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Haven't bought my Scooby yet but I gather from the messages that the standard stereo is a bit naff. Is this down to the radio itself or are the speakers not up to the job? Haven't got much spare cash so what should I upgrade first?
If you're not mad on ICE but just want a good system then suggest just a unit upgrade. Kenwood with 10 stack should be about £400 fitted and £25 to transfer on to the next scooby. The fitted speakers seem fine to me and the guys who fitted it said they would do the job ok.
Of course if you have the cash people would say you need the speakers as well, personally I'm happy with the factory fitted ones.
Try the speakers first. They are pants, not even a brand name on 'em. The rear shelf will take 6x9 speakers without modifications, just remove the spacer rings (if you can get the shelf out ((see my post on the interiors section, any advise gratefully recieved)).
i've just bee lookin' at speakers, you could change the four for £ 100.00 upwardseven at this level the sound will be greatly improved.
__________________ The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing - A. Einstein
I'm not an ICE expert but I changed the head unit on my car for a cheap Kenwood radio-cassette unit (377R) and the entry level 6-disc changer (KDC462) - the difference is immediately obvious. The combo can be bought from most discount ICE mail order places for £250 approx.
The standard speakers (in a WRX at least) are made by Addzest (a.k.a. Clarion) and seem pretty good to me.
As soon as you add induction kits and exhausts, the car becomes much noisier anyhow.
A few people have used Dynamat and other sound deadening material to improve the sound at fairly low cost - maybe a better first step ?
The standard speakers can be bettered without a doubt but I would suggest you spend your money on something else...
First thing to do is to upgrade the head unit to one that has a reasonable amount of output power. It's amazing how many times people blame the speakers for naff sound when it's the apms that are at fault.
You won't get any more than 22W RMS out of a head unit (unless it has a built-in high power inverter..... extremely unlikely) so anything that claims to be more will be peak or peak-to-peak figures; try to compare like with like!
The standard speakers are rated at 20W RMS, so 22W RMS would be a reasonable match. The cone material leaves something to be desired, and the limit of linear cone excusion isn't brilliant. Also, being of a squawker (sp?) variety (dual cone) there will be interesting effects as the main cone comes out of PPM... there could be some appreciable intermodulation distortion.
The most noticeable upgrade would be to add an amp and a sub; this would mean that you can run the factory units from a much higher frequency upward, reducing cone excursion and allowing them to play louder than they ever could without a sub. Also because the excusrions are being reducded, so will doppler modulation and certain other intermodulation products produced these wide-range drivers. Some of the better headunits have a built-in highpass filter which makes implementation of this topology a piece of cake. Using the standard unit would present other problems.
In the end, there is no substitute for power. The SPL in the vehicle is determined by the reference efficiency of the drivers and the amplifier power available (assuming the amp is well matched to the speakers). As you reduce the efficiency of a speaker, it becomes more linear, but requires more power to produce the same output SPL. Also, a high power amp "twiddling its thumbs" is going to sound a lot cleaner and more natural than a smaller unit almost flat out.
Wait 'till you get your car, and then if you're not happy with it, think about changing stuff. One of the cheapest things you can do is to add sound deadening material to your doors and boot lid... Dynamat is well know, but expensive. The Autoleads stuff works just as well (IMVHO) and costs about UKP 9.00 per roll. One roll will pretty much cover the inside of a whole door. There is mixed opinion as to how much you need; some say that a liberal scattering will do (25% coverage, say) whereas others seem to pile it on 100% multi-layer (bogs the car down a bit!). You can always add more! As an added bonus it does give the doors a real solid sound... a good deep "thunk" when you close them :-)
If you want to upgrade your headunit, now is a good time... just into the new year, all the sales are on so you should get a good deal. This is one area you don't want to be counting the pennies too closely; as the old saying goes "garbage in, garbage out" so no matter how good the rest of your setup, if the head unit's no good, the whole system will sound naff. You'll probably be looking around UKP 300 upwards for a decent unit, not cheap but if you do a lot of miles.....
Amps and subs can be expensive, but only if you pay RRP on them. As a rule of thumb, if a retailer wants the full RRP, just walk away. Normally, if I don't get at least 20% off RRP I walk away. But you have to be serious in order to get decent discounts. By "serious" I mean "I'll take it right *NOW*, for CASH"... it's amazing just how flexible places become when you wave some cash (or a card) at them :-) If you're talking credit agreements, forget about decent discounts (life's unfair.... the more money you have the more you can save).
I've still got some amps and subs lying around from some "evaluation" sessions I was doing.... most have harldy been used (run in, but not much more) while some have never been used at all. All going for sensible money. The only "spare" headunit I have is quite old now (tape job) which is perhaps not ideal (Kenwood, will control a CD changer, but not exactly top of the range or cutting edge technology!)
