Speaker Upgrade

September 18, 2005

I posted a similar topic a couple of weeks ago and I am looking to take things a littel further now. However, I have got myself all confused as to what to do.

Basically, I have decided to upgrade regardless and I have scrambled together a little over two hundred quid to do it. I have got a chance to buy a set of Focal V2 components (at a very good price) which if anyone didn't know they are mid to high end Speakers. I accept I will need an external amp which the cost and hassle wiring up is not an issue.

However, I was always told that to get a good sound you need to start with source, ie the headunit. Does anyone genuinely know if this is any good.

I am not looking for a competion or concourse set up just a good quality sound. Then I start thinking maybe I should get low to mid set of components and run them direct from the headunit. I would really like to keep the original headunit but I don't know anything about it. Purists will say dump it and spend the two hundred quid on a headunit and reap the instant quality and then upgrade the Speakers when you can afford to.

Does anyone know what the factory headunit kicks out in terms of watts per channel?

Please post your thoughts, even many may have done before you. I need as much food for thought on this one as possible.

Cheers

September 20, 2005

I posted a similar topic a couple of weeks ago and I am looking to take things a littel further now. However, I have got myself all confused as to what to do.
Basically, I have decided to upgrade regardless and I have scrambled together a little over two hundred quid to do it. I have got a chance to buy a set of Focal V2 components (at a very good price) which if anyone didn't know they are mid to high end speakers. I accept I will need an external amp which the cost and hassle wiring up is not an issue.
However, I was always told that to get a good sound you need to start with source, ie the headunit. Does anyone genuinely know if this is any good.
I am not looking for a competion or concourse set up just a good quality sound. Then I start thinking maybe I should get low to mid set of components and run them direct from the headunit. I would really like to keep the original headunit but I don't know anything about it. Purists will say dump it and spend the two hundred quid on a headunit and reap the instant quality and then upgrade the speakers when you can afford to.
Does anyone know what the factory headunit kicks out in terms of watts per channel?
Please post your thoughts, even many may have done before you. I need as much food for thought on this one as possible.
Cheers
←

hi mate

i have had many years of experience with car hifi (autoelectrician). Firstly what i would do is dynamat the doors then install your Speakers, as for your head unit they are not a bad unit but you will require an amp. The main problem you will find is that that the oem radio does not have low signal outputs, to overcome this problem you will require a high to low signal converter but with these you will get a fair bit if interferance. I have recently used DLS amplifiers which have this interface built in and they are great (no interferiance), a bit pricey but you get what you pay for these are avaliable througth specialist car audio dealers. Get in touch with www.techdistributionltd.co.uk they will tell you where your nearest dealer is. if you need more info email me morawat@hotmail.com

September 22, 2005

Thanks for that, it is genuinley appreciated. I will have a poke about and get back to you.

Cheers

Paul

September 23, 2005

Paul this may help a little,

I changed my standard head unit for a full screen sat nav, but the audio control was not that good. So i took the ball by the horns and designed and built my own system with the following specs.

1. I took the high out put speaker wires from the headunit. bridged them into two channels Left and Right.

2. Fed these to a nine channel Kicker KQ9 graphic. which takes high inputs.

3. Fed a pair of custom built steath subs, 10" Xplodes with 2x 200W Xplode Amps in the back.

4. Feed the front outputs from the graphic to a 200W Xplode amp and then onto 2X 17.5 cm 200W Sony Xplode 3ways in the front doors with spered tweeters.

5. repeated the same for the rear.

The system sounds fantastic and i have full contol over the sound. This Mod wasn't cheap but it was well worth it, It just took time and a lot of patience.....

So it can be done and if you go ahead with changing things take your time.

Pete.