I'm pondering replacing every piece of stereo equipment in my '03 coupe except for the head unit.

First question: how is a "channel" defined where amplifiers are concerned? That is, is the front pair of speakers one channel or two channels? I'm guessing one, but want to be sure. And then the rear speakers are another channel I assume.

Next, I want to also put in at least one subwoofer (and maybe 2) utilizing the nifty fiberglass trunk pocket boxes made by user "4080". But I also want to keep the number of amps down to just 1 and ideally make it an amp that will fit in the same space as the current Bose amp. Does this sound like a workable plan? Again, I'm assuming that probably 1 subwoofer will be ideal and a 4-channel amp (1 channel for front, 1 for rear, 2 for the sub) is the ideal scenario given my fit and finish criteria.

I just want to make sure I properly understand the technical stuff before plunking down money.

Thanks,

Tom

 

Meh, answered one of my questions by looking at the docs for a kenwood amp. Left and right are indeed separate channels...

 

First, you need to decide if you will be running the rear speakers. If you are, you'll need either a 5 channel amp (left front, right front, left rear, right rear, sub), or a single 4 channel amp (front left, front right, rear left, rear right) and a single mono class D subwoofer amp.

If you don't run the rear speakers you can get a single 4 channel amp, run the fronts off of 2 channels and bridge the rear two channels to act as a single channel and run your sub from that.

 

I hadn't thought of not using the rear speakers. How does the overall sound quality of the system change with the rears disconnected assuming the use of a 3rd party amp and speakers with sub?

 

while i know some have done the "REplace everything but head unit" with success before, let me just say that I wish i had simply replaced everything from the beginning. I am currently running everything aftermarket except the stock unit but I will be replacing that very shortly (already ordered the double din conversion pieces).

Reason? Im not completely convinced of the flatness of the output from the bose head unit. There have been some tests done on this that claim otherwise but i remain unconvinced. Additionally, if you are anything like me, you're going to want an independent subwoofer control in the unit (NOT just a subwoofer remote gain ****). The tone controls on the bose unit leave a lot to be desired, as does the volume control itself. It seems to jump a LOT from 25-26 for me and I would prefer a much more smooth volume curve.

I say this because I was recently in your same shoes. I wanted to replace everything but the head unit, spent money on the different pieces needed to do so and am still going to replace the head unit after all. Your mileage may vary though.

 

Hmm...

I do actually have a decent Pioneer HU and a 2 channel MTX amp collecting dust in the garage.

I suppose I could get the console din conversion, use my Pioneer HU to drive the fronts and rears and use the MTX amp to drive my subwoofer which is exactly what all this crap was doing in my Saturn. And it sounded pretty good!

Thanks for the idea, I need to rethink my original plan now.

 

sounds good. i'd personally not drive anything off the head units amp but i like to have a decent amount of powr going to the fronts. if you get some efficient speakers for the fronts/rears it shouldnt be a problem. just keep in mind that most head units are going to only put out about 20-30 watts RMS per channel (even if rated at 50watts)

 

in a cabin as small as the G35, i dont think rears are necessary at all. if you're concerned about imaging its probably better NOT to have rears. If you have passengers often you might reconsider but even with passengers i would only go with fronts. really its a personal thing.

 

You guys are totally setting me up with the knowledge I need here, and I really appreciate it.

Now here's a question or 2 in a different direction.

http://www.grubbsperformance.com/Mer...e=G35CoupeDash

That's the double din stuff. To install my single-din sized HU it looks like I'll need for model year '03 coupe:

Double Din A/C control
Double Din Bracket With Navigation (my car has nav)
Double Din Finisher

Now, the Pioneer HU is only half the size of the double din unit. How do I fill the lower half and make it look good or ideally, functional for holding something such as CDs?

Thanks again!

 

I'm not sure whats involved with keeping the functionality of the stock nav unit. Someone else should be able to help though.

I believe those are the correct parts but there are a bunch of threads on here on which parts you will need.

If i were to use a single din unit I would probably fabricate something to go in the gap or perhaps just an ABS facade to cover the gap.

 

I am going to be in the other camp, and say that the "Bose HU", as you call it (it's made my Clarion), is a perfectly decent HU for 90% of the listeners out there. Is it on par with a nice aftermarket HU? No. Is it as nice as 99% of the junk you'll pick up from Best Buy or Circuit City? Yes.

I don't believe any of the reasons you cited are valid reasons for replacing the stock HU. I believe in listening to music as the artist intended it. To me, this means playing music on a balanced system that does not require my tweaking the treble, bass or sub level while listening. My system should sound good (good for me = balanced, warm and accurate) at all volume levels and with all different genres of music.

As far as the HU NOT putting out a flat sginal, you are correct and incorrect. The sginal is about as flat as you can get it until you get up around the 20ish range, in which case you become affected by the built in "Auto loudness" protection that Clarion implemented to help prevent morons from blowing out the crappy paper stock speakers. Below 20, it's as flat as 90% of listeners need.

You will find a great sticky thread at the top of this forum discussing how to keep the stock HU (and note it was started by me, this is important for what I type below), and you will find many many people who have done this and are extremely happy. You'll also see several very reputable high-end audio shops willing to put their name to such an install (and in fact have).

That all being said, as you might be able to tell from my signature, I have decided to swap the stock HU. NOT for any of the reasons discussed so far, but instead because of the faulty design of the Clarion circuit boards. My HU is doing the dreaded speakers-cutting-out-when-I-hit-bumps problem. I decided that instead of having it replaced by the dealer (and hearing them bitc* about my carPC and how I must have broken the HU, bla bla bla) just so that it may very well break again in a year, a month, whatever, I decided to avoid future hassle and go double din. Also, an HU (the AVH-6800DVD) that fit my criteria also came out since the first time I looked into going double din.

Hope this helps.

 

I don't think cabin size has anything to do with deciding whether or not to keep the rear speakers ANYMORE. Instead I would reference sound staging. 99.99% of music is recorded in a way that sounds best when it "sounds" as if it is coming from in front of you: think concert. Wouldn't it sound wear if your music was only coming from behind you? I think it would. So why do we have rear speakers?

There are a lot of reasons but two main ones are:

1. old cars had old audio equipment and the best way to get louder and "better" sound (in the ears of the car's owner) was to add more speakers.

2. kind of the same as #1, but old cars = bigger = sound had to travel further for the rear passengers to hear it (think station wagons), and it was easier to put more speakers in the back for them then try and blast the speakers from the front.

So time progresses, audio equipment gets better, cars get smaller but people still expect that "rear fill" sound. I ditched my rears all together and I think it sounds great. Rear passengers (of whom I rarely have as the G35 is not known for it's comfortable rear seating accomidations ) sometimes mention that the music sounds like it's only coming from the front, to which I respond "Good! That's the way it's supposed to be"... but I'm usually talking to my passengers with the music turned down anyways.

Again, this is just me, more power to you (literally!) if you want to run the rears.

 

i only mentioned cabin size because, if this were an SUV install and you had passengers sitting way in the back, it would be more difficult to hear the sound as clearly as those in the front seat. However, if you ever actually have passengers in the rear seat then this isnt as much of an issue with a small car like ours. I would never run rear speakers no matter what car I drove and this is solely for the reason you (and myself) mentioned: imaging (staging, if you will).

Amthar, I am in the same camp as you as to the tone controls, however, having a separate subwoofer channel like most good aftermarket units have has always been very useful, especially given the quality of todays modern production standards... (can we say 0db reference level anyone). A lot of times a recording simply has WAYYYYY too much emphasis on the bass to make up for the vast majority of listeners crappy speakers. Other times, more attention was given to production on recreating an accurate reproduction and you want to turn the sub level up from -6 to 0. However, my experience has shown that with a lot of modern "pop" music and other styles, this isnt always the case. Hence my need for an independent subwoofer control (and yes, very rarely the tone controls).

To each his or her own, however, and happy listening. Its all in the ears, after all.

The bottom line for me with the bose (yes i know it was made by clarion and rebranded) was that it did not have enough control for my personal preference. I started off thinking I would be satisfied and ultimately decided to replace anyway. This is why I made this suggestion.

 

I did the same thing with the speaker/amp upgrades. Only thing left is the HU and I didn't change that cuz at the time, I didn't have a HU in mind. In retrospect, it would have been good since I would have spent less overall if I had it done altogether. In terms of sound, the HU has become the weakest link in my system and after getting better speakers and amps, its more apparent that the HU is the limiting factor in my system. I need better EQ control as my tweets are a bit bright and I want a sub control on the HU instead of the gain **** on the side. The other reason is to improve the source signal coming from the HU. That is the motor mechanism, EMI shielding, DAC processing, EQ processing, power management, and better preout voltage.

Good Luck!

 

I'm curious as to how it would have been cheaper when you upgraded your equipment if you had upgraded the HU as well? Would an aftermarket HU changed your choice of an amp or speakers?

There are very few HUs that I would buy for their EQ capabilities. This is better served by using a standalone/dedicated EQ... which could easily be done with the stock HU.

Again, I just don't feel the reasons you are giving are reasonable for 90% of the listeners out there. Most people won't be able to tell an auditory improve of 4v preamps over 2v preamps, or a 16 vs. 24 bit DAC, etc, etc. AND, very few aftermarket HUs actually create noticable difference in SQ over another aftermarket deck with "better" stats. Most of these stats are gimmicks.

In the end, when comparing most aftermarket HUs (unless you get into the expensive high-end ones), you are better served by comparing features and appearance than comparing fluffy market-serving stats. That said, the stock HU definately is lacking in features