got the door pannels in. just missing one trim ring. hopefully it will be in this week.

 

so it has been a long time since I have been on here. The birth of my daughter meant the death of my stereo.

However, I bought a truck and the stereo doesnt care that much. So as long as it is aloud I would like to continue this thread.


I am really looking to do more sq on this build. So I come to the forum where I was once so active to look for advice.

I was thinking morel components with arc audio amps and a DAD 8 under the seat. However, that stereo is pricey and I am paying two car notes now. so I am definately open to suggestion.

 

welcome back.

of course you are welcome to continue the build log with the new vehicle in your thread. i'm happy to provide whatever insight or advice you seek.

Morel has several lines that get better as you spend more. It may make sense to look for a higher line used.

Arc Audio makes good amps, no going wrong there. Also, used can save a ton of money. Did you save anything from the previous system you can reuse?

You don't have to spend a lot of money to sound good. I put a Polk PA660 on some 90's MB Quart speakers in the wife's car and it sounds very nice. I have about $200 total in speakers and amps thanks to shopping used. The head unit is an Alpine CDE-HD149BT and does a good job offering time alignment and EQ.

 

Did not save anything. I sold some before I sold the car and some with the car.

I did have some mb quarts at one time in the car and they sounded really good. I was happier with the system in the honda when it had the diamonds and sounded better.

But I really enjoyed competeing.

With this truck I just want to enjoy to ride. I want to do it once and I fear if I dont get a higher end speaker I will be stuck wondering what if I got the higher end to start with.

Also plan on spending some time figuring out the staging before I just start putting speakers in.

Where would you recommend buying used from?

 

I guess all builds need a start, so I suppose I will start with a review of the factory stereo.

We will start with the head unit. It is a basic unit. As all Nissans seem to be it is pretty simple and not very flashy. It has a 3 level eq adjustment as well as speed sensitive volume. It has an aux input, sat radio, am/fm, and a cd player. A small orange screen with pretty ancient style digital screen.

The front stage is lacking everything bit bass. The doors have 6x9s. I believe this is to try and get the bass in the front stage. It is a noble cause but I think it was in vain. I have to listen to my iphone on bass reducer mode with the bass all the way down on the eq, and still the bass tends to distort some of the lyrics. I think in part to the speakers and in part because of the sound processing. (I will come back to that).

The tweeters are in the dash aimed up at the glass, similar to how a mid 90s model chevy dash is laid out. I think this is in hopes of bouncing the highs off the glass to give the illusion of the tweeters being higher and further in front of you than is physically possible with the windshield angle. This again is a failed attempt.

There was a lot of thought put into the staging to try and pass off a subpar stereo as a nice sounding system. I think a lot of this has to do with cheap speaker quality and processing.

It seems there is an overlap in the crossovers. The tweeters seem to play too low, and play as low as to actually pick up vocals. They dont get very harsh which makes me think I am seriously lacking in the highs (which is quite sad being aimed at the glass the way it is.) The lows pick up many of the same vocals, and while I dont notice any cancellation there is definately distortion caused by the bass, and it muddys the mids.

I think the 6x9s were a poor choice. The doors on the truck are huge and allow for a ton of air space. 6.5s would have produced plenty of bass. the 6x9s coupled with all that air space again makes the speakers muddy. (they do sound half way decent playing country music, or young jeezy where there is low bass that is supposed to have that drawn out sound.)

The rear doors have 6.5s in them. I have not sat in the rear of the truck to see how it sounds. but I also dont really intend too. The sub-par level of a front stage gives me no hope for the rear, and makes me look forward to starting this project.

The biggest thing I dont understand is all the time and thought put into attempting staging to hide the lack luster stereo in the truck. if they would have spent half the money on the stereo equipment they spent paying the engineers to try and make it ound good there could have been a really nice product.

on the other hand, they do offer a rockford upgrade system for the truck new. Maybe this is their attempt at an up-sale.

 

you'll find that most factory systems run the woofers full-range and use a single cap (6dB/oct) high pass on the tweeter, set very high. This combination can work with some home systems, but rarely in a car.

The premium RF systems are usually just as poor in SQ but will add bass (muddy, and boomy bass).

I buy used gear wherever i find good deals: CL, eBay, Forum Classifieds. A good deal is a combination of an honest seller who is good at packaging and a product that is >60% off list with original packaging.

 

So I am buying another 7th gen accord tomorrow. May do a budget build since I have responsibilities now.

 

Looks good. I liked this styling.

 

I wonder how a pair of these would sound in the rear deck.