I was speaking to a local audio place as well as a crutchfield online tech guy and both agreed that my stock speakers lack a noticeable crossover point so they get distortion, and both recommended switching to a higher quality speaker. The local Place is suggesting Memphis PR's and the crutchfield rep suggests JBL GTO series. Im leaning towards the Memphis route because they are local and the guy quoted me a great price.
What do you guys think? Are the speakers going to make any sort of difference? I would eventually like to add two 10 inch subs (a friend of mine, oddly enough, has two Memphis 10's he is willing to sell me). The Audio Place near me suggested upgrading the speakers first to see if it meets my needs before I add sub's.
Do any of you guys have any experience with my audio system, and will it make much of a difference? Also, he was going to sell me 3 way's, should I go with 2ways or 3 ways? Im looking to upgrade, not win any competitions. I want something better, but not necessarily over the top ya know? Any input would be appreciated.
unfortunately the crossovers are built into the factory amp ... if you add two ways into the doors the highs will still be clipt by the amp and routed to the dash tweets ... BEST upgrade is to eliminate the factory amp for the doors and rear deck to a 4X75 amp and upgrade those speakers
The speakers will have a noticable improvement especially if they are more sensitive than the ones you are replacing. I would deff get rid of the old amp if you want to do new speakers, as mains go they dont need to much power to sounds great my infinitys can handle 175 RMS but i only provide them with 75 rms they sound amazing. Pay close attention to thier RMS which is ammount of watts they can handle at all times since peak is almost never achevied and its always for a very very short amount of time. To power the mains you need a 4 channel amp one channel for each speaker pretty much. As for the subs i would suggest another amp for them get a mono block that way there is less drop in the watts being put out over the chanels. then comes the fun
If you are not going to run subs then thats ok you can put the amp on full pass and allow bass frequencies to the main speakers and most of your kick will be from the 6X9s it will have some rumble but if you do run subs make sure you have the main amp on high pass to allow only the high frequency by and the sub amp on low pass for just bass frequencies since trebble can hurt a sub a lot. I cant speak for the memphis speakers but JBL is a great brand with amazing quality. But simple answer is yes with a little more juice and a cleaner signal from a new amp there will be a nice difference.
My set up is as follows...
Alpine 9833 head unit( i got it due to its sound processing abilities, which are great it has a very high output of signal) from there i have two signal wires running to the main amp for the front and rear set of speakers and one sub signal wire for the sub amp. Im running Infinity mains ( 6 1/2s in the front and 6X9s in the back) and two premere 12s. It sounds great but dual amp is the way to go with that.
I put this system in myself and its pretty clean theres no sign that there is a stereo in there except for the head unit. So i will do my best to help in anyway since i know this is a little bit of a task.
Thank you for the replies guys. I am quite new to car audio. I think I am going to go with the Memphis brand because a few different people have mentioned that Memphis is a quality name. I was talking to the owner of the shop and he said the Memphis PR series will do well with a factory amp but can handle the power of an after market amp if I choose.
So what I'm sensing here is that upgrading the speakers will give me a noticeable improvement, but ideally I would want to go to an after market amp correct?
My absolute number 1 priority is that, unless it burns up, I keep the head unit stock. I do not want anybody knowing the car has a stereo in it. 1 because I like the stock look but two, at work my car is parked on the side of the building which is on a corner lot so I can not keep an eye on the car and nobody really walks around the side other than morning and closing time.
What sort of job is it to replace me factory amp with an after market amp, assuming I keep the Head unit stock? I know its easy if I upgrade it, but how would I adapt the amp to work with the stereo I have now?
But most importantly, I will see somewhat of an improvement by upgrading the speakers, correct? I plan on purchasing them tommorow.
speakers are a deff improvement...the amp should have wires from the head unit to the amp and from the amp that lead to the speakers swap the amps by putting the signal wire from the HU to the amp and the speaker wires to the amp as well.
If it does not have it set up that way its always ok to remove the amp and the speakers run aftermarket wires from the speakers to the amp. If you are changing out the speakers you are either going to need an adaptor to run hook up to the old wires or like i said just run new wires. either way is pretty easy. Im not to certain on how the infinity set up is in these cars since mine didnt have that. Make sure that the speakers will fit the car otherwise you have some cutting to do or you gotta make a braket to hold the speakers(in mine i had to make me a braket for the front door speakers and cut some metal from the rear deck to fit the rear speakers)
as far as head units go they come with a holding braket that clips into place and most have removable face plates the bracket makes it EXTREMELY difficult to get the head unit out and without a face plate the thing is useless so IF you find yourelf in need of a new one then that solves the problem of getting it stolen pretty much.(you said you are a mechanic so just take the faceplate off and store it in your box till its time to leave.)
As far as whats ideal the speakers are probably going to give you the most improvement for the money since you will more than likely be pushing close to the same watts there for more sensitive speakers will be able to make more noise out of the available power. Then the amp comes in handy underpowering speakers an...so a new amp provides d having the volume up creates distortion which is death of a speakers (so is over powering them if it creates distortion...basically it can be loud but not to the point where it overdoes the speaker) so a new amp will make a little more power and give you a little more room to play.
The main things in stereo are not watts or speaker sizes its alllllllll about the clairty of the sounds so a good processor(headunit) and sensitive speakers can make even low power systems sound great as long as it isnt to high of volume.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2007, 05:11:52 AM by Aaron »
Thank you for the reply, you guys were right. Friday I was screwing with the balance and fade of the stereo and determined that the one speaker is on its way out, so I bit the bullet and bought Memphis PR series for the fronts and installed one of them today after work and I will put in the other one tomorrow. I used two ways in the doors with swivel tweeters. I just had to test it out so I turned it on and it was a world of difference. The speakers simply degraded in quality over the last 6 years or so. One thing I noticed is that these handle volume quite well but I am considering disconnecting the center dash speaker, as It sounds like its just flapping around because it can not handle the power at higher volumes. Do you guys use this speaker? Do I really need it???
When I installed it, it went fairly well. The only "issue" I had was that the OEM speakers are 6 3/4 and the replacements are 6 1/2. Luckily the place I bought the speakers from warned me about this and gave me a set of sosche adapter places. Basically I pulled the door panel off, disconnected the connector, removed the speaker, then removed the plastic "housing". I had to slightly enlarge the holes in the adapter plates with a hand reamer real quick. I use double stick tape all around the perimeter and then used 2 screws. Basically the double stick tape prevents rattles when heavy bass hits. I then mounted the speaker to the adapter place using 3 screws. Then back to the door goes the plastic housing, also secured with double stick tape to prevent rattles. The speakers came with wire, so I clipped the factory wires before the connectors (in case I needed to re-install originals). And I soldered and shrink-wrapped the wires. Bada-Bing lol
So once I get the other door speaker installed, I am going to experiment a little bit more with that center channel. Next is the rear speakers. Replacing the speakers with more sensitive ones is a big improvement. My only other concern is that there might be a little too much on the high end, so depending on the 6x9's, I might have to go with SUBS!!! But thats another project for another day.
So what do you guys think about that little center channel speaker? Is it the weak point I believe it to be?
Its a tough thing to get that all balanced out you either get muddy or wa to bright with just the normal bass and trebble adjustments...i highly sugest a EQ (yet another reason i got the HU i did is it had a 7 channel EQ in it and corssover controls) that way you can balance the certain frequencies out so that you dont have the ear drum exploding trebble or so your music doesnt sound like its underwater because the bass is overpowering.
I have always thought of it this way Tires are the best thing you can really do for a car they make the most out of what is available (street radials compared to drag or sport radials) so are speakers adding more power to street tires usually donsnt make to much of a difference. adding more power to not so good speakers just makes them suck at louder volumes.
Once you get all the speakers in ENJOY an imporved sound system is ALWAYS fun
depends on whether or not they're 2 way 3 way.. etc
No, I mean are they "crossed over" in the amp so the signal they are getting is only for bass? They are paper speakers with a paper "dish" in the center, no tweeter or anything.
yeah i have no idea, i remember reading from somewhere that 6X9 one ways are considered mid range. But the cross over problem.. no clue, my stock amp blew up i've heard it's not the greatest
no they will recieve full range but wont create the higher range as clearly as a tweeter. they are more for mid and low range but they wont be bypassing any of the ranges
I found these in my 01 stratus, they are bass speakers (6 x 9) in the front. u can hear midrange and a tad bit high frequency, but its best with the bass. if found in the rear, they will play bass. i checked out the ones on my gf's car. the tweeters are wired to the ones in the front and somewhere else...i didnt bother looking where tho.
Author
Logged
