Car speakers

**GottaHaveLS1** · 11-27-2006, 09:25 AM

I blew one of my speakers in the back seat and the other sounds like it's on its way out. I'm thinking of replacing all six with either Pioneer or Alpine brand speakers. what do you guys recommend? i'd like to spend $300 or less total

**bigrondownhiller** · 11-27-2006, 12:28 PM

i had infinity's in the rear and when they went out i replaced with alpines. to me they sound much better.

**9t8z28** · 11-27-2006, 02:02 PM

Not one of his options but, MB Quartz components are awesome if ya got external amps.

**White Rascal** · 11-27-2006, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by 9t8z28

Not one of his options but, MB Quartz components are awesome if ya got external amps.

Just be sure you listen to them in person before you buy. MB Quart speakers are WAY too harsh sounding to my ears.

**sgt0704** · 11-27-2006, 02:45 PM

and aren't mb's expensive? always check ebay.

**bigrondownhiller** · 11-27-2006, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by KageSS

Did you have Infinity Kappas or Reference?

they were the kappas. i still have them in the doors so it is easy to tell the difference.

**GottaHaveLS1** · 11-27-2006, 04:30 PM

I'm looking on crutchfield to find what fits and then using bizrate.com to find the best price. seems like it will save me a lot but anyways, i was wondering if i should get the same rms wattage for every speaker. I wanna get 50 watts rms continuous on all of them but the speakers and i wanna get all alpine, but i can't find anything more powerful than 30 watts rms for one of the locations in my car. Would it be bad if i had this set up?

**9t8z28** · 11-27-2006, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by White Rascal

Just be sure you listen to them in person before you buy. MB Quart speakers are WAY too harsh sounding to my ears.

What do you mean by harsh..?

**White Rascal** · 11-28-2006, 03:13 AM

Originally Posted by 9t8z28

What do you mean by harsh..?

Their tweeters are so bright and harsh sounding they could etch glass. OK, I'm exaggerating here....a little. I prefer soft dome tweeters in my speakers. Always have.

Speaker selection is just TOO subjective for any one person to say "This particular speaker is the best." What sounds good to one person may sound like garbage to another. That's why whenever someone asks for the "best" speakers for their car I tell them to take some of their favorite tunes with them and demo as many different models as they possibly can. It's like they say, different strokes for different folks.

**SR71** · 11-28-2006, 03:37 AM

Replaced the RF's that the guy before me had in the car with all Alpines. People sit in my car and can't believe how clear the sound is. The key however is EXTERNAL amps...I have everything running off the amps -- nothing off the HU. IMO they're the best for the price. Good luck.

**GottaHaveLS1** · 11-28-2006, 08:03 AM

do i have to make another thread or can someone answer my question about rms wattage?

**White Rascal** · 11-28-2006, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by GottaHaveLS1

do i have to make another thread or can someone answer my question about rms wattage?

RMS ratings for speakers are next to useless. As long as the power is clean and not distorted any speaker you buy will work fine. Just because a speaker is rated at lets say 50W RMS it isn't going to blow just because you sent 51W to it.

**bigrondownhiller** · 11-28-2006, 09:46 AM

you never mentioned whether you had a stock head unit or not.

**GottaHaveLS1** · 11-28-2006, 04:13 PM

i see what u mean but what i'm saying is i want to buy all alpine speakers that are 50 watts rms but the only ones that will fit the rear seat side panel are 30 watts rms, so it would prally blow it. i have a stock head unit.

**badazta** · 11-28-2006, 04:17 PM

I have polk. sounds good to me. My bro is a master installer they sound good to him too..

**F-Bomb** · 11-28-2006, 07:01 PM

i dont have one single stock speaker left in the t/a im pushing 800w system with jl audio and eclipse each set of speakers in the car i put on a seperate amplifier. you guys dont have to do that, but there is no sense in running bad ass speakers if you are useing the stock deck and and amp, if you starve the new speakers for power that warps the voice coil and eventully sounds like crap also.it also helps to have a 4 to 8 gauge power wire with a circuit breaker or inline fuse of 80 amps or more on each end for an amp, if you are running multiple amps you will need a distribution block. just putting a bandaid on shit isnt a good fix if you dont solder your conections right or just twist the wires together the first bump you hit the speakers go on and off and flutter. i know this is more info than you asked but i write it only because i have seen some toaster cars from miswireing and blown speakers from not the right use.

**GottaHaveLS1** · 11-28-2006, 07:13 PM

i wasn't planning on getting a new cd deck and one of my friends that has some sick pioneer speakers uses a stock deck too... but it will really damage the speakers by not giving them enough power? the stock cd deck seems strong enough to me, seeing that it blew my speaker.

**F-Bomb** · 11-28-2006, 08:03 PM

the ac delco speakers are very low in power it dont take much to reach the max power capacity when they are only really rated at 35watts the amp in the monsoon is powering all speakers in the car but only withen the rms from factory settings. thats why if you replace the head unit and leave stock speakers you only notice a small difference in toatal sound quality, you cant adjust the input sensitivity level to the stock amplifier! nor can you adjust the out put level. now if you run just speakers off the radio itself like a pioneer or a clarion that has a built in biamp, you can get by with decent sound but not great. but you will need to pull the plug on the stock amp and run all new wires for that. that is a first step to starting a new sound system run rca cables from the new tuner right up the middle under the center console and to the back (this will keep wire noise down because there are several power wires running along each side of the floorboard of these cars). then run a good speaker wire to the door speakers, b pillar speakers and if needed the rear speakers and run i fat wire to the subs . dont forget a fat ground wire helps tremendously and try to keep it withen 2 feet of the amplifier.

**White Rascal** · 11-29-2006, 03:25 AM

Originally Posted by GottaHaveLS1

i wasn't planning on getting a new cd deck and one of my friends that has some sick pioneer speakers uses a stock deck too... but it will really damage the speakers by not giving them enough power? the stock cd deck seems strong enough to me, seeing that it blew my speaker.

The power from the HU is NOT what blows the speakers. It's the HUGE amount of distortion that the HU produces that blows speakers. If the HU could produce clean un-distorted power the speakers would be fine.

This is also part of the reason that the POS Monsoon system blows speakers all the time. The HU distorts badly at moderate listening levels and on top of that the POS Monsoon amp is not a true power amplifier. It's essentially a power booster with speaker level inputs. So you end up with an HU producing lots of distortion being fed into the amp's inputs which in turn adds it's own distortion to the equation. You end up with such a low quality output signal that the speakers end up with fried voice coils.

**GottaHaveLS1** · 11-29-2006, 07:10 AM

Originally Posted by White Rascal

The power from the HU is NOT what blows the speakers. It's the HUGE amount of distortion that the HU produces that blows speakers. If the HU could produce clean un-distorted power the speakers would be fine.

This is also part of the reason that the POS Monsoon system blows speakers all the time. The HU distorts badly at moderate listening levels and on top of that the POS Monsoon amp is not a true power amplifier. It's essentially a power booster with speaker level inputs. So you end up with an HU producing lots of distortion being fed into the amp's inputs which in turn adds it's own distortion to the equation. You end up with such a low quality output signal that the speakers end up with fried voice coils.

Well it's nice to know that the monsoon system is total crap... but what else should we expect from GM?

Are you saying that if i keep everything stock except for the speakers, they'll get fucked up eventually because of the distortion of the head unit and shitty amp?