Posted: 5/17/2005 8:09:08 PM EDT
|
I just bought a new 05 supercrew. I would like to upgrade the speakers but Im not into the boomin' stereo stuff. Would I notice a difference if I replaced the factory speakers with a nice set of aftermarket speakers. I dont want to add any amps, or enclosures. There are 4. 5x7's, one in each door from the factory I found a set of Alpine sps570a speakers that would bolt right in. |
|
you will definitely notice a difference by upgrading to the alpine speakers. you'll notice an even greater difference if you add an amplifier to it, for example a 4x50 W(RMS). those speakers are rated to 40W RMS, but it's always best to go just a little higher. contrary to popular opinion, more speakers are blown due to underpowering them than over powering. that's why i recommend you go ahead and add an amplifier. also, keep in mind that you may just choose to change the front speakers only, but still go with a 4 channel amp. if you're not going to add an amp, you may find yourself wanting to turn the volume up higher to get more/better sound. this is what's called underpowering and is how most speakers get blown. Sony makes a few decent 4 channel amps reasonably priced and should not cost much more to install. Compare the quality of the speakers to a car without an engine. The factory engine (for your speakers - ie. the factory radio) is a lawnmower engine. You'll burn out that engine trying to take that care onto open roads for a long period of time. Put a more powerful engine in it and you'll be fine. In other words... spend the extra couple hundred and get the amp. it's as much inportant of an investment as the speakers. the speakers will only deliver as good of sound as the amplifier provides, and the factory ones dont provide much (depsite what the vehicle manual says about the sound system) ETA: More often than not, the quality of the sound is determined by the power producing the sound. Seriously, you can take a crappy pari of speakers and add an amp to them, and they will sound 100% better. You may want to consider that an option. Buy and amp only (say, a clean 4/50wrms) and don't change your spekaers. Listen to it. You'll be amazed at the difference in sound quality just from changing the amp. Then, you could drop a few extra bucks and change the speakers all on your own. That's the easy part. I worked in the home/car audio business for several years, and my car was the showroom demo. We put many different sound systems through it, and because of all this, I learned what you really need, as compared to what you don't really need. Final conclusion: Buy a 4 channel 50 W / channel RMS amplifier, possibly by sony or alpine. Shouldn't run you more than 1 or 2 hundred bucks. That may be all you need. You should notice dramatic sound improvement right there alone. If you want a little better sound than that... then add some speakers. Trust me on this one. I've won (although many years ago) car audio contests with minmal equipment done right. |
|
I just replaced my speakers in my truck last weekend to some 5" 3 ways in the door and put a pair of 6X9 3 ways behiend the seat and added a 4 channel 50 watt CD player. All Kenwood. I cannot believe the diffenence it has made!! It's great for a work truck. I spent well under $200 on Ebay to get all the stuff and it took 3 hrs to wire it all in. 
|
|
Reconsider on the amp..... Get something that has low THD, like something below 1% at peak output. Get something with about 50 watts x2 and then run your speakers in parallel, two off each channel. Get the Alpine speakers. Your "system" will be about 100% better than factory. Factory speakers, even Bose and Infinity stuff, can be outdone with the correct application of a couple hundred dollars. |
That's fine HRGlen. Those speaker will sound better than what you have, but you stand the chance of blowing them after a little while using the factory power from the radio. It just isn't enough to deliver the sound those speakers are capable of. IF you add an inexpensive 4 channel 50 W RMS amp (between 1 and 2 hundred dollars more), you'll have an AWESOME sounding sound system. Don't add speakers without adding the right power amplification for them, or you'll blow them by underpowering them. IF you'd like to chat offline about this, just send me an IM and I'll explain it to you better. Power amplification is the key to having good sound quality. I've heard shitty speakers turn GREAT just by adding an amp. Try to think about it in that order. |
|
Get something with about 50 watts x2 and then bridge it. If you bridge it, it becomes a 100W mono amp.  Low reading comprehension skills here. To review: I would like to upgrade the speakers but Im not into the boomin' stereo stuff.... I dont want to add any amps, or enclosures. There are 4. 5x7's, one in each door from the factory I found a set of Alpine sps570a speakers that would bolt right in. Be aware that with car audio, a lot is glitz and false advertising. Power ratings are for the most part opium dreams, for both amps and speakers. So, all you can really go on is brand name reputation. Ditto distortion and frequency response figures. And regardless of how the speakers and amps sound in the listening room, in a car, with a much smaller volume and interior, different speaker placement, the sound will be completely different. Also, price is not necessarily an indicator of quality. Yes, those or any other good quality 5x7. In car audio sizes 2-way speakers are the better buy. There is no acoustical / mechanical reason to have a 3-way in the size ranges associated with car audio (5x7, 6x9, 6 or 6.5). That is merely a way to extract more money from the buyers. For car audio, spkrs with butyl rubber surrounds are preferable to foam surrounds, btw. Plastic/Mylar cones, not paper. Moisture destroys as many speakers as anything. But it may not be the speakers that are the problem. I replaced the stock radio in my van with a nice JVC AM/FM/CD with built in 4x25 amp. I put this in first, as I wanted CD, not just AM/FM. That was good enough, the stock spkrs sounded fine. I don't listen to hip-hop, I listen to real music. In my car now, CD's by Kirk Whalum, Robert Cray, B.B. King, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Tower of Power, etc. This all sounds just fine. Don't need a subwoofer either. If I want my seat kicked, I have kids that can do that. |
I've got a 98 F150 with 2 8" subs in the JL stealth box with 2 Denon amps with one dedicated to the sub and the other to the 4 MBQuart 6". Spend the extra money on the amp and the speakers. Yes, the jam is good, very good. The head unit should be the last thing you replace. |
|
probably some of the best car speakers you can buy right here. Speakers |
| That reminds me. I've got some old school good, clean power laying around in the basement. I think I'll get them out and list them in the EE. Couple of Alpines (3542's, I think), a couple Soundstream D200II's, and a Phoenix gold MS275. Wonder what all that shit's worth? |
Not much. Remember when phoenix gold was expensive? Now they are cheap. I remember when Hifonics was the best sub amp out there and the Zues was like $1200, now its $350 
|
Sorry but that is false. If you blew speakers by underpowering them you'd do so everytime you turned the volume down. What would kill a speaker is if you clipped the amp (resulting in ~2x the energy going into the speaker) and that was over the rating of the speaker it was hooked up to. I could clip 50 watts into a sub all day long that is meant to take 1000W. PG still makes great amps, the Ti (& Ti Elite) and Xenon series. The Octane and Tantrum series are to attract first time or budget buyers. |
No sir, that is an incorrect statement. Distortion is what causes most speaker failures (ie. 'blown' speakers). Most people think it's from having too much power. They think that because generally when speakers blow, it's because the user has the volume cranked up all the way. You should never have to turn up your attenuator all the way to enjoy listening to your music. When it is turned all the way up, that's when you are producing the most distortion. Distortion comes from amplifiers, not speakers. Therefore, if you have insufficient power from your amplifier, you will find yourself having more distortion as you get louder and louder. You see, if you have speakers that are rated at a certain power (say 50W), and you are using a factory stereo that pumps out mabye 8W, the volume at which you'd have to turn it up to adequately enjoy listening to music through would be at the highest level of distortion that the amplifier puts out. If you have adequate amplification, then you'll seldom need to reach distortion levels of your amplifier which will cause your speakers to blow. The cooler you amp runs, the better. Therefore, having the volume turned all the way down, will cause the least distortion. That's the difference between the terms RMS and PEAK power ratings. You always want to go by the RMS power ratings. If your speakers are rated at 50W RMS, then you should try to have an amplifier that puts out 50W RMS. If your amp put out 10W RMS but 50 Peak, that would mean that at 50 watts, the amp is putting out pure distortion. I hope that clarifies things for you. |
|
Amps are a must. Upgrading spekers without an amp to power them is like pulling the engine out of your Ferrari and replacing it with a Rocket. The potential is there, but you aren't getting anything with regular gas. I'll also add, the Car Audio bug is almost as strong as Black Rifle Disease. "Wow, these new 5x7 and amp sound awsome. Hmmm, if I add component spekers with a crossover...wow, I realy like how that sounds. Now some low bass...more amps....MUST..HAVE...MORE...POWER..." Audiophilia is a sickness
|
2 things blows speakers, burning out the coil, or pure mechanical damage (such as ripping the spider or banging against the back plate/jumping out of the gap). Distortion itself is not a problem. It is when you exceed the limits of the speaker either thermally or mechanically that things go wrong. A 10 watt amplifier cannot put out 50 watts. Peak is an entirely bogus measurement that means jack squat. If you clip the hell out of a 10 watt amp the most you will get out if it will be ~20 watts. (area under a square wave instead of a sine wave) Now if you have relatively low (wattage) rated speakers, and have an amplifier close to their RMS, someone could clip the amp, which would put more wattage into the speaker than it is intended to do. Go here: www.bcae1.com/ and scroll down on the right nav bar to #29 |
That is one good explanation, but not 100% accurate. Having worked in this field for several years, I can tell you from experience that I had taken in countless blown speakers that were the direct result of owners cranking up the volume to the limits of both the amps and speakers, where the amplifiers did not even come close to the power recommended by the speaker manufacturers. Usually, the amplifiers that were used were inexpensive amps who's peak power ratings were often mistaken for RMS power, and subsequently insufficient to 'cleanly' drive the speakers. Over a short period of time, this would not cause any damage. However, over the course of several months, the continuous distortion accompanied by an amp driving itself at full power is what would ultimately burn out the coils on the speakers. Often times this would occur when someone would have their stereo cranked up for up to several hours at a time, for example, while on a road trip. If you've ever touched the coil of a speaker after blaring it for a considerable time, you'll notice that it can get as hot heck. When you have an amp that's running cool, this generally doesn not happen. (unless the amp is driving far more RMS wattage than the speaker can handle) On a technical level, I cannot go any further than what I have described. The link you provided does an excellent job at explaining how power is driven into the speakers, and there's nothing for me to argue about that. On a practical level, (ie. in PRACTICE) I've seen the results of mismatched speakers and amps way too many times and know what combinations work, and which ones fail. Too little power WILL harm your speakers, maybe not in the short term, but in time. Too much power is bad too. That's why speakers have power ratings and one should try to use amplifiers that match as closely as possible to those ratings. |
|
What is the difference / advantage between a 2 channel and a 4 channel amp? I have a Alpine CDA-9830 in my 2004 Dodge Ram Quad Cab and am looking for some new speakers. I bought my head unit from Crutchfield and had a good expierence with them. I am looking at Polk Audio db 690 and some Polk Audio db 650's. Any thoughts on these. Nick |
+ 100 on that. I remember when I was a kid. The new hotness was installing 100 watt 6x9's in the rear deck. Most of these kids used the stock radio, but "Man I got 100 watt speakers!!" Had a lot of arguments trying to convince these guys to just match the speakers correctly to the deck. As long as you don't have to crank the volume knob into the "distortion" range, you're fine. Used to demonstrate with a 15 watt Sears AM/FM/Cassette deck and a pair of 15 watt dual cone "whizzers". Sounded extremely sweet. Kids would look under the seat for the amp while I smiled and shook my head. Good times, my friend. Good times. |
Dear Alpine 3542 x 2, Soundstream D200II X 2, and 1 Phoenix Gold MS275, I hope you like the gallon of Tannerite, cause that's the last thing you're gonna see. I'll spend a few dollars to watch them fly apart before I'll give them away. w00t! I just found a Soundstream MC500 in the basement. That's a helluva nice, clean amp, (4 x 125w @ 4 0hms  ), just imagine what it can do at 1 ohm, or less.It's sad to see quality components die in an explosion. Better than giving them away. I guess it's kinda like blowing up a P2 350. It still works, but it's old, slow, and you can't get shit for it. |
In simplistic installs that are meant to be a low dollar upgrade from a factory system a 2 channel amp usually gives you a little more power, with a lower cost. HOWEVER, you will sacrifice the ability to fade from front to rear in most 2 channel setups that drive 4 speaker sets. A 4 channel amp will give slightly cleaner power but lower power overall going to each speaker, it usually requires one more set of wires to get signal to the amp....they also usually cost a bit more than a 2-channel amp for similar power output. |
|
You will notice a big difference in sound quality just replacing the stock speakers, but whether that's enough for you is gonna be hard to predict. You certainly won't get an increase in volume, though, and that's where a lot of factory radios fall short. My current setup is a Pioneer head unit, a Pioneer 4x50 power amp, Pioneer and Alpine speakers, Alpine tweeters, a 12" Kicker Solobaric Sub and a 350w Kicker sub amp. My last leased car couldn't accomodate the head unit w/o some major changes to the installed face plate, so I just replaced the speakers while the rest of the stuff sat on a shelf in my basement. It was a major stup up from the factory stereo, but after having the extra power of all the other stuff, I was just waiting on the day that I could get everything re-installed. I listen to music almost exclusively in my car these days, so there was no question about dumping the $$ into a reasonably good system. Go ahead and swap out the speakers, and see how you like it...it may be enough for ya, and you'll save some bucks not having to get the additional equipment plus the installation. |
|
There's a lot of "junk science" being expounded in this thread. I'll just say that Jakezor is much much closer to the truth than Niceguymr. Interestingly enough, if Niceguymr was more knowledgable in electronics, he would realize that the distortion he talks about is the same clipping that Jakezor talks about. Start with the better speakers, you'll notice an improvement. It's the logical first step. |
|
Check out a well thought out test on distortion: forum.soundillusions.net/showthread.php?t=47441, done by someone who knows plenty more than me and has lots of test equipment. Here is a gem:
|
don't do that just yet! there are plenty of people willing to pay somethign at least, for old school equipment. |
|
There are many causes of distortion, but the type of distortion from cranking up the amp is called "clipping". This happens when the amp is asked to produce a signal at the output that is higher in voltage than what is available in it's power supply rails. So, if a sine wave with 30v peaks is what is trying to come out, but the amp only has +/-25 v available, it chops the tops of the waves off at 25v. This turns the nice rounded sine wave into a flattopped wave. As it is cranked more and more, it becomes a "square wave". Those squared off corners are high frequency signal. Audibly, this is an edgy screechy tone that is heard for a short time before the tweeters burn out. This distortion may not hurt the woofers, but since it is high level high frequency signal, zap!, the tweeter is fried. That's OK, these kids have already lost high frequency hearing and don't notice the tweeters are no longer producing the delicate tones of cymbals, and other high percussion. But that pig squeeling sound comes on thru the woofer along with the record scratching. Frying tweeters also comes from cranking up the bass to very unrealistic levels. Some people want the thump thump bass, which is not what is recorded and not what you hear from live bands. They crank up the bass, which takes a lot of power. Now the amp clips, and because they cranked the bass, the tweeters fry. If they had a separate amp running a subwoofer, the main amp running the other speakers would not clip, and they would survive. One thing to look at in speaker specs, if they can be believed, is SPL. Sound Pressure Level. This is measured in db per watt at one meter. The higher the SPL the more efficient the spkr. A speaker that is rated at 93 db will require ONE HALF the amp power of one rated at 90 db. And it will require ONE QUARTER the power of a spkr rated at 87 db. For a given sound level, the high SPL spkr will be less likely to bring on distortion from you having to crank up the amp. By the way, if I can hear your bass thumping in your car, while I am inside my house, and you are two blocks away, and I have time to get my rifle and load it before you drive past... you are too damn loud!  |
|
A minor correction, SPL (or efficiency), is rated in db at 1 watt @ 1 meter, not db per watt @ 1 meter. It's also worth noting that the square waves have a nasty habit of heating up voice coils in the other speakers as well. In marginal wattage rated speakers this causes the varnish on the wire of the voice coil to blister, which causes the speaker to crackle....permanently. Good post, A_Free_Man! +1000 on the thumping car bass! |
|
Sorry, you are absolutely correct, SPL is db AT 1watt at a distance of 1 meter. My mistake. Oh, 2 ch vs 4 ch. 2 ch is stereo, Left channel, Right channel. But in car audio we have speakers in the front, and oftimes, rear speakers, Left Front, Left Rear, Right Front, Right Rear. With a 2 channel amp (or amp section in the "head"), there are two discrete amplifiers, one driving the Left, one driving the Right. Both left speakers are wired parallel driven off the left channel amplifier, and both right speakers are parallel driven off the right channel amp. Well almost. They stick a resistive L-pad in between the front and rear speakers called a Fader, that routes more power to front or rear. But both Left speakers are driven off the same Left ch amp, and same on the right. So, with a greater load per amp, more chance of distortion if pushed, and if the amp distorts, all speakers on that channel are affected. With a 4 channel amp, Front Left, Rear Left, Front Right, Rear Right are all driven off individual amps, and there is less chance for an amp to distort, and if so, isolated to that one speaker. If a subwoofer amp distorts, chances are it won't be heard and won't hurt the woofer. This is good id the sub is driven by it's own independant amp. Here's why. As in my previous post, distortion is high freqency signal. But (1) subwoofers are generally not able to reproduce that high frequency signal, (2) even if the high frequencies reach the subwoofer, it is not at high enough level to harm the sub, and (3) there is often passive filtering that will cut the high frequency. So, it is never heard and will not harm the subwoofer. You always want a sub to be driven by its own dedicated amp. Since 90% of the power for music goes to the bass, lower powered amps may be used for the mid/high spkrs, or mains, and any distortion in the sub will not be passed on to the other speakers. And is not heard. If you are running 50-100 W to the sub, you don't need more than 20W for each of the other channels, and 15W/ch for the others would be plenty. |