wagon76

hello all. just fitted some Alpine SPE-17SF components in my Hawkeye. If anyone wants an idiot's guide to this let me know and I'll write it up in detail.

I chose these a they have a mounting depth of only 38mm so the magnets don't foul any of the inner workings of the door. I think the RMS is only 25W, and the sound is much better than OE but does begin to distort a little at max volume. My question is - will the sound be further improved by changing to a new head unit (I am eyeing the Alpine ida-X311)? Not sure what the output is on my current double DIN OE which is frankly not much cop in my opinion.

cheers all

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Will it sound better? Probably.

But like most things in sound, the best sounds are in the ears of those who are hearing it.........in other words, something that YOU think is wonderful, may sound awful to me.
Best to listen to it first, preferably with your choice of speakers.

BTW, this would have been more use in ICE.

wagon76

i agree - i didn't see the ICE section. will repost it there if i can.
thanks for your feedback.

RE54

iTrader: (6)

a decent headunit can work wonders for speakers, if installed properly.

im a little worried now that the speakers i have aint going to fit, 58mm

wagon76

I don't THINK it'll be a problem, though I'm strictly amateur at all this stuff. I chose woofers with a shallow basket depth of only 38mm so I could fit them without spacers. Just drilled the inner skin & used self tappers and it was a neat job without wrecking anything. It also looked too much of a headache to remove the inner skin to fully sound deaden the inner side of the outer skin, so I bought the square pads of self adhesive deadening from Halfords and fitted it in two halves via the large woofer aperture once I'd cut the woofer out. Cutting the deadening not only made this easy it also allowed me to fit it above and below the strengthening bar which funs very close to the outer skin - making it impossible to fit the deadening in one piece anyway. I guess all you need to do is get a plastic spacer or fab one yourself out of MDF. I recall someone saying the Corsa spacers from Halfords do the job, if you can bear to have them in your car. Good luck with it

Davey L

iTrader: (3)

I fitted a set of Vibe components last year and used Corsa III spacers. No problems with them and it's an easy fit.

Tomwrx

iTrader: (54)

look at the old threads in the ice section as i posted links up to the spacers i bought last yr and fitted vibe components to my hawkeye,

RE54

iTrader: (6)

also remember, that the same set of speakers will sound different most cars.

this is due to build quality, speaker location, and installtion.

my mate had a R32 golf, and i had a civic type R. we both installed identical stuff, just straight bolt in stuff (no cutting or custom installing) it was a set of 6.5in alpine type R comps, 12in type R sub, and 4 channel amp running the lot. the R32 was by far the better sounding, better build doors and more sound proofing as standard made it night and day.

the subaru as far as i have seen is EASY to work on, but wont give the greatest results unless i start using bundles of sound proofing, as they rattle to ****!!! my thread coming VERY VERY SOON!