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Car audiophiles (which I am not): What shall I do?

Y

yobarman

Lifer
So I got me a 95 Maxima with a stock Bose HU and some crappy speakers. The sound is absolutely unbearable and very weak. So I bought two pairs of Kenwood KFC-1679ie speakers and installed them up front. When I took the old speakers out they were some 15 w pieces of poop, which I figured was the reason for the system sounding so bad.

But fear not there still is a problem. I put the new ones in, and the volume max is just as low, except with some better clarity and bass in the speakers. So it has to be the head unit right? I have an 2 year old Pioneer HU that i'm having my lil bro take out of my old car to ship up to school to me. I figure this will solve the problem because the system in my old car (90 lumina) sounded just fine with 14 year old stock speakers. It had enough juice where I could hear the music on the highway unlike my current car.

So i want to ask you guys this. What should I do? Once I have the HU installed, i believe it will sound better, right? But my little bro was telling me about RMS watts or something, basically saying that the HU won't really be powerful enough to power all four speakers? Should I return the pair that I havent installed yet, and spend money on an AMP? a woofer? or should I just stick with the HU and 4 speakers? I dont remember the exact model of HU that I had in my old car, but i think it will definately suffice.

I don't know what to do and thats why Im here. I'm willing to spend another 100-200 to upgrade (+$70 if i end up returning the other pair)
 
"No highs, no lows, it's gotta be Bose (TM)"

Edit - And if you don't know what "RMS" means/signifies/importance, then please just let someone knowledgable do all the hard work, or go to Crutchfield Advisor and read every article first. 🙂

- M4H
 
sounddomain isnt the best site for sound stuff, there are a lot of ppl but a lot just talk and dont know.

right now, i would just install that headunti and see what you have in terms of sound.

basically dont worry about a woofer unless your main speakers are powerful enough to over power the sub because bass heavy cars is not what you want you want good everything.

MIKE
 
well it depends on what you want and what your budget is.

Clarity? Good head unit, decent small amp, four good speakers. You'll have plenty bass this way and allows you to focus your budget on the speakers (where it counts the most)

Slam? Head unit, big amp, decent woofers and four mediocre speakers. It will sound OK, but the enphasis is on punch over quality and hence the budget will shift towards more power and woofers.

-edit- a "good" head unit will power four speakers just fine. It won't be that loud though but this approach works well. I'm not up on car stereo models these days though. I've always been a huge fan of alpine head units though...things could have changed. IIRC head units can put out at most something like 15 watts into four channels due to heat and size limitations.
 
Originally posted by: spidey07
well it depends on what you want and what your budget is.

Clarity? Good head unit, decent small amp, four good speakers. You'll have plenty bass this way and allows you to focus your budget on the speakers (where it counts the most)

Slam? Head unit, big amp, decent woofers and four mediocre speakers. It will sound OK, but the enphasis is on punch over quality and hence the budget will shift towards more power and woofers.

-edit- a "good" head unit will power four speakers just fine. It won't be that loud though but this approach works well. I'm not up on car stereo models these days though. I've always been a huge fan of alpine head units though...things could have changed. IIRC head units can put out at most something like 15 watts into four channels due to heat and size limitations.
Click to expand...

i think i'm going to stick to the 4 speakers, small amp idea cause if i wanted to upgrade i could toss in a few subs and have it kick. For right now i just want to listen to music at a decent level and quality, and i think this is the best way to go.

 
well just remember that the speakers are what affects your sound the most so...

good speakers = good sound no matter what amp/head unit you use.

cheap speakers = you can never make them sound good no matter what.

6.5 in speakers can put out a pretty good amount of bass. Won't be super low or super loud, but very balanced.
 
i have a 97 maxima that used to have bose in it. anyways if i remember right the bose speakers are each amped individually and run at 1 ohm or something weird like that. anyways i took out everything and put a system in. anyways u could probably get a deck for $150 or so and spend another $50-100 on speakers and it should be better. the max has 6.5" for the front and rear speakers. i'd mainly worry about the fronts since that what u will hear most. take a look at my cardomain site 97 maxima system
 
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