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Ongoing saga - new speakers and now new stereo / HU?


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As some of you will have seen elsewhere on these forums, I’ve not had a lot of luck getting my stereo system in my pre-FL Fabia working satisfactorily since the driver’s door speaker failed a couple of months back.

 

I am on the point of replacing the stereo / head unit as well, in order to get a more powerful amplifier, as many after-market ones seem to average 50W per channel as opposed to the 20W I have presently.

 

My requirements:

 

 

* Touch screen (resistive ones OK, or work paying extra for capacitive; I know I'd want the latter for a smartphone or tablet, but for a car stereo?)

* Selective, sensitive tuner supporting both FM RDS and DAB+ / DAB (very important; I've been very pleased with the radio selectivity in my Columbus and don't want to lose that)

SD card reader compatible with SDHC and ideally SDXC

Bluetooth

Ideally navigation built-in, but may consider Android auto (I don’t do Apple) if people can vouch for it being a worthwhile saving over integrated navigation

Speakers with a decent bass output, at least as good as the factory speakers I had previously, so that I won't need a subwoofer

 

II'm considering the Vibe Slick series due to their 94dB sensitivity, or Hertz DSK for the same reason. The only thing which bothers me with them is their RMS power of 70W or above - is this going to be an issue with a head unit amp which only kicks out 50W per channel?

 

 I'm prioritising sound quality over sheer power, so don’t see much point in going much over 50w

 

I don’t want to go down the route of an auxiliary amplifier or subwoofer for lack of space to install either. The boot is small enough as it is, and there is nowhere I can identify where one could safely install an auxiliary amp.

 

Unless anyone can suggest a way of getting extra amplification in a compact way for my existing Columbus?

 

I can see there is a broad range of units out there from Pioneer, Kenwood and Clarion in particular.

But I’m really unsure of which are the best to go for between those makes, so would be interested to hear views of others on these forums.

Pioneer’s AppRado software seems to work OK from looking at YouTube videos of recent years, but maybe Kenwood have an equivalent?

In the meantime, I'm looking at professional installers local to me in Exeter. Possibly Car Audio Services, as they seem to have good reviews.

Edited by Willum
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  • 2 weeks later...

No headunit has a 50w x 4 amp. Its actually around 10w

 

If you cannot get good enough sound using your headunit to power the speakers the next step is to get a small amp for the speakers.

 

Other things you can try (i forget what you have already tried)

1. Mounting of the midbass speakers. They need to be solid and a wooden baffle would be best.

2. Wave diffuser fitted behind the speaker inside the door

3. Swap round the pos and neg on one speaker. Changing the phase can often make a big change to midbass.

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21 minutes ago, ryan-re said:

No headunit has a 50w x 4 amp. Its actually around 10w

10W is the real continuous RMS power that each channel can output simultaneously & continuously.

 

50W is the totally misleading peak music power that only one channel can output at a time.

 

Car audio specifications are some of the worst offenders at "specmanship".

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for your responses thus far, folks. Apologies for the delay in responding; I've been abroad since the beginning of the month.

 

I have seen a car audio specialist here in Exeter, and they have quoted me:

 

£100 for a Clarion XC1410 micro amplifier, and £75ish for labour to install

 

http://www.clarion.com/gb/en/products-personal/speaker/XC1410/

 

They have also suggested a pair of BLAM 165 RS component speakers, which are 75W nominal, 2Ω impedance. They'd sell these for £98 but also with £147 labour, based on their estimate for time, which is £50 an hour.

 

They demonstrated the co-ax version of some smaller, 5" or thereabouts BLAM speakers as they already had these hooked up in a display cabinet, directly to a Pioneer or Kenwood HU which pushes out 50W per channel, and thus no auxiliary amp. That sounded pretty punchy.

 

They got the BLAM 165 speakers out of the box for examination, and was surprised at how heavy they were. I also note they have 93dB efficiency.

 

Trouble is the whole cost of the project then comes out at roughly £419.50. However, if they have to modify the door card because of the greater depth of the speaker basket on the BLAM (I doubt this will be necessary based on measurements I've taken; with 30mm MDF rings, a total cone depth of under 65mm should be OK.

 

Plus they'd take care of swapping out the tweeters in the A-pillars, which I do not fancy undertaking.

 

I do admit to finding the factory tweeters a little harsh.

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