so i just recently purchased a 04 blk tl. looking to upgrade my head unit all speakers and subwoofer..

i recently just hooked up my 12" boston acoustic g5 powered by a alpine mrp500

i want to purchase new components in the front and not sure about the rear.
3way?

the brands im looking for my speakers are rainbows. ( dont know which series is good but been hearing very good things about those.) focals but from peoples opinions rainbows sound better. and also dls and morel. please enlighten me on these brands please.

im also looking to upgrade my head unit. keep the stock navi but remove the cd and the cassette drive. im looking at the pioneer z1. my old head unit pioneer f90bt and an alpine one i saw on a car dont remember which model but double din and it seems very new.

and either another 4 channel to power all the speakers or a 5 channel to power everytihng but 5 channel amps that can power all the speakers and the sub is very pricey.

im looking for a high end set up but not too pricey nothing over 2.5k

im also going to be fiberglassing my trunk this weekend removing the spare tire and putting my subwoofer in it..

thanks

 

Congrats on the new purchase, please familiarize yourself with the Search feature All above questions have been answered over and over again

 

I personally think that Focal, Morel and DLS all sound better than Rainbow. Rainbow is a fine set though. There are a lot of Rainbow fakes out there, so be careful. 3 way is cool, but costs extra becuase you have to fabricate up a place for that third speaker. I would never do 3 way again unless I can put the 3.5 and tweeter both in the pillar - I hate having parts of the vocals and instruments come from the kick and the pillar.

You should probably put Phass and Dyn on your list if you are looking higher end.

 

That's one of the few good things I have to say about the MS8. You can't tell where the sound is coming from. You would think you accidentally hooked up the tweeter full range. I have my tweeters crossed at 5,000hz and even putting my ear as close as I can get to the tweeter it sounds like everything is coming from up there.

 

Not sure that I'd want to not be able to tell where the sound is coming from; usually a well defined front sound stage located at the windshield or in front of it is the goal. The sound-staging is usually a result of proper phasing of the sound from each driver and is achieved by correcting the time alignment from the individual drivers. Proper equalization is also a factor in the sound-staging.

Getting my system to sound right and image properly has been and continues to be a quest of trial and error. Measurements got me in the right ballpark but testing and tweaking has made my sound-stage much better.

 

That's what I meant. You can't hear the individual speakers, where the sound is coming from, just the stage way out in front. It sounds like I have every speaker sitting on the dash including the subs.

This is one of the few good things I can say about the MS8. The stage has always been excellent. I don't always like the sound itself but the stage is consistently great. On a live performance you can hear where the singer is on stage, when they move around, and where the various instruments are placed. Now if only it had dynamics it would be great. I'm getting ready to feed the Dyns a ton of power to try and get the dynamics back that I had pre MS8 on the passives and if that doesn't work, I'm putting it for sale.

 

If you can do without the auto-eq of the MS-8 I can recommend the Zapco DC amps.

I use the DC series with good results; they have plenty of power with great headroom and the built-in processing with USB control allows for very flexible system configuration.

 

I'm still scared of manual tuning. I doubt I could get the stage where it's at within a year. I'm always going through that debate, do I go for better dynamics and SQ or a better stage. It seems with the MS8 you have to choose unfortunately. I know eventually I'll graduate to something manual but I don't have the skills just yet.

I was actually looking at the Zed Leviathan II amp for the 3-ways and maybe one of their more powerful 4 channels for the rest. I always thought amps were the simple part but nothing has given me more headaches than the amps. The JL 6 channel lost one channel, then two channels and finally quit altogether after only 3 years. The Mac is way under powered and only good for the tweeters (barely) and bridged for the center and I have an $80 Interfire powering Dynaudio mid bass and mids. I'm so frustrated I want something with a TON of headroom so I'll never have to worry about not enough power again.

Do you plan on making the California meet this year? I would really like to hear your system even though it will probably mean me spending more money to upgrade mine some more.

 

So what I'm looking at right now is the
dls ultimate a7 5 channel amp
Dls ultimate nobelium 12" subwoofer
Dls iridium 6.5 speakers
And I'm not sure about rear speaker because can't seem to find the right size I'm hearing 6.5 and 6x9 which one is it ?
But I'm purchasing it as a whole setup and it comes with dls 6x9 but don't remme Ed which model
I'm getting this whole set up for 1500-1700 from a friend used whatdo you guys think ? Everything is in new condition

 

It's a 6.5 in the back but you could probably modify it so the 6x9s fit...I think that I've seen that done but I might be thinking of a different car. Search this forum and you might find it.

 

Thanks but what about the pricing of those items I'm purchasing ? Reasonable ?

 

I know what you mean; I got lucky and Kirk Profit (national SQ champ in a TL with stock speaker locations; you can't get a better start than this) sent me his settings. I've been tweaking these for the last year, off and on.

There is really nothing like a ton of headroom on your amps. Have you checked your voltage at your amps? Just a guess but low voltage can effect amp reliability and power output.

I'd like to go; it just depends on when and where it ends up. I'd like to hear your Dyns. One of my home speaker sets are Gallo references that use Dynaudio bass drivers; they have a great sound.

 

Instead of using the dls ultimate a7 5 channel amp you can also look into the jl audio hd 900/5 channel amp

 

IHC - can you find somebody who can tune the EQ out of that Mac. It could have a -24 db butterworth on, or something, which will make it really quiet.

Check out the JL AD before you get one. Word is that they cut signal and are not a great choice for high quality full range speakers. I have never owned one, though, so I have no personal experience. I would personally have the DLS amp.

Looks like the 3Sixty.3 might be auto tune and then manual tune from there. If it isn't, then there will be a similar product out really soon.