Car audio upgrade

[spwath]

So my 2006 Toyota Rav4 has pretty bad sound, I'm thinking about getting this stuff to upgrade, does it all look good/anything better for the price?
I'm new to car audio, I stick with home audio mostly

Head unit:

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_158G3150UP/Sony-CDX-G3150UP.html

Front speakers:

https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Reference-6500CX-component-loudspeaker/dp/B007SNMQDQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1494967878&sr=1-1&keywords=Infinity+Reference

Rear speakers:

https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Reference-6032si-Performance-Loudspeaker/dp/B002C8AFEE/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1494967878&sr=1-4&keywords=Infinity+Reference

[Orangeator]

Only problem I see is the rear speakers aren't available for another 1-2 months. When are you planning on installing these speakers?

[spwath]

7 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

Only problem I see is the rear speakers aren't available for another 1-2 months. When are you planning on installing these speakers?

yeah, I would do everything else and just wait on rears

[Stagea]

I suggest getting at least a head unit with good processing. The Pioneer DEH-X6900BT won't cost much more, and will give you a lot of flexibility and tuning. This will help you correct for time alignment and response issues that plague most car installs, especially when using the stock speaker locations.

 

 

[spwath]

2 hours ago, Stagea said:

I suggest getting at least a head unit with good processing. The Pioneer DEH-X6900BT won't cost much more, and will give you a lot of flexibility and tuning. This will help you correct for time alignment and response issues that plague most car installs, especially when using the stock speaker locations.

 

 

 any other suggestions? It isn't in stock at crutchfield right now,I would prefer to buy from there because it comes with car specific instructions/mounting gear.

 

I would prefer it to be under $100, but a little more is possible if a bunch better.

 it can be single or double height too.

[Stagea]

16 hours ago, spwath said:

 any other suggestions? It isn't in stock at crutchfield right now,I would prefer to buy from there because it comes with car specific instructions/mounting gear.

 

I would prefer it to be under $100, but a little more is possible if a bunch better.

 it can be single or double height too.

Fortunately, it is in stock now. Its closest competition would be the JVC KD-R980BTS / KD-R985BTS / KD-R988BTS and Kenwood KDC-BT568U.

 

[spwath]

1 hour ago, Stagea said:

Fortunately, it is in stock now. Its closest competition would be the JVC KD-R980BTS / KD-R985BTS / KD-R988BTS and Kenwood KDC-BT568U.

 

 ok, great,I think  ill get the pioneer due to the cleaner looks that jvc and lower price than Kenwood. Any thoughts  on the speakers i found /other alternatives?

[Stagea]

4 hours ago, spwath said:

 ok, great,I think  ill get the pioneer due to the cleaner looks that jvc and lower price than Kenwood. Any thoughts  on the speakers i found /other alternatives?

If the Infinity Kappa 60.11cs or 62.11i would fit, those are much higher quality speakers (not so expensive in Amazon). You can actually skip the rear speakers and mount a subwoofer instead (that'd likely give you better performance overall). The stock rear speakers can either continue duty as rear fill (low level output), or be muted altogether. Most competition level audio systems do not run rear speakers because they just interfere with front speaker output (pulling back the sound stage and causing comb filtering).

 

An Infinity 62.11cs/i + Infinity Basslink combination would yield better top to bottom coverage. In such a setup, you can high-pass the front speakers and low-pass the subwoofer (reducing distortion in the process). You can introduce delays on the front channels (via the head unit's time alignment feature) to ensure that arrival times are compensated for. Once the levels are properly adjusted and the response is equalized, you can get pretty close to the performance of a good home system.

 

The Morel Maximo 6 and Polk Audio db6502 may be worth a look too. 

[spwath]

2 hours ago, Stagea said:

If the Infinity Kappa 60.11cs or 62.11i would fit, those are much higher quality speakers (not so expensive in Amazon). You can actually skip the rear speakers and mount a subwoofer instead (that'd likely give you better performance overall). The stock rear speakers can either continue duty as rear fill (low level output), or be muted altogether. Most competition level audio systems do not run rear speakers because they just interfere with front speaker output (pulling back the sound stage and causing comb filtering).

 

An Infinity 62.11cs/i + Infinity Basslink combination would yield better top to bottom coverage. In such a setup, you can high-pass the front speakers and low-pass the subwoofer (reducing distortion in the process). You can introduce delays on the front channels (via the head unit's time alignment feature) to ensure that arrival times are compensated for. Once the levels are properly adjusted and the response is equalized, you can get pretty close to the performance of a good home system.

 

The Morel Maximo 6 and Polk Audio db6502 may be worth a look too. 

my car has seperate spots for woofer   and tweeter, so would the 60.11cs be better than the 62.11i/?

 

 

[Stagea]

3 hours ago, spwath said:

my car has seperate spots for woofer   and tweeter, so would the 60.11cs be better than the 62.11i/?

 

 

Most likely, but not always. If you can get the 60.11cs, then I'd say go for it.

 

Basic guide after installing:

1. Keep the head unit mode in standard. You can explore 3-way active network mode later on if you realize that you wanna get deeper into this. Set the subwoofer module crossover dial to 120 Hz, bass boost to 0, and gain to about halfway.

2. Turn on the head unit (set the time and radio frequency gap, etc.). Set the head unit to play flat (EQ set to flat, loudness off, bass boost 0, etc.). Turn off the subwoofer output.

3. Test the speakers with the 60.11cs tweeter attenuation set to 0 dB. Switch it to +3 dB if you feel that you need more sizzle. You can try reversing the phase of the tweeters to see if this makes an improvement or not.

4. Turn on the subwoofer output in the head unit and level-match the subwoofer module gain.

5. Measure the driver distances from your listening position, then time-align via the head unit. 

6. Select a suitable crossover point (HPF and LPF at 80 Hz is a good starting point) and play with subwoofer phase (so that it reinforces your front speaker output and not cancel them out).

7. Adjust channel levels to get a smooth handoff between the subwoofer and your midwoofers.

8. Start equalizing (you have the head unit EQ tools and the subwoofer's bass dial at your disposal).

9. Do some last fine adjustments to the items above. The system should sound very good at this point.

10. Rinse and repeat as you enjoy fine tuning for weeks. You can start exploring other settings and options at this point.  

 

A car's interior needs a lot of compensating for (reflection points near the listener, sub-optimal driver placement, asymmetric layout, cabin gain, etc.), which is why there is this wealth of options. Once everything is properly set, it should sound more like a good home system. 

 

Best of luck! 

[spwath]

5 hours ago, Stagea said:

Most likely, but not always. If you can get the 60.11cs, then I'd say go for it.

 

Basic guide after installing:

1. Keep the head unit mode in standard. You can explore 3-way active network mode later on if you realize that you wanna get deeper into this. Set the subwoofer module crossover dial to 120 Hz, bass boost to 0, and gain to about halfway.

2. Turn on the head unit (set the time and radio frequency gap, etc.). Set the head unit to play flat (EQ set to flat, loudness off, bass boost 0, etc.). Turn off the subwoofer output.

3. Test the speakers with the 60.11cs tweeter attenuation set to 0 dB. Switch it to +3 dB if you feel that you need more sizzle. You can try reversing the phase of the tweeters to see if this makes an improvement or not.

4. Turn on the subwoofer output in the head unit and level-match the subwoofer module gain.

5. Measure the driver distances from your listening position, then time-align via the head unit. 

6. Select a suitable crossover point (HPF and LPF at 80 Hz is a good starting point) and play with subwoofer phase (so that it reinforces your front speaker output and not cancel them out).

7. Adjust channel levels to get a smooth handoff between the subwoofer and your midwoofers.

8. Start equalizing (you have the head unit EQ tools and the subwoofer's bass dial at your disposal).

9. Do some last fine adjustments to the items above. The system should sound very good at this point.

10. Rinse and repeat as you enjoy fine tuning for weeks. You can start exploring other settings and options at this point.  

 

A car's interior needs a lot of compensating for (reflection points near the listener, sub-optimal driver placement, asymmetric layout, cabin gain, etc.), which is why there is this wealth of options. Once everything is properly set, it should sound more like a good home system. 

 

Best of luck! 

 ok, great thanks. I'll start with just the head unit, as I've heard the one in my car is pretty bad, plus that's all the money I have for now. I'll also use my minidsp umik1  and rew to help me set up the sound system.

[Stagea]

15 hours ago, spwath said:

 ok, great thanks. I'll start with just the head unit, as I've heard the one in my car is pretty bad, plus that's all the money I have for now. I'll also use my minidsp umik1  and rew to help me set up the sound system.

Cool. You can apply a low pass filter on the rear channels by running them as subwoofer channels (there is a setting in the head unit to do this), and a high pass filter on the front channels. This will make the system play clearer, as you are not running a full range signal to both front and rear drivers (less work to do, and it removes the comb filtering issue). 

 

Time-align the set, adjust the channel levels, then equalize. The stock set will probably sound a whole lot better after this.

 

 

[spwath]

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 11:21 PM, Stagea said:

Cool. You can apply a low pass filter on the rear channels by running them as subwoofer channels (there is a setting in the head unit to do this), and a high pass filter on the front channels. This will make the system play clearer, as you are not running a full range signal to both front and rear drivers (less work to do, and it removes the comb filtering issue). 

 

Time-align the set, adjust the channel levels, then equalize. The stock set will probably sound a whole lot better after this.

 

 

 got it, installed it all. Haven't gone through setup yet, but already sounds better.

 

 now for a sub,I have two options I could do for free, would any be good/smart or should I wait and get an actual sub?

 option one: Use sub pre out to go to Polk psw108 sub, with an adapter to plug into car (if  it can even take that much power)

 option two: Configure rear speaker out to be sub out, and plug in to the rear speaker/sub out one of my jbl g-734's with tweeter disconnected.