Sorry to post such a vague request, but here goes:

What is the best way to spend £300 to improve the sounds in a 5dr? I've already changed the head to a Sony CDX760 CD player (it sounded very good in my 106GTi, from which it was transferred).

I'm not interested in "thumpin bass, man", and my baseball cap is gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere, so a sub-woofer is completely off the menu.

What I'm after is:

a) Clarity: I listen to a lot of Radio 4, so good-quality speech is vital.
b) Sufficient volume: an accelerating 5dr makes a bit of a racket. But I'm not interested in blowing anyone away, so let's not get stupid.
c) Something that suits my tastes (Pink Floyd, Catatonia, Radiohead, Blues, Folk, bit of Jazz etc.)

So, I need suggestions:

a) Is the budget enough?
b) Speakers:
---> Components/single?
---> Supplier?
---> Positioning?
c) Amps: the Sony says it 4x40W, but friends' experiences suggest that Sony overstate the case
d) I'm in the Maidstone/Tonbridge area, so if anyone knows of a good ICE supplier within 50 miles I'd be delighted to hear about them.

Thanks for your time,

Rob. (the happy hatchbacker)

Rob.

With the increased level of road/exhaust noise that you will suffer in an estate. http://bbs.sidc.co.uk/wink.gif your best option would be to install an amp and uprate your speakers.

Also change your original fit speaker wire to Oxygen Free Copper (OFC) wire as this will help.

4x40 watt is probably peak per channel and could be as low as 15-20 Watts RMS..... Not very much.


Unfortunately this is one of those subjects which gets more expensive the better you want it, depends entirely on how far you want to go.

Speak to an expert. If you don't have one locally try Car Electronics in Nottingham on 0115 924 0666 Justin or (Chris?) even if you only use them for ideas/options Etc.

They should be able to give you an idea on kit and cost to achieve your aim. any problems E me direct.


Mike.

Rob,
I have a pair of Mission (yes, Mission Hi-Fi now for cars!) 5 1/4 silk-dome coaxials in the front of my 5-door. They give a smooth, clean, uncoloured sound particularly for vocals. Reasonably good bass (although only similar in depth to the slightly larger standard fits). They were about £125 the pair and apparently reduced from £180 rrp. I did have to use the spacer rings as a template to make some MDF collar rings as the speakers are slightly smaller than the 6inch-ish pods.

They do sound clear, however perhaps something a little brighter like a Soundstream coaxial may help things in the standard door positions. These I think were about 2/3 of the price! I did hope I would consider the Missions a waste of money and remove them to go back for the Soundtreams I heard in a reasonable demo stand in the local shop. But I'm happy with the Missions for now.

I looked high and low for a 6-inch quality coaxial unit but could only find 6 1/2 inch units around a couple of months ago.

I would dearly love to work out how to install my separate tweeters and JBL 6-inch mid-bass units behind the standard grilles (like I did so well in my previous Rover 220) but there is not a lot of room. Coaxials do suffer from pointing away, off axis from the listener's ears and so silk dome tweeters may be too refined for door pods. I ABSOLUTELY do not want a pair of tweeters mounted on show.

I'd say get a decent pair of speakers like the above, then decide whether you are happy or want to move them to the rear doors (same size pods apparently) and spend more on the front or just go for an amp capable of driving the front pair well and perhaps retain your Sony front-end driving the rear door pair. I'd say a good amp is the icing on the cake but the pseaker install sets the tone of the system.

I have a Kenwood 2-ch amp that is back in it's box because the little Alpine 1502 drives things quite well and I can't really be bothered to run new speaker and power cables around my new-ish car. Maybee one day after it's been dented.

If you only buy the one pair of speakers, you might like to install the front speakers in the rear doors as they are apparently larger, better ones than are standard in the rear doors. Gosh I must do this myself one day!

regards,
Rob.

Thanks for the advice.

Rob.

Have you considered putting in extra sound deadening? Stuff like Dynamat (sp?) - I'm considering doing this to my 5dr.