FocusCanada Forums

Well, as I mentioned in my other thread about having a 98 Civic Si now as a DD to keep the km's off the Escape as much as possible, the Sony Xplod deck that was in the car when I bought it, was completely whipped after a using it a few days, and less and less of it functioning properly.

I had it replaced with a JVC KD-R330 deck while down in Brantford, which cost me $135 taxes and installation included. Yeah, it's a pretty basic or stripped down unit from what is available these days, and I'm sure I could have gotten a better deal with an open-box special or something from one of the Big Boxes here in Ottawa, but I like supporting the independent shops like Audio Vibe (which I have done for over 15 years actually).

The AM/FM radio works just fine, the CD player works and sounds great, and there are actually a LOT of user selectable features for the settings on this deck, even with it being a cheapie one. The amp and preamp in it has plenty of guts (20w rms @ 4 ohms, 1%THD, CEA certified, with a peak of 50w x4 available on tap) and it's more than enough to drive the tired old paper and foam speakers that are still in the car.

The factory tweeters actually sound fantastic on this deck, with a pretty large sound stage and crisp, clear mids and highs being fed to them by the 330. The woofers in the doors however sound tired, and are muddy/distorted sounding with deeper or harder hitting bass, and the same can be said (even more so) for the stock 6x9's in the rear shelf. I know it's not really the deck that's making this distortion, as the JVC Arsenal HU in my dad's F-150 Supercrew can drive his factory 6x8's no problem, with a lot of punch. At least, I hope it's not the deck that's distorting, and I'm pretty confident it's not, as I have the setting for the internal amp on the deck set to low gain, as to not allow too much power to go to the stock speakers.

I am thinking about just replacing the stock 6.5" woofers in the doors, retaining the factory wiring, tweeter, and crossover (if there is one), and replacing the stock 6x9's with some aftermarket ones, and call it a day. I know I can get a set of 6x9's from Factory Direct for $25-$50 brand new, in the box still, and I could just get some 6.5" coaxials and disable or cut the wires to the onboard tweeter in them to get more bass and cleaner sound than the stock drivers.

I am also thinking about replacing only the stock 6x9's so that the treble is more matched/equal to the treble coming from the component set in the front, and using the internal HPF in the deck and driving the fronts and rears just off of it for now , and getting either a self-powered 8" Bazooka (one of the good ones with the 250w class D monoblock built in), or a single 10" in a sealed box with a small amp, and call it a day.

I'm tempted to change the 6x9's first, and see how I make out with them off the head unit first, as I have been in small cars with only 6x9's before that were quite loud, and played adequate bass for what they are.

Any suggestions? I'm looking to get the stereo updated for as economical a route as I can, now that I've already spent money to replace the head unit, and I still have to buy either 2, or a matched set of 4 tires for the warmer weather (2 of my 4 Barum's are still fine for at least one more year).

L8tz!

So, no thoughts or comments? Cheap 8" or 10" sub in a sealed or ported box and amp, 4 channel amp to drive the fronts and rears, or just the stock speakers off the HU?

Any advice would be appreciated!

New all the way around and make sure it's powered too.

10" sealed should sound better in the car. Just make sure there is no rattle rattle.

Good luck.

A lot has changed, I don't even have that car anymore (the top half of the engine crapped out, which according to the Honda Fanboy's out there, shouldn't have happened to a D16 VTEC with less than 210,000 km's on it).

I have a 2004 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V now, and I recently installed a portion of a stereo in it, the remainder was already in it. I gutted all of the wiring from the previous larger-scale stereo that was obviously in it (wires everywhere, and they were too big for the application I was going with), and I re-wired everything the way I want/need it.

I ran a 8 awg power wire and inline fuse holder to my Power Acoustik Gothic OVN-300 amplifier which I mounted under the driver seat, also with 8 awg ground and 16 awg remote wire and Power Acoustik RCA's. There was already an aftermarket carpeted wood panel in the trunk that was built to seal off the trunk from the interior, which I added more sound deadner to, and reinstalled with larger screws. Then I mounted my subwoofer cabinet vertically to this panel so that it's tight to the back seat and takes up almost no room in the trunk. The cabinet is a Pioneer TS-SWX251, a shallow-mount single 10" sealed box that my amp is providing with 175 watts RMS @ 4 ohms mono, via a 12 awg speaker wire.

The car already had replacement speakers front and rear, and the stock panasonic free-air sub still connected. I disconnected the stock sub (mine wasn't the factory Rockford Fosgate Audio Fanatic package with the 8" sealed box), and made sure that the factory wire harness still connected to the fronts and rears were good to go. The front speakers are MB Quart RCE216 6.5" Components, and the rears are Pioneer TS-D161R 6.5" coaxials.

The factory head unit has been currently swapped to a JVC Arsenal KD-R805, but this has a damaged internal amp/pre-amp (front right), which I proved with switching back and forth to the OEM deck, as well as a replacement 16-pin molex connector for the JVC. I am going to be getting a JVC Arsenal KD-A65 to replace it with in the near future.

The Pioneer speakers in the back are stupid loud, and very clean without ever sounding stressed. The MB Quarts are kinda meh, but then again, I don't have the right front woofer or tweeter working. The fronts and rears are running off the HU with the internal HPF on, and the deck is providing 20w rms to each speaker, which is honestly enough for my needs.

The TS-SWX251 is honestly more than loud enough for this little car. It doesn't play as deep as I would like but then again, the bass response in the car is very clean and tight, and rounds out the sound really well. It is afterall, running in a trunk, and the driver is facing the seat back, so I can expect some of it's frequency response to be absorbed by the car. I love it, and would never need a big box with multiple subs in this car.

Anyways, that was just a little update...

L8tz

I replaced the deck with a JVC Arsenal KD-A65, which is pretty much a newer model of the one I was using before. All 4 speakers work properly with this deck, and the overall SQ and volume is all I could have asked for in a budget system.

Well, the engine in the Sentra started to wear out, among other things. I would have kept the car and swapped a B17 generation QR25DE engine (the 200hp version), but the body needed some work too, and I decided to part ways with that car, much like I did the Civic.

As you know, I have a 2012 Focus Titanum Sedan now, with a 5 speed manual, Stirling Grey Metallic on charcoal leathers and it has the Sony 10 Speaker system with SAT/NAV/SYNC.

I don't know why some people don't like the stock premium stereo in these MKIII's...it's fairly loud, quite clean, pretty accurate, and has decent enough bass too.