Hi Guys & Girls,

I am thinking of upgrading the ICE in my Octy. Are there any pitfalls that I need to be aware of?

I am thinking of getting the JVC KD-DB711 DAB/MP3 headunit. I have some JL Audio 6.5" components (will these fit) A Jensen 4x100w (50w RMS). and a Phillips 12" 400w SUB.

I appreciate that the Jensen Amp & Phillips Sub are not the greatest but I have these kicking around the house. The JL's are top of the range and cost a fortune. I am trying to do this as cheap as possible initially then upgrade as and when. I.E. Pheonix Gold Amp and JL Sub.

I don't know whether to hold fire and get a better source such as an Alpine or Nakamichi.....

I intend to spend a couple of hundred

A couple of problems to be aware of.

The space for speakers in the front doors are quite shallow so a lot of replacements won't fit.

Also there isn't that much space behind the stereo so if you have a lot of wires it can be a bit tricky getting it in place.

Other than that it's all nice and easy

sorry to hijack the thread..... in regards to the not very much space for behind the stereo! has anyone got any tips for what to do!

tried this weekend to put my pioneer dvd/sat nav unit and could not get it to fit at all.... pioneer loom is really long and has a lot of wires and a big black box!

any ideas of how i could get the wires to move somehere else? or even is there a bit at the back i could cut away to make more space?

thanks all

chris

You need the glove box out and someone with slim hands. They can reach up the back as you slowly slide the stereo in and feed the cables down below the stereo where there is a bit more room.

Is yours a single or double DIN unit?

Thats spot on advice above from Alex - thats how I managed to get my Alpine screen unit in. I bought some Alpine DDDrive components for the front and the mids were shallow enough to fit nicely. Pioneer and Kicker also do some slim fronts that go in easily.

Lee

unit is just a single din!

thanks for the advice.... will give it another go nxt weekend!

cheers all

Its a bit anal but with them being shallow does anyone know the actual depth in mils?

Are u thinking of putting the component 6.5" speakers in the rear? Cos the space in the rear is not big enuf for a 6.5" speaker. I got the Blaupunkt velocity speakers put in which was 5 1/4". They fit perfectly in the rear.

I would recommend the Alpine head unit especially from their high end AI net series.

I'm a recent convert to alpine. The thing i loved about them was their bass engine technology. U can basically feed in the distance of your ears from each speaker (including the subwoofer) and adjust the delay times according for each. So the sound from each speaker reached u at the same time, no matter how close to one and hor far from another u are located.

U can basically calibrate the sound for a particular listening position. In my case the driving seat .

I managed to get Pheonix Gold 6.5 inch components in the doors with a few mods.. To get my pioneer head unit in i had to take out the heater controls and plug the loom in once the head unit was fitted - complete **** of a job but worth it...

Are u thinking of putting the component 6.5" speakers in the rear? Cos the space in the rear is not big enuf for a 6.5" speaker. I got the Blaupunkt velocity speakers put in which was 5 1/4". They fit perfectly in the rear.

I would recommend the Alpine head unit especially from their high end AI net series.

I'm a recent convert to alpine. The thing i loved about them was their bass engine technology. U can basically feed in the distance of your ears from each speaker (including the subwoofer) and adjust the delay times according for each. So the sound from each speaker reached u at the same time' date=' no matter how close to one and hor far from another u are located.

U can basically calibrate the sound for a particular listening position. In my case the driving seat .[/quote']

Interesting - but given the speed of sound I can't see how adjusting the delay over a few feet would make any difference to the timing of the wave-front. Now adjusting the phase could, so all the speakers are exactly in phase when the sound hits your ears - is that how this works? And is it just a feed-in-the-distance thing or do you have to listen to the base and decide which setting is best?

Interesting - but given the speed of sound I can't see how adjusting the delay over a few feet would make any difference to the timing of the wave-front. Now adjusting the phase[/i'] could, so all the speakers are exactly in phase when the sound hits your ears - is that how this works? And is it just a feed-in-the-distance thing or do you have to listen to the base and decide which setting is best?

Well this is exactly wat i thought. Time delays are normal in home theater applications, but in a car which is only a few feet here and there the speed of sound should overwhelm the distance. But then i noticed how close the front tweeter was to my ears as compared to the rear tweeter. And when i adjusted the time correction as per the alpine site it really made a huge difference.

As for phase correction, you are correct again, and that's exactly what the time correction is doing. Essentially once set up correctly, the sound from the front speakers originates a little later than the sound from the rear speakers ( actually there are individual corrections for each speaker as the distance between right and left too are unequal), and hence the sound is out of PHASE from each speaker, but strictly speaking this is not called phase change as by the time the sound reaches you the sound is back in phase ( that's why each speaker distance is measured for time correction), if however you stand equidistant from each speaker the sound will be out of phase, or on the other hand with no time (phase) correction in the speakers and with different distances from each speaker the sound will again be out of phase .

Let me add alpine has a neat thing on their website where you can just enter the distances from speakers and they will give you the correction values to enter in the head unit, and in higher end systems they will send a file which you write to a CD and pop it into the head unit, the system will automaticaly take the settings from the CD.

Oh and let's not forget about calibrating the loudness of each speaker, but that's a whole new post

Are u thinking of putting the component 6.5" speakers in the rear? Cos the space in the rear is not big enuf for a 6.5" speaker. .

No I will be ditching the rears altogether. Quality over quantity. I will be using the 4 channel amp in tri-mode 2 front channels and one single channel for the Sub.

On a seperate note does anywhere do a MDF stealth shelf? Even though I am not fitting rear speakers these help with the rattles over the normal lightweight one.

Hi

Has anyone got any idea what are the best ones for the doors and the parcel shelf, i was planning to replace the 4 door speakers and put 2 6x9 on the parcel shelf (if i can find a 2nd hand one) but keep the std headunit.

Will this improve the quality, as at present its shyte, what sizes do i need, from above i need 5 1/4 in the rear, and shallow ones in the front?? dunno, i havent a clue when it comes to ICE!!!

Hi

Has anyone got any idea what are the best ones for the doors and the parcel shelf' date=' i was planning to replace the 4 door speakers and put 2 6x9 on the parcel shelf (if i can find a 2nd hand one) but keep the std headunit.

Will this improve the quality, as at present its shyte, what sizes do i need, from above i need 5 1/4 in the rear, and shallow ones in the front?? dunno, i havent a clue when it comes to ICE!!![/quote']

If you want 6x9's on the rear parcel don't bother replacing the STD rears. In fact take the originals out altogether this will act as a port to let the bass into the cabin. If you are wanting a new rear shelf then I would recommend getting a MDF stealth shelf or making a shelf yourself from wood. If you mount them in a standard shelf it is that thin and light your speakers will lose a lot of quality and bass as they will use their energy to try and shake the shelf rather than turn that energy into sound. On top of this go the whole hog and get some 7x10's these are almost as good as having a sub installed:D Also it will help if you get some sound deadening and put it in the boot & inside the front doors. Will kill road noise and vastly improve the sounds out of your speakers.

cool, will go with 7x10. how much is an mdf shelf, and sound deadening, is it easy to fit? and should i still upgrade the front and rear door speakers? what about the head unit, will the std one be ok, and will i need an amp?

Having recently sampled the Bose system in a 350Z I'm thinking of changing my speakers in the Octy. I'd like to retain the OEM HU if possible as I dont want to make it any more burgular friendly and would like to keep the current CD changer.

However, will upgrading the speakers alone improve the audio quality or is the HU preety poor in itself.

Incidentally, the stereo in the MK4 Astra I had previously was noticably better than the Octavia.

This is very hard to quantify but if I said changing my speakers gave me around a 20% improvement then changing my head unit a few weeks later made 100+% improvement! The standard speakers are dire imo and the head unit not much better than dire! I think the unit said it provided 8w output iirc!

Stage three for me was then amping it all and rerunning some high quality speaker cable throughout the car - this also made a great improvement but I am really into my audio and 99% of people may not appreciate the difference for all the extra work involved.

Lee

TBH I only really noticed how ba dit was for the first few days after I got the car, over the last year I've got used to it - Until I drove the 350Z with the Bose system last week.

Thinking of the standad fit stuff, has anybody looked at what standad Audi/VW stuff will fit and sound better?

You will notice the difference just changing the speakers, Phil, even for fairly cheap replacements - I just bought some Pioneer TSG1709s - around 30 quid, shipped.

@Groundzero and others - did you know the Octavia parcel shelf has a metal core, so it's actually quite sturdy unlike some others which are made of compressed cardboard.

Nick, did those fit straight in ? And have you done the water shield mod too ? (trimming a small square in the plastic behind the speaker.)

Blanchie, The trouble is with other VAG head units is that the illumination colour will be different :(

Nope I haven't cut through the membrane - is that supposed to help?

Yes they fitted fine depthwise - had to make up some little tails to convert from the standard spade connectors to the little VAG plug in jobbies.

cool, will go with 7x10. how much is an mdf shelf, and sound deadening, is it easy to fit? and should i still upgrade the front and rear door speakers? what about the head unit, will the std one be ok, and will i need an amp?

I have been looking for a Stealth Shelf but can't find a pre-made one. looks like its jigsaw time. Failing this go to a local decent ICE retailer/specialist and they should knock one up for you. The Sound deadening is pretty simple to find There are various manufacturers. Brown Bread, Dynamat Etc. Shop around on the net for the best prices and guides. it is a little tricky at first as it is very sticky but you soon get the hang of it. For difficult areas use a hairdryer to make it more pliable.

Even a basic £99 MP3/CD head unit will be better than the Standard one. You will only need an Amp if you want big volume. Most Standard headunits are rated at 40w per channel but this is Peak not RMS even if you got a 4 channel amp that was rated at 50W RMS you would notice a big difference. I have had a Kenwood CD Head with Alpine S-Type 6.5 components in the front with sound deadening and been stopped by the plod and asked if I thought it was clever to fit a big stereo to a car. They checked the boot and wanted to know where the Amps and sub were.... Sound deadening rules

You will notice the difference just changing the speakers' date=' Phil, even for fairly cheap replacements - I just bought some Pioneer TSG1709s - around 30 quid, shipped.

@Groundzero and others - did you know the Octavia parcel shelf has a metal core, so it's actually quite sturdy unlike some others which are made of compressed cardboard.[/quote']

I bet the b@gger would still rattle though as it is fairly light.

Nick' date=' did those fit straight in ? And have you done the water shield mod too ? (trimming a small square in the plastic behind the speaker.)

Blanchie, The trouble is with other VAG head units is that the illumination colour will be different :([/quote']

Goochie,

just a mention but most alpine AI-net head units have changeable illumination. U can select from 256 color and match the illumination of the car. But they won't be VAG HU