Ok so I'm looking for Opinions here on my new system.

HU: I'm thinking Alpine

I want the highest performance but my needs are pretty simple. I'm not crazy about motorized faces. But I guess I can tolerate it if I have to in order to get top performance.

Speakers: I'm thinking FOCALS.

Which model do you guys recommend? I only want to use the stock locactions in the doors (MID's and Tweet) Again I want maximum performance

Amp: Thinking about JL audio.

It was recommended I go with 3004 and bridge the 2 rear channels for the amp. Is this enough power? Should I go with two amps?

SUB: Had a guy tell me he would build me a custom box (fiber Glass) and put a kicker sub in it. What do you guys think about the stealth box for the S2000?

Since I drive with my top down 90% of the time here in SoCal I want it to sound good with the top down.

Thanks for the input

 

This is a familiar story, and if you look at the recent threads about "building a system" NateDogg, had similar concerns to yours.

One slight problem is that you keep mentioning "performance". That is an incredibly vague description. Consider two track athletes. One a sprinter, one runs 10K. Both world champions. If you reverse their roles, they would be likened to having poor performance. What I am saying here is that you have to tell us in YOUR mind, what good performance is. To one person it may mean the car is louder than a Jet engine, to another it may mean that you can can hear a pin drop in the recording of a Orchestra. Very different parameters.

That said, if you are going to be driving top-down most of the time (like me) the name of the game is power. Clean, undistorted, unadulterated, power.

You've listed an interesting mix of components here, without any indication as to why you think they will work for you. Lets look:

HU: Alpine. Alpine indeed makes nice headunits. Not all have motorized faces. I intend to install one of their units without the motorized face. Are they the most powerful head units available? No. Are they the cleanest with the least distortion? No. But they are good and many people use them.

Speakers: Focal. Again, a common choice and they are very, very good components. Not the best, certainly not the worst. The best models can play very loudly and take a lot of power. You'll be looking for the K2P series.

Amp: JL. JL makes nice amps. Some might meet your needs. The one you listed will not. The Focals are going to be looking for 100-125watts each, and the JL will not give you that. A good sub that is going to be loud with you cruising on the highway top down, will not do it with the power a JL 300/4 can give it.

Sub: Kicker. It's your money. But I would put a kicker sub anywhere near my car. This doesn't mean it's not the right choice for some people. There are dozens of choices out there for subs. Are you installing 1 sub or 2? 10", 12" or 15"? Are you more interested in accuracy or loudness, or do you require both? (open your wallet)

Custom boxes look great, but are totally unecessary for quality sound.

In my estimation, for loud top-down cruising, my ideal system would be:

Quality head unit (Alpine, Eclipse)
Components in the doors (Focal, CDT, Morel, Adire)
Optional components in Spods (personal preference only)
Sub in a sealed enclosure, either 10" or 12" (Adire, Resonant, MTX 9500, Eclipse)
150x4 @ 4 ohm amp pushing the component pairs.
1000x1@2 ohms pushing the sub.

System would be as completely hidden as possible so as not to draw undue attention when I park with the top down. I want my car to look bone stock, or at least as close as possible. No rims, no stickers, no wires, etc. In fact, I don't keep it impeccably clean either. Just clean enough so as not to embarrass a date if I ever get one!

Im sure others will chime in here shortly, but I doubt the anwers will vary too much besides the Spods, and maybe a little less juice to the sub and the components.

 

Ok Point taken,

What is performance to me? Hmmm. We'll I guess it is partly related to the music I Listen to and how I like to listen to it. Remember the first time you heard Pink Floyd on a really good home stereo? Or Led Zepplin? Or those classic Steely Dan albums that always sounded really good on a good home stereo. I like my music really clean and since I'm driving a convertable I want to be able to hear it all. The lows the mids and the highs. I'm not really big on that Rap stuff so the thought of going with a sub never really entered my mind until a buddy of mine played his car stereo with a sub U-2 sounded really good with it. I after that I figured I needed a sub too. I guess I want it clean and loud. It was recoomended I go with a 10" sub.

My last deck was a rockford with 5v preouts and it sounded really good. I had to replace it with a kenwood with like 1.5v preouts and it sounded like crap and if didn't drive like a senior citizen it would skip like crazy. I could drive over speed bumps doing 30 with the rockford and it would never skip. But I keep reading about quality issues with the Rockfords so I decided to go with a known enity Alpine.

 

Whats your budget like? That may be the determining factor here. And in the world of big-buck audio, you are looking for SQ or Sound Quality. Since you drive a vert, and drive top down a lot, you are looking for SQL. Sound qualy with real volume.

Alpine is a fine choice.. skip the motorized face. Won't do a thing for you.

Buy 2 amps, one for the cabin, one for the sub. Cabin is 125x2 or 150x2 with very low distortion, Sub amp is 500-1000w driving a top quality Sub in a sealed enclosure. Either MDF or fiberglass.

Use good wiring and interconnects to keep everything neat and the sound clean. You'll be the badboy on the block. Are you using a local shop? What equipment brands do they carry? Maybe we can start there and recommend some good stuff.

 

Cool,

I figure I'm gonna need to spend close to 2K so I want to make sure I make the right selections. I was going to order all the stuff online and have a shop put install it all. Local shops were going to charge me anywhere from 150 to 300 to install stuff I brought in. The savings online was just so much. Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I just want to get a decent deal of what I buy if its through the installer then fine I really don't care.

Ya I'm not a big fan a stuff that doesn't one make the unit sound better or two make it easier to use.

I know from my experience with the rockford that more preout voltage is a good thing so I'm looking for that. Can you guys reccomend an alpine that will give me the best performance that Alpine offers? I would prefer to avoid thos face plates that motor way out. I got so burned out shopping for and getting my alarm installed that I just don't have a ton of energy left to research to death my stereo options. I just want to get this thing done and 1. not get ripped off and 2. end up with a really really good system.

As far as shops for me it mostly comes down to trust. Trust that they won't mess up my car!.. Boy some of these shops are scary... It seems like most of them carry Alpine. I had this one installer tell me that no way would a 6.5" fit in the doors of my 2004. So I'm getting different stories on this point.

I'd love to hear everyone's recommendations

 

Pretty much everyone on this site has 6.5" in their doors (myself included). The stock speakers are 6.5". Don't listen to this installer. True, some require a little more work than others (depending on the mounting depth), but it's not really a big issue.

 

Close to $2k!? You can get an incredible system for that much.

So far I've spent
$250 for a Eclipse 8443
$350 for a Zapco Studio 300x amp(150WRMSx2@4ohms)
$100 for a DCI
$65 for an Amp rack
=$765 total

In the future, I'll spend about $100 for wiring and $300-350 for front speakers(adire audio or Oz Audio). That will put me at $1200. $800 is enough left for subs of my choice, an amp of my choice, and an install!

For the time being, I'm hoping that 150 watts per side will be more than enough bass for me and I'll probably delay the subs for a least a year. Oz Audio and Adire Audio probably have the smoothest speakers with the most midbass that I've heard- the Adires have 7 mm of one way linear excursion! There were a lot of subs 5 years ago that didn't even have that much excursion!

The best thing is that I've paid less than half of retail price for all of my equipment so far. I'm planning on spending less than $2k and having a system that can rival my last system(~$5.5k- Alumapro, Zapco, Dynaudio, and Clarion).

Tim

 

Dude....im sorry, Im sure you know a thing or two about sound systems....but recommending a 1000watt amp for an s2k is nothing short of retarted.

First of all, Ive explained dozens of times, the s2k is INCAPABLE of pushing more than 600wrms. Period. There is no debate here. You can add 55 batteries and 47 caps, its not gonna help....the alternator wont do it.

An amp thats 150@ 4ohms is 300x4@ 2ohms...meaning that 150 for the fronts and 400-600 for the sub....the amp is ALREADY more than the s2000 stock electrics can take.

There is no point of buying a 1000 watt sub so you can use 200 of them.

A 150x4 @ 4ohms is perfectly fine for an s2k...itll be really really loud.

People here underestimate power so much, its rediculous.

Not flaming you, but some things you say mislead others, and cost them money.

P.S. MTX subs arent NEAR eclipse quality, more of the line of kicker.

 

Ok,

Didn't take it as a flame. But I'll reitierate my comments from earlier.

I am not recommending a 1000w amp so that people run it at 1000w. I am not doing it myself. In my OWN case, I choose to run that type of amp so that it runs cool. An amp designed to push 300w that is operating at 300w nearly all the time is going to run warm. Especially when you start wiring it down to 2ohm or 1ohm loads. I prefer to have an amp running at 33%-66% capacity. My personal choice and others may not agree. Clearly you don't and your counterpoint should be taken into consideration by people looking to buy.

Second point, the alternator on the S2000 is nothing special. It can be replaced just like anything else in the car. A quick call to Ohio Generator can solve that problem in a heartbeat. So perhaps those people here who are looking to spend $2k+ on an audio might consider that an option. I know I will. (http://www.ohiogen.com/index.html)

Third point. A 1000w sub is simply a thermal rating. What the amp actually needs to operate properly and produce desired SPL levels is up to the install, and the owner. I could just as easly say to you, there is no point in buying a 155 mph car with a 70mph speed limit. And my argument would be just as moot. The joy in owning the car is in the capabilities of that car within the speed limit, and the joy of owning a top-class sub is that it is smooth and accurate even at lower power levels.

Fourth point, MTX makes many subs. If you have not had a chance to hear the MTX 9500 sub line, you should. I think they are every bit the equivalent of the Eclipse Aluminum, and maybe even the Titanium. They are not equivalent to the Eclipse Pros, but then they don't cost $1300 a piece either.

 

This is what I'll have in my car as of next week since we are changing my current set up:

1) Clarion 745
2) Focal 165KP's and additional Focal tweeters
3) Audison LRx2.250 (running mids/highs)
4) MMATS 700.1 (running sub)
5) TREO 10" sub in fiberglass enclosure


If I did it all over again, I would have A) Ordered all my parts online to save more money. Luckily, my local shop came close to matching online prices, and the stuff is warrantied and authorized, B) I may still make a few changes, including the HU and Sub. C) I love the Alpine HU and have been contemplating changing to the 9831, but my Clarion has a few additional features that makes me want to stay with it. D) I may end up changing my sub because I want tighter, more accurate bass, and right now, I'm not getting exactly what I want.

My suggestions:

HU: Alpine 9827 or 9831 / Clarion 745, 845

Mids/Highs: Focal Kevlar series (KP or K2P), MB Quart, CDT Audio, Diamond

Amps: As I've learned, you're better off with one amp for mids/highs and another for the sub. If you think you'll add headrest or rear speakers, get a four-channel amp, otherwise a 2-channel on mids/highs with 100-150w is perfect. I don't think there is any need for adding rear speakers if you have good speakers in the door and enough power. My soundstage is great, and I have plenty of volume. I like a front soundstage and don't need rear fill. Some amp choices include JL 300/2, Audison, Alphasonik, Zapco, PPI, Soundstream? for mids/highs and a nice mono amp for the sub: JBL, MMATS, Audison, Kicker, US Amps, etc.

Sub: Stick with Eclipse or Brahma

This is how I should have done it from the beginning, but my local shop wanted to do something different thinking it would be what I want even though I told them it wasn't what I wanted and I knew I would need something more. They said, "If you're not happy, we'll do whatever you want, but trust us on this."

I did trust them. The original system sounded decent, but not what I wanted. And once my amp overheated and shut off on the way to the beach (couldn't handle near max volume for the trip), I knew it wasn't going to suffice. Especially since I was overworking the amp and not giving the system enough power.

So give it plenty of juice so you don't overwork your amp. Stick with quality components from some of the online vendors, and have the local shop install it. It'll be worth the savings and give you the sound you want.

Some good places to buy the above products online:

www.acaraudio.com

www.procarstereo.com

www.onlinecarstereo.com

www.thezeb.com

www.sounddomain.com